A Solano County landlord who survived being attacked in 2022 was killed in a second attack earlier this year. Months later, friends of Curtis Lind are still trying to figure out what drove a person believed to be tied to a cult-like group known as the Zizians to allegedly stab him to death.
The Zizians are a group of intellectuals, mostly from the Bay Area. They are devout vegans, and some of the members identify as transgender. While many of them are computer scientists, the group is concerned with the impacts of artificial intelligence.
Jack LaSota, who goes by "Ziz," leads the group and uses female pronouns. LaSota and several of her followers previously rented out land on Lind's property before the 2022 attack.
Lind was a longtime community member of Half Moon Bay, living in the coastal city onboard the Robert Gray, his vessel built in 1938. It's in Half Moon Bay where he met Craig Mead, a fellow sailor and resident.
Mead said he got to know Lind when he first saw him show up aboard his vessel.
The two eventually became friends while living on the open water, helping other boaters at Pillar Point Harbor. That's where Mead says an abandoned tugboat, once owned by Gwen Danielson, is still sinking in the ocean. Mead says Danielson and LaSota lived on the boat and were their neighbors at sea.
"That tugboat was being anchored by someone who didn't know what they were doing," Mead said. "I went to Curt, who had a big marine yard, and I said, 'Do you have an anchor to spare, a really big one?"
Mead said the tugboat was dragging along the shore, threatening other boats in the area.
"We went out to their boat, and we said, 'Hey, we have a present for you,'" Mead said. "Curt became friends with them. Also, at one point, they would come to his boat, the Robert Gray, and when Curt sold the Robert Gray, he moved back to his yard."
Mead said that after abandoning their tugboat, Danielson and LaSota were in need of a place to live.
"They asked if they could build box vans into mobile homes on Curt's marine yard. Curt, being a nice guy and in need of money, started renting it to them," Mead explained.
Mead says that good deed set off a dangerous and deadly chain of events as the Zizians started growing.
"Two or three people became five, then it became 22 at one point. Curt said, 'They're running around naked in my yard in broad daylight howling at the sun,'" Mead said.
Prosecutors say three members of the group attacked Lind in 2022 when he tried to evict them for not paying rent at his Vallejo property.
"Curt called me up and said he had an incident with them at the yard. He said, 'A couple of them were at the bottom of my stairs,'" Mead said. "I said, 'Curt, you need to get a gun.'"
Mead said Lind eventually got a gun and believes it saved his life.
During the 2022 attack, investigators say Lind was impaled by a sword and partially blinded but survived. Officials say he fatally shot one member of the group, Emma Borhanian, in self-defense.
"Curt didn't stop going to the yard every morning, he didn't stop that schedule, and he didn't carry a gun like he used to. The cops took away the gun he used at the original scene and he didn't replace that," Mead said.
In January of this year, 22-year-old Maximilian Snyder stabbed Lind to death on his own property, authorities said. Lind was set to testify as a witness in the 2022 attack prior to his killing.
"He was a banker, he was a sailor, he was a gentleman. He would take in people from the street who needed a place to stay. He was a kind-hearted person, and he was more well-loved than most of us will ever be," Mead said.
The sinking tugboat at Pillar Point Harbor is now a drifting reminder of the Zizians and the devastation Mead says they leave behind.
"It's humanity's footprint. Wherever we go, we're going to leave a footprint," Mead said. "Curt happened to get a bad batch of tenants who made him suffer the ultimate price."
Snyder had an arraignment in Solano County on March 26 where he pleaded not guilty. A preliminary setting has been set for June 16 to determine Snyder's preliminary hearing.
