Metro-east brothers sentenced in kidnapping of man who hasn’t been seen since 2020

A U.S. District Court judge has sentenced two East St. Louis brothers to more than 30 years in prison each for kidnapping a man they had accused of stealing tooth jewelry from one of them.

The victim is still missing after three years, according to prosecutors with the office of Rachelle Aud Crowe, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Illinois.

“They discussed the fact that it’s reasonable to assume that he’s no longer alive, but (the defendants) were only charged with kidnapping, not murder,” said spokeswoman Larren Barry. “There’s no body.”

On Nov. 10, 2022, a federal jury found Kendrick Frazier, 36, and Kenwyn Frazier, 39, guilty of kidnapping during a joint trial at the Melvin Price Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in East St. Louis.

Witnesses alleged that the brothers are members of the notorious Waverly Crips street gang, historically known for drug trafficking.

This week, Judge David Dugan sentenced Kendrick Frazier (nicknamed “Kae Killa”) to 396 months and Kenwyn Frazier (”Fattz Da Dondada”) to 365 months in prison in separate hearings.

“The lengthy sentences represent the severity of the defendants’ crimes and their blatant disrespect for human life and the law,” Crowe stated in a press release Thursday.

The victim, Kein Eastman, of East St. Louis, hasn’t been seen or heard from by law enforcement or family members since his abduction on Aug. 13, 2020, according to prosecutors.

They argued that video from a Ring doorbell camera outside an apartment on Kansas Avenue in East St. Louis showed Kendrick Frazier shooting and wounding Eastman, then 36, as he tried to escape and going after him in a vehicle that was later found destroyed by fire.

The brothers have been in federal custody since they were captured and arrested by U.S. marshals on Hillwood Drive in Belleville on Jan. 20, 2021, about a month after arrest warrants were issued.

Chicago-based attorney Vadim Glozman, who’s representing Kendrick Frazier, said Thursday that they plan to appeal.

“Kendrick Frazier was disappointed with the jury’s verdict, and we believe that there are several legal issues that are ripe for the (U.S. Court of Appeals) Seventh Circuit to consider,” Glozman said.

Chicago attorney Beau Brindley, who’s representing Kenwyn Frazier, didn’t return a call for comment.

Friend covered Ring camera

Jasmine Crawford, 25, of East St. Louis, also was charged in the case. The criminal complaint stated that she was outside the apartment when she noticed that the Ring camera was recording as the Fraziers were getting in their vehicle, a gray Dodge Durango.

The complaint included a description of video footage by lead investigator Nicholas Manns, director of the East St. Louis-based Public Safety Enforcement Group of the Illinois State Police.

“I then observed Jasmine take some type of cloth rag and cover the Ring Video Doorbell with her left hand,” he stated. “After just less than one minute, Jasmine removed the cloth rag.”

Crawford pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice. She was sentenced to four years of probation on Dec. 7, 2022, a month after the Frazier trial.

Federal court documents paint a dramatic picture of events on Aug. 13, 2020, starting with a visit by Kenwyn Frazier and Jasmine Crawford to the apartment of Lola Eckford, mother of Eastman’s infant son.

Based on witness testimony, the Ring video and other evidence, prosecutors argued that:

• Kenwyn Frazier woke up from a nap on the couch and realized that his “jeweled decorative mouthpiece,” also known as a “grill” or “grillz,” worth thousands of dollars was missing.

• Frazier suspected the mouthpiece was stolen by Kein Eastman, who had stopped by the apartment to see his son.

• Frazier left in a gray Dodge Durango and found Kein Eastman at the home of his grandmother, Charlene Eastman.

• Frazier confronted Kein Eastman and took him at gunpoint from the home and drove him back to Eckford’s apartment, forcing him to look for the mouthpiece for about two hours.

• At some point, Kenwyn Frazier summoned his brother, and Eastman locked himself in an upstairs bathroom, yelling for someone to call police.

• Kendrick Frazier arrived at the apartment and, after the brothers kicked in the bathroom door, dragged Eastman down the stairs and out the front door.

• Kenwyn Frazier was following behind Kendrick Frazier and appeared to be holding a gun, and they were ordering Eastman to “take us to our shit.”

“As they walk out, Kein tries to break free and run, but Kendrick holds him saying, ‘I’m gonna pop your dumb ass,’” according to investigator Manns’ description of the Ring video.

“Kein is taken to the front of the neighbor’s yard ... after which he is ordered to lay on the ground. Kein is heard begging, ‘On my momma, I ain’t got your shit’ while Kenwyn and Kendrick stand over him and verbally threaten him, with Kenwyn repeating ‘kick his ass.’”

Kendrick Frazier appeared to shoot Eastman, who fled the scene, bleeding from his face, according to investigators.

Durango destroyed by fire

Prosecutors argued that the brothers went after Eastman in the Durango, which was found two hours later on fire and burned to the frame with no physical evidence remaining.

Investigators determined that Edward Morton had rented the vehicle from Avis while accompanied by Kenwyn Frazier, and that Morton later reported it stolen from outside his residence on North 80th Street.

Manns noted in his affidavit that he had come to know Morton as a member of the Waverly Crips street gang through a prior federal investigation.

After jurors found the Frazier brothers guilty of kidnapping, defense attorneys filed a joint motion on Dec. 12, 2022, for a judgment of acquittal or a new trial, calling the prosecution’s case “speculation and conjecture.”

“For years, the government claimed that there was undisputed evidence that the Fraziers shot Kein Eastman, and that he was bleeding so badly that there was a trail of blood spanning the block,” the motion stated. “Yet the evidence showed otherwise.

“Despite presenting numerous witnesses who were only feet (away), none of them testified that they saw Eastman get shot. The trail of blood turned out to be a few droplets.”

The motion also argued that testimony didn’t support the prosecution’s claim that Eastman was forced to leave his grandmother’s house at gunpoint or stay at Eckford’s apartment against his will.

The defense maintained that the judge and prosecutors made several mistakes before and during the trial, including a “misleading statement of law” in jury instructions.

Judge Dugan denied the motion for a new trial on July 12, 2023.

The Waverly Crips street gang formed in the late 1980s and early 1990s in East St. Louis, according to a 2017 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit, which upheld a district-court decision to sentence the gang’s co-founder, Ayiko Paulette, to 300 months in prison.

Paulette had pleaded guilty to eight counts of drug trafficking. He was described as the gang’s leader and manager of its vast drug trade in East St. Louis and Washington Park.

“Things unraveled, though, after Paulette sold 105 grams of cocaine to an informant during two controlled buys in May 2014,” the justices wrote. “Two months later, authorities were waiting when Paulette and eight travel companions got off a train in St. Louis.

“They were returning from a supply run to Texas. Seven of them were carrying a total of 2.4 kilograms of cocaine in packages concealed under their clothing.”

The Frazier trial and sentencing followed an extensive investigation by Illinois State Police and other law-enforcement agencies, according to Manns’ affidavits and testimony.

“(The investigation) included dozens of interviews of family members, friends, and witnesses, along with the acquisition and review of corroborating videos, documents, and records, to include cellular telephone records and associated ‘cell site’ data,” he wrote.