A member of a cultlike group who authorities allege was tied to the fatal shooting of a border patrol agent in Vermont is now facing charges of killing her parents in Pennsylvania years earlier.
The new murder charges are the latest turn in a string of six homicides across the country linked to the Zizians, a loosely connected small group that gained national attention following a shootout in Vermont that left a border patrol agent dead in January 2025.
Delaware County State’s Attorney Tanner Rouse announced the filing of the two first-degree murder charges as well as a host of other counts against 33-year-old Michelle Zajko during a press conference Wednesday in Pennsylvania.
Zajko’s parents — 72-year-old Richard Zajko and 69-year-old Rita Zajko – were fatally shot in their Pennsylvania home on New Year’s Eve in 2022, according to police, and Michelle Zajko was questioned in their deaths in January 2023. Michelle Zajko has long been a person of interest in her parents’ killing.
Rouse, speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon, said authorities did not believe that Michelle Zajko acted alone in the fatal shootings of her parents.
“To the extent that if she wasn’t the one who actually pulled the trigger, she was certainly aligned with those who did,” Rouse said. “At this time, we do not know who her co-conspirators were, but we are very sure — we are very certain — that Michelle Zajko was in the home and arranged for the death of her parents.”
In addition to two first-degree murder charges, Zajko faces counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. No attorney is listed in court records as representing Zajko in the case.
In a letter to the media last year, Zajko denied involvement in the deaths, writing, “I didn’t murder my parents.”
The Zizians and their alleged string of crimes
The double murder is the latest criminal case against Zajko, who authorities said was a part of the Zizians, a group that’s an offshoot of the so-called Rationalist movement in the San Francisco Bay Area. They reportedly subscribe to beliefs centered on veganism and preventing harmful effects from artificial intelligence.
The Zizians have been linked to several homicides across the country in recent years, including the January 2025 shooting on Interstate 91 in Coventry that killed David Maland, a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Teresa Youngblut, of Seattle — a reported Zizian member — has been federally charged with murder in that incident and faces the possibility of the death penalty, if convicted.
The case against Youngblut, who has been jailed since shortly after the shooting, remains pending, and no trial date has been set.
Exactly what Youngblut was doing in Vermont when the fatal shootout took place has not been made clear. Zajko’s ties to Vermont included previously living at a house in Coventry in 2022.
Zajko has a pending federal charge against her brought in Vermont alleging that she made false statements to buy firearms and later provided one of the guns to Youngblut that was used in Maland’s fatal shooting.
Zajko has never appeared in federal court in Vermont to face that charge because shortly after it was brought, she was arrested in Maryland along with two other reported Zizian members on state gun and drug charges. Those charges remain pending, and Zajko has been jailed there while awaiting trial.
Jack LaSota, who authorities have said is known as “Ziz” and is reportedly the leader of the Zizians, was arrested and charged along with Zajko in Maryland. LaSota’s cases also remain ongoing in Maryland, pending a competency evaluation ordered by a judge.
‘Exhaustive’ investigation
The murder charges brought this week against Zajko stem from an investigation that began on Jan. 2, 2023, when Pennsylvania State Police said they were called to a home in the Chester Heights Borough in Delaware County for a welfare check, according to court filings.
Arriving troopers found Zajko’s parents dead inside an upstairs bedroom, and both had suffered gunshot wounds to the head.
A review of a neighbor’s Ring camera footage, according to the court filings, showed a vehicle arriving at the Zajkos’ residence at about 11:29 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2022.
Two minutes later, according to court documents, a “higher pitched voice is heard shouting what sounds like, ‘Mom.’” Seconds later, a “higher pitched voice is heard exclaiming, ‘Oh my God!, God, God!’”
When they arrived on scene two days later, police didn’t find a firearm but did recover two 9mm shell casings near the couple’s bodies in the bedroom, according to the documents. Police also found a Pennsylvania driver’s license for a person later identified as the couple’s daughter, Michelle Zajko, who had been estranged from her parents.
Rouse, the Pennsylvania prosecutor, called the investigation leading to the murder charges this week “exhaustive.”
“We don’t have a smoking gun,” he added. “It is piece after piece after piece of evidence that has been collected painstakingly over years.”
He also said it was hard to speculate on the motive for the killings.
“You’re talking about someone who murdered their parents,” the prosecutor said. “What the tipping point was, what the premeditation was, is difficult at this junction to say.”
