🚨NO WHITE SUPREMACISTS INVOLVED🚨
🚨NO ISLAMIC JIHADISTS INVOLVED🚨
WBFF FOX45 Baltimore published February 17, 2025:
The leader of the so-called "Zizians" - a cultlike group which is connected to a series of violent incidents across the country - has been arrested in Allegany County, Maryland.
Local 22 & Local 44 published February 13, 2025: How the "Zizian cult" started, and may have led to Vermont.
NewsNation published February 18, 2025: Friend of ‘Zizian’ suspect says cult members were preparing for violence.
Jessica Taylor knew a member of the “Zizian” group, an alleged cult of students who studied artificial intelligence and computer science before turning to violence. Authorities have tied the fringe online group to the shooting death of Border Patrol agent David Maland, among others. In an exclusive interview with NewsNation senior national correspondent Brian Entin, Taylor opens up about the group’s potentially violent plans.
KING 5 Seattle published February 19, 2025: Cult specialist discusses Zizians: Group tied to Seattle woman, nationwide murder investigation.
A group authorities describe as "cult-like" with ties to technology and artificial intelligence is now at the center of a nationwide murder investigation.
KRCA NBC3 News, Sacramento, CA local
written by Jonathan Ayestas
Wednesday February 19, 2025
Who are the Zizians?
They are a group that follows leader Jack LaSota, a 34-year-old blogger from Berkeley. LaSota, who uses female pronouns, believes each hemisphere of the brain can hold different values and identify as different genders, according to reporting from The Associated Press.
The Zizians advocate for veganism and some — if not, all — members identify as transgender. They also follow the rationalist movement, which seeks to understand human cognition. Members of this movement are also concerned with the impacts of artificial intelligence.
Reporting from The Associated Press indicates that the group comprises computer scientists, most of them in their 20s and 30s, who met online, shared anarchist beliefs and became increasingly violent.
What crimes they are suspected of?
Law enforcement believes the Zizians are responsible for at least six killings in three states.
Vermont freeway shootout
The two most recent deaths happened Jan. 20, 2025, in Vermont. U.S. Border Patrol officers pulled over two Zizian members, Teresa Youngblut and Felix Bauckholt, on Interstate 91 in Coventry.
The traffic stop in the small town about 20 miles from the Canadian border left Bauckholt and Border Patrol Agent David Maland dead. Youngblut was wounded and was arrested. She has since pleaded not guilty to federal firearms charges.
Pennsylvania parents found dead, a California landlord's slaying
The weapons seized from the shootout were bought by a person of interest in a Pennsylvania double homicide on Dec. 31, 2022, officials said. The two were identified as Richard and Rita Zajko, Michelle's parents.
Police questioned Michelle at her Vermont home and briefly took Michelle into custody weeks later at a Pennsylvania hotel but released her without charges. LaSota, who was staying at the same hotel, was arrested on charges related to obstructing the homicide investigation and disorderly conduct.
Youngblut had been in close contact with a person of interest in the Jan. 17, 2025, killing of Curtis Lind, a landlord in the Vallejo area of Solano County, California. Officials later arrested Maximilian Snyder in connection with Lind's death.
Investigators believe Snyder had killed Lind because the landlord was set to testify as the only witness in a November 2022 attack where more of LaSota's followers impaled Lind with a sword and partially blinded him.
Lind fired back at the group, shooting and killing Emma Borhanian. Because prosecutors concluded that Lind acted in self-defense, they charged Alexander Leatham and Suri Dao with murder. LaSota was in contact with police after this attack but was not charged.
The Zizians were living in vans and box trucks on Lind's property, according to reporting from The Associated Press. Lind went to court to evict them because of nonpayment of rent. The group is accused of attacking Lind two days before the eviction deadline of Nov. 17, 2022.
How were the Zizians caught?
Bauckholt, who died in the Vermont shootout, began renting half a duplex in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in July 2023.
Meanwhile, Youngblut, who applied for a marriage license with Lind's accused killer, Snyder, began renting a condo in the same neighborhood as Bauckholt in November 2024. The San Francisco Chronicle found that Snyder and Youngblut went to school together in Washington and both studied computer science at prestigious universities.
On Jan. 14, 2025, six days before the freeway gunbattle, workers at a Vermont hotel the Zizians were staying at reported the group because they were wearing all-black tactical clothing, and Youngblut was seen with a gun.
The FBI on Feb. 5, 2025, searched the Chapel Hill neighborhood where a landlord said Youngblut, Bauckholt and LaSota had been living earlier in the winter. The resident told police he wanted three "suspicious" people off his property after they'd parked two box trucks there and asked to camp for a month.
On Feb. 16, 2025, LaSota, Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank were arrested in Frostburg, Maryland, on charges including trespassing, obstructing and hindering and possession of a handgun in a vehicle.
Officers found a rifle in the back of one truck and a handgun on the front floorboard. The group was dressed in black, and two of them wore gun belts holding ammunition. Zajko, who was carrying a handgun, was also taken into custody after refusing to put her hands behind her back.
Where do things stand with the Zizians?
After the group was arrested in Maryland, a judge on Feb. 18, 2025, ordered LaSota to be held without bail, citing concerns that she was a flight risk and a danger to the public.
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