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.”