Richard (71) and Rita (69) Zajko were shot to death; three years after the murder their daughter Michelle (30) was arrested

[raisedbywolves]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...ble-rcna193875

Around 9 p.m. on Jan. 12, 2023, a pair of Pennsylvania state troopers showed up at a hotel near the Philadelphia airport.

Ten days earlier, a married couple, Richard and Rita Zajko, had been found shot dead inside their home in Chester Heights, a well-to-do Philly suburb. The troopers arrived at the hotel in search of the murder weapon. They had a search warrant targeting a person close to the Zajkos: their daughter, Michelle.

The troopers found Michelle Zajko, then 30, and brought her to their barracks for questioning. But she refused to cooperate and was allowed to leave, according to a law enforcement affidavit.

Then something strange happened.

Troopers told Zajko to wait in the lobby so they could return her car. She bolted instead, leaving behind her vehicle and $40,000 in cash that was found inside of it, according to the affidavit.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime...2d1b546f&ei=14

After more than three years, Pennsylvania authorities have announced a break in one of the state’s most notable cold cases – the murder of a married couple in a well-to-do suburb of Philadelphia.

The slain couple’s daughter, Michelle Zajko, has been charged in the 2022 killing that rattled the small community of Chester Heights, authorities said Wednesday.

Zajko, 33, has ties to the so-called Zizians, a cultlike group of highly educated, AI-obsessed vegans, linked to several violent deaths across the United States. She is accused of arranging the murder of her parents, Richard and Rita Zajko, on the morning of her 30th birthday, after receiving a text message from her mother seeking to mend their broken relationship.

Rouse added that investigators are still working to identify a second person captured on surveillance footage entering the Zajkos’ home ahead of the murder on Dec. 31, 2022.

“She did not act alone,” Rouse said, referring to Zajko. “At this time, we don’t know who her co-conspirators were.”

Rita, 69, had a gunshot wound to the back of her head, her autopsy found. Richard, 71, had been shot right hand and right temple, according to his autopsy.

At the news conference, Rouse said investigators assembled a substantial body of evidence against Michelle Zajko, including incriminating text messages, ballistics analysis and enhanced audio from surveillance footage in which a voice could be heard yelling, “Mom!,” around the time of the murders.

“We don’t have a smoking gun,” Rouse said. “It is piece after piece after piece of evidence that’s been collected painstakingly over years.”

[Nic B]

AI-obsessed and vegan don't seem to go together well to me...

[Bewitchingstorm]

AI-obsessed vegan cult? What?

I believe this might be Michelle's old FB: https://www.facebook.com/mjzajko

[jennafyre]

AI obsessed vegans who commit brutal murders. Weird.

[marshmallow]

Zizians, a cultlike group of highly educated, AI-obsessed vegans


I had never heard of them, now I must know more.

[raisedbywolves]

Zizians, a cultlike group of highly educated, AI-obsessed vegans


I had never heard of them, now I must know more.

Here's some more...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jack-la...d-in-maryland/

The apparent leader of a cultlike group known as the Zizians has been arrested in Maryland along with another member of the group, Maryland State Police said Monday.

Jack Lasota, 34, was arrested Sunday along with Michelle Zajko, 33, of Media, Pennsylvania. They face multiple charges including trespassing, obstructing and hindering and possession of a handgun in the vehicle.

The Zizians have been tied to the killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland near the Canadian border in January and five other homicides in Vermont, Pennsylvania and California.

Maland, 44, was killed in a Jan. 20 shootout following a traffic stop in Coventry, Vermont, a small town about 20 miles from the Canadian border.

According to the criminal complaint from the Border Patrol incident, 21-year-old Teresa Youngblut was driving a vehicle with a German national as the passenger, and shortly after they were stopped, gunshots rang out.

The German citizen, identified as Felix Baukholt, appeared to have an expired visa in a Department of Homeland Security database.

Court documents said Youngblut allegedly drew and fired a handgun toward at least one Border Patrol agent without warning from the driver's side of the vehicle. Maland, Youngblut and Baukholt were all shot in the exchange of gunfire. Baukholt died at the scene and Maland was taken to the hospital where he later died, CBS News Minnesota reported.

The gun used in the Vermont shooting has been linked to the Dec. 31, 2022, killings of Richard and Rita Zajko in Pennsylvania.

Associated Press interviews and a review of court records and online postings tell the story of how a group of young, highly intelligent computer scientists, most of them in their 20s and 30s, met online, shared anarchist beliefs, and became increasingly violent.

Their goals aren't clear, but online writings span topics from radical veganism and gender identity to artificial intelligence.

At the middle of it all is "Ziz," who appears to be the leader of the strange group members who called themselves "Zizians." She has been seen near multiple crime scenes and has connections to various suspects.

LaSota published a dark and sometimes violent blog under the name Ziz and, in one section, described her theory that the two hemispheres of the brain could hold separate values and genders and "often desire to kill each other."

LaSota, who used she/her pronouns, and in her writings says she is a transgender woman, railed against perceived enemies, including so-called rationalist groups, which operate mostly online and seek to understand human cognition through reason and knowledge. Some are concerned with the potential dangers of artificial intelligence.

LaSota, 34, has not responded to multiple Associated Press emails in recent weeks, and her attorney Daniel McGarrigle declined to comment when asked whether she is connected to any of the deaths. Before her weekend arrest, she missed court appearances in two states, and bench warrants have been issued for her arrest.