Police Arrest Leader of Alleged “Cultlike” Group with Ties to Murder of Border Patrol Agent

The apparent leader of a “cultlike” group tied to the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol Agent in Vermont, as well as five other murders, is under arrest. 

34-year-old Jack Lasota was arrested in Maryland. Prosecutors believe Lasota fashions herself as the head “Ziz” or the leader of the cultlike group known as the Zizians.

Two others, Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank, were also arrested. 

Lasota was ordered held without bail. So far, the group is charged with trespassing, obstructing and hindering and possession of a handgun in the vehicle.

Border Patrol Agent Killed

The investigation expanded after the murder of 44-year-old Border Patrol Agent David Maland in a shootout following a traffic stop in Vermont in January. 

21-year-old Teresa Youngblut was driving a vehicle with German national Ophelia Bauckholt as a passenger when they were stopped. Bauckholt appeared to have an expired visa. That’s when Youngblut allegedly opened fire, killing Maland. Bauckholt was also killed in the shootout. Youngblut is facing murder charges. 

Law enforcement then connected the gun used in the shootout to a person of interest in the double murder of Zajko’s parents in Pennsylvania. 

There is also a complex web of ties to the murder of a landlord in Vallejo, California. According to the Associated Press, in 2019, two of Lasota’s acquaintances were arrested for attacking the landlord with a sword. The landlord survived that attack but was stabbed to death in January 2025. 

Someone with the same name as the person arrested for that attack, Maximilian Snyder, applied for a marriage license with Teresa Youngblut in November 2024. 

Who Are the Zizians? 

The New York Post reports that there may be as many as 30 members of the Zizians, and they are mostly young trans women who are math and computer whizzes, some of whom worked at NASA, Google, and on Wall Street. 

The leader is allegedly Lasota, who was born male but identifies now as female. Lasota grew up in Alaska and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where she gathered followers who believe in Rationalist movement theories and animal rights. 

In blog posts, Lasota railed against rationalist thinking, which uses reason and knowledge to understand human cognition. She also railed against artificial intelligence. In one post, she described her theory that the two hemispheres of the brain could hold separate values and genders and “often desire to kill each other.”

The goals of the group are not clear. 

Federal, state, and local law enforcement are cooperating in the ongoing cross-country investigation.