Who Are the Zizians: Why 6 Killings Are Linked to Alleged Vegan Techie “Cult”
Bay Build aside transplant Jack “Ziz” LaSota accumulated a following along with her theories on gender identification, AI and veganism. Authorities comprise since linked the neighborhood—identified derisively as Zizians—to 6 deaths.
It turned out Jack “Ziz” LaSota wasn't unimaginative.
No longer on Aug. 19, 2022, when the U.S. Fly Guard spoke back to a name a few particular person falling off a ship in San Francisco Bay nonetheless had been unable to stumble on a physique. And no longer on Jan. 13, 2023, when Pennsylvania negate troopers raided a hotel room whereas investigating a execute and, in accordance to a trooper's court testimony, found LaSota lying on the bottom.
Reasonably, the computer programmer, who was once born Jack Amadeus LaSota sooner than she began operating a blog as Ziz and adopted feminine pronouns, was once very mighty alive.
Authorities comprise since linked devotees of Ziz principle—dubbed Zizians by observers who rob into consideration LaSota to be their chief—to 6 deaths in three states, including the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent stop to the Vermont-Canada border in January.
After the hotel raid, LaSota was once jailed on misdemeanor costs of obstruction and disorderly conduct in Pennsylvania, in accordance to NBC Data. She posted bail in June 2023, nonetheless a bench warrant was once issued for her arrest after she failed to expose up for a court hearing.
And LaSota's whereabouts remained unknown till she was once arrested with two others on Feb. 16, 2025, in Frostburg, Md.
LaSota, 34, Michelle Zajko, 32, and Daniel Clean, 26, had been at first booked on costs of obstructing and hindering an investigation, trespassing and illegal handgun possession, in accordance to their on-line booking sheets, plus Zajko was once charged with resisting arrest.
All three are being held without bail, per the booking sheets. They had been scheduled to appear in Allegany County District Court March 24 nonetheless Maryland prosecutors charged them with extra misdemeanors, including carrying hid and loaded handguns, bringing LaSota's rate count to 9, Zajko's to 14 and Clean's to 12. The trio are now due in circuit court April 8.
They comprise got no longer but entered any pleas on the costs. E! Data has reached out to LaSota's attorney Daniel McGarrigle for comment nonetheless has no longer but heard abet. He confirmed to NBC Philadelphia he was once representing LaSota nonetheless wouldn't consult with the details of her case.
Attorney recordsdata for Zajko and Clean wasn't presently accessible. Clean's father advised NBC Bay Build aside that his UC Berkeley graduate son was once the victim of a cult and he didn't deem him to be desirous about any serious crime.
It was once Zajko who was once the aim of a Jan. 13, 2023, hotel search, all all over which troopers found her in a single room and LaSota and Clean in but one more, in accordance to a law enforcement affidavit obtained by NBC Data. Zajko's oldsters Richard Zajko, 71, and Rita Zajko, 68, had been found shot to loss of life of their Chester, Pa., dwelling on Jan. 2.
Zajko was once taken to negate police barracks for questioning at the time nonetheless refused to cooperate and was once allowed to plod away, per the affidavit. But in settle on to ready in the foyer for troopers to return her automobile, the doc persevered, she merely left.
Additionally necessary in the affidavit: Authorities found $40,000 in money in the auto Zajko left at the abet of.
Zajko's title then got right here up in reference to but one more case sooner than her arrest closing month: Per VTDigger, the U.S. Bureau of Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives despatched an alert to licensed firearms sellers in Vermont soliciting for support “in figuring out any firearms purchases made by Michelle Jacqueline Zajko, a particular person of curiosity in the shooting of a Customs and Border Protection Officer on Jan. 20, 2025.”
So a ways, no one has been charged in the execute of Zajko's oldsters. However the Maryland prosecutor who successfully requested closing month that LaSota, Zajko and Clean be held without bail said in court Feb. 18, per NBC Data, that the trio had been “tied to a couple homicides which comprise occurred all over america.”
Again studying for extra on LaSota, the Zizians, why they've been called a cult and the map they ended up connected to 6 deaths:
Who Is Jack “Ziz” LaSota and Who Are the Zizians?
Jack Amadeus LaSota was once born in Alaska and earned a bachelor's stage in computer science from University of Alaska Fairbanks sooner than transferring to the San Francisco Bay Build aside in 2016.
She started Sinseriously.weblog towards the stop of the three hundred and sixty five days, writing below the title Ziz and figuring out herself as a transgender lady, as successfully as a strict vegan.
For awhile she lived in a home in Berkeley with others who had been affiliated with rationalism, an AI-wary motion that believes reason and scientific recordsdata trump faith and feelings in phrases of how human beings must unruffled operate on this planet. But her takes modified into an increasing number of impolite, in accordance to of us acutely aware of LaSota's theories and her dangle writings, per the Legend.
“Ziz principle is combining these issues cherish rationalism, timeless chance principle, transgender associated ideas, brain hemispheres and left-anarchism,” old Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) fellow Jessica Taylor—whose rationalist neighborhood modified into a aim of LaSota's ire—advised the San Francisco Legend in January. “All these ideas on their dangle are same old.”
The Zizians, she added, are “merely very intense.”
Whereas taking section in an apprentice program bustle by MIRI and the Heart for Applied Rationality in the summer season of 2018, per the Legend, LaSota started expounding on a principle that the correct and left facet of a particular person's brain can support opposing values and gender identities. And, she wrote on her weblog, the respective hemispheres are “assuredly the most main obstacle to 1 but one more considering” and “assuredly settle on to murder every other.”
MIRI and CFAR rejected LaSota's advice to undertake this perception as a qualification for future hires, in accordance to CFAR executive director Anna Salamon.
“I got right here to the Bay Build aside since the entire smartest of us I knew said there was once a worldwide emergency in the neglect of ethics and even cherish the prolonged bustle by AI researchers,” LaSota said in a later court declaration, in accordance to the San Francisco Legend. As a substitute, her declaration persevered, she found “corruption.”
LaSota also looked to finest would truly like to partner with other vegans, writing on her weblog, “I described my feelings towards flesh-ingesting monsters, who had created hell on Earth a ways [sic] extra of us than these they had helped.”
The of us drawn to LaSota's theories, Salamon advised the Legend, had been “gorgeous, largely autistic-ish transwomen who had been extraordinarily weak and isolated.”
CFAR had high beliefs, in accordance to Salamon, nonetheless she admittedly didn't realize how beginning to manipulation just a few of their adherents had been.
“We observed AI as one thing that was once truly, truly vital that we wished to rep truly, truly appropriate or it will almost definitely be truly, truly depraved,” Salamon advised NBC Data closing month. “We didn’t know this at the time, nonetheless in hindsight we had been growing prerequisites for a cult.”
Why Was Jack “Ziz” LaSota Presumed Ineffective?
In November 2019, LaSota and three others had been arrested for allegedly blockading the exits all over a CFAR-hosted retreat in the Westminster Woods. They had been charged with conspiracy, obstructing an officer and wearing a hide for an illegal motive, per court recordsdata obtained by the Legend.
The case in opposition to LaSota was once unruffled pending in Sonoma County Court when, on Aug. 23, 2022, the criminal protection attorney representing her at the time advised the settle his client was once unimaginative.
Emma Borhanian, who was once also arrested at the mutter, later gave a declaration in San Mateo County Superior Court that she witnessed LaSota falling overboard from her boat, the Shadowy Cygnet, on the evening of Aug. 19. The next day, she said, the Fly Guard said that LaSota was once likely unimaginative.
No physique was once found and no loss of life certificates was once ever issued, nonetheless an obituary for LaSota ran in Fairbanks' Day after day Data-Miner.
“Jack Amadeus LaSota left our lives nonetheless no longer our hearts on Aug. 19 after a boating accident,” the obit study, per NBC Data. “Loving adventure, family and mates, music, blueberries, biking, computer video games and animals, you are overlooked.”
Why Possess Authorities Linked the Zizians to 6 Deaths?
Borhanian, who was once unruffled facing costs associated to the mutter, was once shot and killed in November 2022.
Curtis Lind had rented a trailer to LaSota and several others on loads he owned in Vallejo, Calif., abet in 2017. The landlord said, per Solano County prosecutors, that he didn't comprise any concerns to talk of along with his tenants till the pandemic hit in 2020 and as well they stopped paying lease.
After Lind started eviction lawsuits in 2022, as alleged in a prosecution motion to consolidate informations filed in December and reviewed by E! Data, tenants Borhanian and Alexander Leatham threatened him with a knife, so he started carrying a gun around the property.
On the morning of Nov. 13, 2022, two days sooner than the tenants had been to be evicted, the filing persevered, tenant Suri Dao advised Lind there was once a water leak on the property. When he went to look at, the filing alleges, Borhanian, Leatham and Dao started stabbing him with knives, and Leatham impaled him with a samurai sword. At some stage in the assault he pulled his gun and shot at his attackers, fatally wounding Borhanian.
Solano County prosecutors charged Leatham and Dao with attempted execute and aggravated mayhem for the assault on Lind, who was once blinded in a single seek for, as successfully as execute for Borhanian's loss of life, alleging that they had been in rate whereas Lind was once performing in self-protection.
Leatham (above heart), whose no longer guilty plea was once entered by a opt on her behalf, shouted on higher than one occasion in pretrial hearings, per court transcripts, “This is a present trial designed for the genocide of transgender of us!” (A criminal case in opposition to Leatham stemming from the 2019 mutter, the put she was once arrested with LaSota and Borhanian, was once suspended in October 2022.)
Dao's actual title is Tessa Berns, in accordance to prosecutors, who alleged she made up the alias when she was once arrested. Their attorney Brian Ford advised the San Francisco Legend in February that his client was once trans and Suri Dao was once “their finest identification up to now as I'm concerned.”
He also disputed that Dao was once connected to the so-called Zizians, saying, “I don't know that a Zizian is a actual component.”
Ford said his client had witnessed Borhanian getting shot and was once devastated. “Suri could be very gleaming, they are very caring, soft-spoken, demure, they are small,” he advised the Legend. “They comprise got been thru loads.”
On March 17, Solano County Superior Court Mediate John B. Ellis blueprint an April 8 court date for a “conditional examination,” assortment of trial environment, environment a prosecution motion to amend the criminal complaint, and to consolidate the pending trial for both defendants.
How Did Police Gain Out Jack “Ziz” LaSota Was Peaceable Alive?
LaSota has no longer been charged with any crime associated to the assault or Borhanian's loss of life—nonetheless she was once on the property in some unspecified time in the future all over or after the Lind stabbing, in accordance to Vallejo Police.
Attorney Jerome Friedman, who had represented LaSota in a civil lawsuit connected to her mutter arrest and thought she was once unimaginative, obtained an e-mail from a Solano County prosecutor on Nov. 24, 2022, informing him that his old client was once contacted by Vallejo PD and “was once on scene, alive and successfully,” in accordance to court paperwork reviewed by NBC Data.
The next time authorities made contact with LaSota it was once at the Candlewood Suites stop to the Philadelphia airport, the put Pennsylvania State troopers found her with Michelle Zajko and Daniel Clean on Jan. 13, 2023, 11 days after Michelle's oldsters Richard Zajko and Rita Zajko had been found unimaginative of their Chester, Pa., dwelling.
Clean at first wouldn't beginning the room door nonetheless in a roundabout map cooperated with police instructions, Pennsylvania State Trooper Matthew Gibson later testified, per NBC Data. LaSota, nonetheless, “had his eyes closed,” Gibson said. “He would no longer talk. He was once merely laying practically unconscious or as if he was once unimaginative on the bottom…He needed to be applied.”
LaSota's eyes remained closed in her mug shot.
Clean was once no longer charged at the time, nonetheless Gibson testified that troopers had already interviewed him in reference to the Zajko execute investigation.
After spending 5 months in penal advanced on misdemeanor obstruction and disorderly conduct costs, LaSota posted $10,000 bail and managed to protect off of authorities' radar till her arrest in February 2025.
“I portray vegans. We deem in nonviolence,” her old attorney Friedman advised NBC Data closing month sooner than LaSota had been positioned, including that he hadn't spoken to her since 2022. “All of right here’s merely loopy.”
Assault Sufferer Curtis Lind Is Murdered
The case in opposition to Dao and Leatham suffered a blow on Jan. 17 of this three hundred and sixty five days, when Lind—the prosecution's 82-three hundred and sixty five days-extinct necessary particular person stare—was once fatally stabbed outside his dwelling. The day sooner than, prosecutors had filed a motion in Solano County Superior Court to blueprint a fleet trial date, citing Lind's age.
The motion also necessary, per the Legend, that defendants Dao and Leatham had been named in a police file touching on the January 2023 murders of Richard and Rita Zajko in Pennsylvania.
Maximilian Snyder (below heart), 22, was once arrested Jan. 24 in Redding, Calif., and has been charged with Lind's execute.
“It's tragic and shakes the root of our intention when one in every of our witnesses is killed sooner than he testifies,” Solano County prosecutor Paul Sequeira said Feb. 21 all over Snyder's first court look. He has no longer but entered a plea and is being held without bail in Solano County Reformatory.
Mediate Ellis, who's also presiding over Leatham and Dao's trial, blueprint arraignment for March 26. E! Data has reached out to Snyder's listed counsel, Terry A. Ray, for comment nonetheless has no longer but heard abet.
Snyder, an Oxford-knowledgeable recordsdata scientist, didn't consult with his guilt or innocence nonetheless advised the Legend in a 1,500-phrase letter he dictated over the cell phone from penal advanced that he’s “no longer one in every of Ziz’s mates.” He said he was once battling to entire the human consumption of animals, calling them “my small brothers and sisters.”
Alleged Zizians Interested by Border Agent Taking pictures Loss of life
At 3 p.m. on Jan. 20, Snyder's apparent accomplice Teresa Youngblut (the pair had currently filed for a wedding license in the negate of Washington, per the Legend) and Felix “Ophelia” Bauckholt of Germany had been pulled over by border patrol agents on Interstate 91 in northern Vermont, stop to the Canadian border, for an immigration inspection.
Consistent with an FBI affidavit, per NBC Philadelphia, Youngblut and Bauckholt had been below surveillance since Jan. 14, when a hotel employee reported that the pair checked in wearing tactical-vogue clothing and Youngblut was once openly carrying a gun in a holster.
The affidavit acknowledged authorities at first thought that Bauckholt's visa had expired, nonetheless later learned it was once unruffled merely.
Youngblut pulled a gun and began shooting, in accordance to the FBI, whereas Bauckholt also drew a weapon. At the least one agent fired abet and Bauckholt was once killed, as was once U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland. Youngblut was once transported to a clinic for unspecified injuries.
In a motion arguing for Youngblut's detention filed Jan. 27 and reviewed by E! Data, U.S. Attorney Michael Drescher acknowledged that the guns carried by Youngblut (below appropriate) and Bauckholt had been bought by a third rep together in Vermont who was once a particular person of curiosity in a double execute in Pennsylvania.
Each Youngblut and the unnamed gun purchaser had been “accustomed to and comprise been in frequent contact with” somebody who was once detained in the Pennsylvania killings and was once also a particular person of curiosity in a Vallejo execute, Drescher said.
Youngblut has pleaded no longer guilty in U.S. District Court in Burlington to costs of utilizing a lethal weapon and interfering with a federal employee utilizing a firearm to commit a violent crime. A pretrial hearing is determined for Might perchance well 15. She was once assigned a public defender, per NBC Philadelphia, and E! Data has reached out to their negate of work for comment.
Bauckholt graduated with honors from Canada's Waterloo University with a stage in mathematics in 2018. Two of her college mates described her to NBC Data as stress-free and sure, as successfully as a member of computer science and math clubs. “These are the types of these that study math textbooks for stress-free and impact math concerns on the chalkboard for stress-free,” said Waterloo alum Lily Horne.
Pale MIRI fellow Jessica Taylor said she met Bauckholt in 2022 and advised the Legend she'd seriously change a “fan of Ziz principle.” Bauckholt, she added, was once “elegant nonconformist and didn't realize same old of us totally.”
Taylor also advised NBC Data that she warned Bauckholt to steer sure of LaSota and the Zizians, whom she believed to be section of a “loss of life cult.” But, Taylor said, “It gave the impact cherish she thought to be the neighborhood extra legit than other of us did.”
Youngblut's oldsters reported her missing to police closing Might perchance well, in accordance to the Seattle Times. They advised police, per the file, that her behavior had been “suspicious” and as well they feared she'd been compelled to decrease ties along with her loved ones.
The motion for her detention acknowledged that Youngblut seemed to be “estranged” from her oldsters. Whereas she didn't comprise a criminal history, the motion persevered, “her use of lethal violence without provocation suggests that the absence of prior arrests or convictions does no longer replicate her contemporary disposition.”
(E! and NBC Data are both people of the NBC Fashioned family.)
Source credit : eonline.com
