“Zizian” Group Involved in Border Patrol Agent’s Killing Rented Properties in Chapel Hill
A U.S. Border Patrol agent deploys a flare a day after a fellow Border Patrol agent was killed on the highway in Coventry, Vermont. Source: Carlos Osorio / Reuters
In late 2024, a landlord noticed suspicious activity at two of his rental properties outside Chapel Hill, North Carolina. A few months later, on January 20, 2025, a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Vermont was shot fatally by two of the owner’s tenants at a traffic stop, initiating cross-country investigations on the events leading up to this event. While the details of the case remain ambiguous, a series of Associated Press interviews, court order reviews, and online posts show how a group of young, intelligent people met online, shared radical beliefs, and became increasingly violent — eventually culminating in six deaths across three states all believed to be tied to their group, the “Zizians.”
The Origins
After earning a degree in computer science from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2013 and supposedly interning at NASA, Jack LaSota moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2016, LaSota, a transgender woman and computer programmer, began publishing a series of dark and often rambling articles on a blog under the online persona “Ziz.”
Her ideas often revolved around technology, gender identity, and cognition, with her main theory suggesting that the two hemispheres of the brain embodied distinct values and genders that “often desire to kill each other.” Around the same time, she became involved with the rationalist movement of Eliezer Yudkowsky, also known as LessWrong, which seeks to understand human cognition and is concerned about the dangers of artificial intelligence. Ziz began writing about a mix of rationalism, anarchism, and ethical veganism on her blog, but after her theory was rejected at programs organized by rationalist movement groups, she split from the movement and took with her a group of fellow isolated followers. This would later become the foundation of a group rooted in radical ideals led by Ziz and including some of her closest followers, the “Zizians.”
Ziz “Dead”
In November 2019, LaSota and three others — Emma Borhanian, Gwen Danielson, and Alexander Leatham — were arrested at a protest outside a retreat center in Northern California where the Center for Applied Rationality was holding an event. The protestors were reportedly blocking the property’s exits and handing out flyers rallying against the rationalist movement, claiming to be protesting sexual misconduct within the rationalist movement.
The case against Ziz, Borhanian, Danielson, and Leatham was pending until August 2022, when the U.S. Coast Guard responded to a report stating LaSota had fallen from a boat into the San Francisco Bay. While her body was never found, she was declared dead, and an obituary was published soon after. But she didn’t stay dead for long.
California Landlord Attacked
Not much is known about what happened after Ziz’s alleged death, except that she might have faked it to avoid prosecution for her protests in 2019.
By fall 2022, LaSota and other group members, including Borhanian, Leatham, and Suri Dao, lived on Curtis Lind’s Vallejo, California, property in box trucks and vans. Seeing his tenants hadn’t paid their rent for months, Lind took the issue to the court, hoping to evict the group. But on November 15, two days before the eviction deadline, Lind was impaled with a sword and partially blinded in an attack suspected to involve Borhanian, who was shot fatally by Lind during the encounter. Concluding that Lind acted in self-defense, officials charged Leatham and Dao — who were also involved in the attack — with attempted murder. Although LaSota was not charged, the police reported seeing her at the scene of the crime.
Pennsylvania Couple Dead
A little over a month after LaSota and her group’s attacks in California, an elderly couple in Chester Heights, Pennsylvania, was shot and killed on New Year’s Eve. Richard and Rita Zajko were found dead in an upstairs bedroom in their house. The police questioned the couple’s daughter, and a Zizian, Michelle Zajko, at her home in Vermont and later took her into custody at a Pennsylvania hotel before releasing her on no charges. LaSota was also at the hotel, where she was arrested for obstructing law enforcement and disorderly conduct. By mid-2023, LaSota was released on bail but had stopped showing up to court, prompting a judge to issue a warrant for her arrest. This case is still pending.
California Landlord Dead
In the meantime, the case regarding Curtis Lind, the landlord in California, was headed to trial. The landlord was the only eyewitness, forcing prosecutors to hurry along the proceedings. But on January 17, 2025, Lind was found dead with a slit throat; Maxmilian Snyder was charged with his murder and later appeared in court on February 6. He is currently in custody in the Solano County Jail in California. Snyder had also reportedly applied for a marriage license with Teresa Youngblut, another member of Ziz’s group, who was later involved in the shooting of a Border Patrol agent; the two were childhood friends, and it is unclear if they were actually married.
Vermont Border Patrol Agent Dead
On January 20, U.S. Border Patrol agents stopped a vehicle carrying Youngblut and a fellow member, Felix Bauckholt, who went by the name Ophelia. The two were placed into surveillance a few days prior after a Vermont hotel worker reported concerns about their black tactical clothing and the gun Youngblut was carrying.
After being stopped in Vermont, authorities say Youngblut quickly opened fire on the officers. The shootout resulted in the death of Ophelia, who was sitting in the passenger seat, and Border Patrol Agent David Maland. Wounded during the shootout, Youngblut was arrested shortly and later pleaded not guilty to firearms charges.
Authorities searched the car and found surgical equipment, more than a dozen laptops, expensive electronic equipment, ammunition, along with two-way radios and used shooting range targets. Authorities say the gun she was carrying was purchased by Michelle Zajko, who is a person of interest in the Pennsylvania killings.
U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland was killed in a shootout by members connected to the “Zizian” cult in Vermont. He is survived by his parents, brother, and fiancée. Source: Department of Homeland Security via AP
Connection to Chapel Hill
Given the group’s secretive nature, not much is known about their plans in Chapel Hill.
In early February, FBI agents were found searching the neighborhood where Youngblut and Ophelia were renting part of a duplex in the years leading up to the death of Agent Maland in Vermont. Ophelia had begun renting the space in July 2023 and was joined by Youngblut in a nearby condo in November 2024, followed shortly by Ziz, who lived with one of them starting late 2024. The three were often seen walking in the woods at night while holding hands and wearing long, black robes and tactical clothes. The owner said his last contact with Ophelia was in December 2024, when Ophelia was attempting to negotiate a more traditional lease instead of the current Airbnb. He also recalled seeing a stretcher in the living room and box trucks parked outside both the units with an electrical cord running to one of them, among other suspicious activities.
The Zizians Now
On February 16, LaSota was arrested in western Maryland and taken into custody with two other members of her group — Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank. As of February 17, five Zizians have been arrested.
What started as an obscure intellectual movement hidden in the depths of the internet quickly spiraled into a loosely organized network of members willing to die and kill for their long-term beliefs and goals. The group’s radicalization — rooted in a mix of rationalist philosophy, anarchism, and, to some extent, personal grievances — suggests that extremism today is not confined to traditional religious or political lines. Instead, it can thrive in isolated digital spaces where ideas can be reinforced without external scrutiny.
While the arrests of the group members, including Ziz, who was at the center of it all, have likely slowed their operations, the full extent of the group’s influence is still unknown. Their presence in Chapel Hill, over 2,500 miles away from their origins in the Bay Area, raise unanswered questions about their long-term objectives and whether others are involved. As law enforcement pieces together the group’s reach and exact motives, one thing stands out: the Zizians’ ability to evade detection for years only highlights how dangerous, adaptable, and intricate such modern extremist networks can be.