Bay Area transplant Jack "Ziz" LaSota amassed a following with her theories on gender identity, AI and veganism. Authorities have since linked the group—known derisively as Zizians—to six deaths.
It turned out Jack "Ziz" LaSota wasn't dead.
Not on Aug. 19, 2022, when the U.S. Coast Guard responded to a call about a person falling off a boat in San Francisco Bay but were unable to locate a body. And not on Jan. 13, 2023, when Pennsylvania state troopers raided a hotel room while investigating a murder and, according to a trooper's court testimony, found LaSota lying on the floor.
Rather, the computer programmer, who was born Jack Amadeus LaSota before she began blogging as Ziz and adopted feminine pronouns, was very much alive.
Authorities have since linked devotees of Ziz theory—dubbed Zizians by observers who consider LaSota to be their leader—to six deaths in three states, including the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent near the Vermont-Canada border in January.
After the hotel raid, LaSota was jailed on misdemeanor charges of obstruction and disorderly conduct in Pennsylvania, according to NBC News. She posted bail in June 2023, but a bench warrant was issued for her arrest after she failed to show up for a court hearing.
And LaSota's whereabouts remained unknown until she was arrested with two others on Feb. 16, 2025, in Frostburg, Md.
Jack "Ziz" LaSota (Allegany County Sheriff's Office via AP)
LaSota, 34, Michelle Zajko, 32, and Daniel Blank, 26, were initially booked on charges of obstructing and hindering an investigation, trespassing and illegal handgun possession, according to their online booking sheets, plus Zajko was charged with resisting arrest.
All three are being held without bail, per the booking sheets. They were scheduled to appear in Allegany County District Court March 24 but Maryland prosecutors charged them with additional misdemeanors, including carrying concealed and loaded handguns, bringing LaSota's charge count to nine, Zajko's to 14 and Blank's to 12. The trio are now due in circuit court April 8.
They have not yet entered any pleas on the charges. E! News has reached out to LaSota's attorney Daniel McGarrigle for comment but has not yet heard back. He confirmed to NBC Philadelphia he was representing LaSota but wouldn't speak to the details of her case.
Daniel Blank (Allegany County Sheriff's Office via AP)
Attorney information for Zajko and Blank wasn't immediately available. Blank's father told NBC Bay Area that his UC Berkeley graduate son was the victim of a cult and he didn't believe him to be involved in any serious crime.
It was Zajko who was the target of a Jan. 13, 2023, hotel search, during which troopers found her in one room and LaSota and Blank in another, according to a law enforcement affidavit obtained by NBC News. Zajko's parents Richard Zajko, 71, and Rita Zajko, 68, had been found shot to death in their Chester, Pa., home on Jan. 2.
Zajko was taken to state police barracks for questioning at the time but refused to cooperate and was allowed to leave, per the affidavit. But instead of waiting in the lobby for troopers to return her vehicle, the document continued, she just left.
Also noted in the affidavit: Authorities found $40,000 in cash in the car Zajko left behind.
Michelle Zajko (Allegany County Sheriff's Office via AP)
Zajko's name then came up in connection with another case before her arrest last month: Per VTDigger, the U.S. Bureau of Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sent an alert to licensed firearms dealers in Vermont requesting assistance "in identifying any firearms purchases made by Michelle Jacqueline Zajko, a person of interest in the shooting of a Customs and Border Protection Officer on Jan. 20, 2025."
To date, no one has been charged in the murder of Zajko's parents. But the Maryland prosecutor who successfully requested last month that LaSota, Zajko and Blank be held without bail said in court Feb. 18, per NBC News, that the trio were "tied to multiple homicides that have occurred across the United States."
Keep reading for more on LaSota, the Zizians, why they've been called a cult and how they ended up connected to six deaths:
Jack "Ziz" LaSota (Allegany County Sheriff's Office via AP)
Who Is Jack "Ziz" LaSota and Who Are the Zizians?
Jack Amadeus LaSota was born in Alaska and earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from University of Alaska Fairbanks before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2016.
She started Sinseriously.blog toward the end of the year, writing under the name Ziz and identifying herself as a transgender woman, as well as a strict vegan.
For awhile she lived in a house in Berkeley with others who were affiliated with rationalism, an AI-wary movement that believes reason and scientific knowledge trump religion and emotions when it comes to how human beings should operate in the world. But her takes became increasingly extreme, according to people familiar with LaSota's theories and her own writings, per the Chronicle.
"Ziz theory is combining these things like rationalism, timeless decision theory, transgender related ideas, brain hemispheres and left-anarchism," former Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) fellow Jessica Taylor—whose rationalist group became a target of LaSota's ire—told the San Francisco Chronicle in January. "A lot of these ideas on their own are normal."
The Zizians, she added, are "just very intense."
Jack "Ziz" LaSota (Allegany County Sheriff's Office via AP)
While participating in an apprentice program run by MIRI and the Center for Applied Rationality in the summer of 2018, per the Chronicle, LaSota started expounding on a theory that the right and left side of a person's brain can hold opposing values and gender identities. And, she wrote on her blog, the respective hemispheres are "often the primary obstacle to each other thinking" and "often desire to kill each other."
MIRI and CFAR rejected LaSota's suggestion to adopt this belief as a qualification for future hires, according to CFAR executive director Anna Salamon.
"I came to the Bay Area because all the smartest people I knew said there was a global emergency in the neglect of ethics and even care for the future by AI researchers," LaSota said in a later court declaration, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Instead, her declaration continued, she found "corruption."
LaSota also seemed to only want to associate with other vegans, writing on her blog, "I described my feelings towards flesh-eating monsters, who had created hell on Earth far [sic] more people than those they had helped."
Allegany County Sheriff's Office via AP; Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office; AP Photo/Terry Chea; NPC Inn
The people drawn to LaSota's theories, Salamon told the Chronicle, were "smart, mostly autistic-ish transwomen who were extremely vulnerable and isolated."
CFAR had high ideals, according to Salamon, but she admittedly didn't realize how open to manipulation some of their adherents were.
"We saw AI as something that was really, really important that we needed to get really, really right or it would be really, really bad," Salamon told NBC News last month. "We didn’t know this at the time, but in hindsight we were creating conditions for a cult.”
Emma Borhanian (Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office)
Why Was Jack "Ziz" LaSota Presumed Dead?
In November 2019, LaSota and three others were arrested for allegedly blocking off the exits during a CFAR-hosted retreat in the Westminster Woods. They were charged with conspiracy, obstructing an officer and wearing a mask for an unlawful purpose, per court records obtained by the Chronicle.
The case against LaSota was still pending in Sonoma County Court when, on Aug. 23, 2022, the criminal defense attorney representing her at the time told the judge his client was dead.
Emma Borhanian, who was also arrested at the protest, later gave a declaration in San Mateo County Superior Court that she witnessed LaSota falling overboard from her boat, the Black Cygnet, on the night of Aug. 19. The next day, she said, the Coast Guard said that LaSota was likely dead.
No body was found and no death certificate was ever issued, but an obituary for LaSota ran in Fairbanks' Daily News-Miner.
"Jack Amadeus LaSota left our lives but not our hearts on Aug. 19 after a boating accident,” the obit read, per NBC News. "Loving adventure, friends and family, music, blueberries, biking, computer games and animals, you are missed."
Curtis Lind (via GoFundMe)
Why Have Authorities Linked the Zizians to 6 Deaths?
Borhanian, who was still facing charges related to the protest, was shot and killed in November 2022.
Curtis Lind had rented a trailer to LaSota and several others on a lot he owned in Vallejo, Calif., back in 2017. The landlord said, per Solano County prosecutors, that he didn't have any problems to speak of with his tenants until the pandemic hit in 2020 and they stopped paying rent.
After Lind started eviction proceedings in 2022, as alleged in a prosecution motion to consolidate informations filed in December and reviewed by E! News, 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 before the tenants were to be evicted, the filing continued, tenant Suri Dao told Lind there was a water leak on the property. When he went to investigate, the filing alleges, Borhanian, Leatham and Dao started stabbing him with knives, and Leatham impaled him with a samurai sword. During the attack he pulled his gun and shot at his attackers, fatally wounding Borhanian.
Solano County prosecutors charged Leatham and Dao with attempted murder and aggravated mayhem for the attack on Lind, who was blinded in one eye, as well as murder for Borhanian's death, alleging that they were responsible while Lind was acting in self-defense.
Allegany County Sheriff's Office via AP; Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office; AP Photo/Terry Chea; NPC Inn
Leatham (above middle), whose not guilty plea was entered by a judge on her behalf, shouted on more than one occasion in pretrial hearings, per court transcripts, "This is a show trial designed for the genocide of transgender people!" (A criminal case against Leatham stemming from the 2019 protest, where she was arrested with LaSota and Borhanian, was suspended in October 2022.)
Dao's real name is Tessa Berns, according to prosecutors, who alleged she made up the alias when she was arrested. Their attorney Brian Ford told the San Francisco Chronicle in February that his client was trans and Suri Dao was "their only identity as far as I'm concerned."
He also disputed that Dao was connected to the so-called Zizians, saying, "I don't know that a Zizian is a real thing."
Ford said his client had witnessed Borhanian getting shot and was devastated. "Suri is very intelligent, they are very caring, soft-spoken, demure, they are small," he told the Chronicle. "They have been through a lot."
On March 17, Solano County Superior Court Judge John B. Ellis set an April 8 court date for a “conditional exam," selection of trial setting, setting a prosecution motion to amend the criminal complaint, and to consolidate the pending trial for both defendants.
Curtis Lind (via GoFundMe)
How Did Police Find Out Jack "Ziz" LaSota Was Still Alive?
LaSota has not been charged with any crime related to the attack or Borhanian's death—but she was on the property at some point during or after the Lind stabbing, according to Vallejo Police.
Attorney Jerome Friedman, who had represented LaSota in a civil lawsuit connected to her protest arrest and thought she was dead, received an email from a Solano County prosecutor on Nov. 24, 2022, informing him that his former client was contacted by Vallejo PD and "was on scene, alive and well," according to court documents reviewed by NBC News.
Richard Zajko, Rita Zajko (Pennsylvania State Police via AP)
The next time authorities made contact with LaSota it was at the Candlewood Suites near the Philadelphia airport, where Pennsylvania State troopers found her with Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank on Jan. 13, 2023, 11 days after Michelle's parents Richard Zajko and Rita Zajko were found dead in their Chester, Pa., home.
Home of Richard and Rita Zajko (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Blank initially wouldn't open the room door but ultimately cooperated with police instructions, Pennsylvania State Trooper Matthew Gibson later testified, per NBC News. LaSota, however, "had his eyes closed," Gibson said. "He would not speak. He was just laying almost unconscious or as if he was dead on the ground...He had to be carried out."
LaSota's eyes remained closed in her mug shot.
Blank was not charged at the time, but Gibson testified that troopers had already interviewed him in connection with the Zajko murder investigation.
After spending five months in jail on misdemeanor obstruction and disorderly conduct charges, LaSota posted $10,000 bail and managed to stay off of authorities' radar until her arrest in February 2025.
“I represent vegans. We believe in nonviolence,” her former attorney Friedman told NBC News last month before LaSota had been located, adding that he hadn't spoken to her since 2022. “All of this is just crazy.”
Curtis Lind (via GoFundMe)
Attack Victim Curtis Lind Is Murdered
The case against Dao and Leatham suffered a blow on Jan. 17 of this year, when Lind—the prosecution's 82-year-old star witness—was fatally stabbed outside his home. The day before, prosecutors had filed a motion in Solano County Superior Court to set a speedy trial date, citing Lind's age.
The motion also noted, per the Chronicle, that defendants Dao and Leatham had been named in a police report pertaining to the January 2023 murders of Richard and Rita Zajko in Pennsylvania.
Allegany County Sheriff's Office via AP; Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office; AP Photo/Terry Chea; NPC Inn
Maximilian Snyder (below middle), 22, was arrested Jan. 24 in Redding, Calif., and has been charged with Lind's murder.
"It's tragic and shakes the foundation of our system when one of our witnesses is killed before he testifies," Solano County prosecutor Paul Sequeira said Feb. 21 during Snyder's first court appearance. He has not yet entered a plea and is being held without bail in Solano County Jail.
Judge Ellis, who's also presiding over Leatham and Dao's trial, set arraignment for March 26. E! News has reached out to Snyder's listed counsel, Terry A. Ray, for comment but has not yet heard back.
Snyder, an Oxford-educated data scientist, didn't speak to his guilt or innocence but told the Chronicle in a 1,500-word letter he dictated over the phone from jail that he is "not one of Ziz’s friends." He said he was fighting to end the human consumption of animals, calling them "my little brothers and sisters."
AP Photo/Chloe Jones, File
Alleged Zizians Involved in Border Agent Shooting Death
At 3 p.m. on Jan. 20, Snyder's apparent partner Teresa Youngblut (the pair had recently filed for a marriage license in the state of Washington, per the Chronicle) and Felix "Ophelia" Bauckholt of Germany were pulled over by border patrol agents on Interstate 91 in northern Vermont, near the Canadian border, for an immigration inspection.
According to an FBI affidavit, per NBC Philadelphia, Youngblut and Bauckholt had been under surveillance since Jan. 14, when a hotel employee reported that the pair checked in wearing tactical-style clothing and Youngblut was openly carrying a gun in a holster.
The affidavit stated authorities initially thought that Bauckholt's visa had expired, but later learned it was still good.
David Maland (Department of Homeland Security via AP)
Youngblut pulled a gun and started shooting, according to the FBI, while Bauckholt also drew a weapon. At least one agent fired back and Bauckholt was killed, as was U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland. Youngblut was transported to a hospital for unspecified injuries.
Allegany County Sheriff's Office via AP; Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office; AP Photo/Terry Chea; NPC Inn
In a motion arguing for Youngblut's detention filed Jan. 27 and reviewed by E! News, U.S. Attorney Michael Drescher stated that the guns carried by Youngblut (below right) and Bauckholt were purchased by a third party in Vermont who was a person of interest in a double homicide in Pennsylvania.
Both Youngblut and the unnamed gun buyer were "acquainted with and have been in frequent contact with" someone who was detained in the Pennsylvania killings and was also a person of interest in a Vallejo homicide, Drescher said.
Youngblut has pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in Burlington to charges of using a deadly weapon and interfering with a federal employee using a firearm to commit a violent crime. A pretrial hearing is set for May 15. She was assigned a public defender, per NBC Philadelphia, and E! News has reached out to their office for comment.
Bauckholt graduated with honors from Canada's Waterloo University with a degree in mathematics in 2018. Two of her college friends described her to NBC News as fun and positive, as well as a member of computer science and math clubs. "These are the kinds of people who read math textbooks for fun and do math problems on the chalkboard for fun," said Waterloo alum Lily Horne.
Ophelia Bauckholt (via LinkedIn)
Former MIRI fellow Jessica Taylor said she met Bauckholt in 2022 and told the Chronicle she'd become a "fan of Ziz theory." Bauckholt, she added, was "pretty nonconformist and didn't understand normal people very well."
Taylor also told NBC News that she warned Bauckholt to steer clear of LaSota and the Zizians, whom she believed to be part of a "death cult." But, Taylor said, "It seemed like she considered the group more legit than other people did."
Youngblut's parents reported her missing to police last May, according to the Seattle Times. They told police, per the report, that her behavior had been "suspicious" and they feared she'd been forced to cut ties with her loved ones.
The motion for her detention stated that Youngblut appeared to be "estranged" from her parents. While she didn't have a criminal history, the motion continued, "her use of deadly violence without provocation suggests that the absence of prior arrests or convictions does not reflect her current disposition."
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