3 arrested as probe intensifies into string of bizarre murders nationwide
Maryland State police have arrested two people in connection with a string of homicides nationally, including several deaths in California, two in Pennsylvania and the shooting of a U.S. border patrol agent in Vermont earlier this year.
Taken into custody were Jack "Ziz" Lasota, 34, and Michelle Zajko, 32. Authorities believe Zajko supplied the guns used in the shooting of Border Patrol agent David Maland near the Canadian border Jan. 20. Maryland State Police confirmed the arrests Monday but declined to comment further.
A third person, Daniel Blank, 26 was arrested alongside Zajko and Lasota; his connection was not immediately clear. Maryland authorities did not immediately disclose the circumstances under which the three were arrested.
"The Maryland State Police is working in coordination with our federal law enforcement partners and the Office of the State's Attorney in Allegany County as this investigation continues," a spokesperson for the Maryland State Police said in a statement.
The FBI confirmed that agents were working with Maryland State Police but declined to comment further.
The cases have drawn worldwide attention, in part because some of the people involved were transgender and many were vegan, an unusual combination of circumstances, experts said.
Zajko is a suspect in the shooting deaths of her parents in Pennsylvania in late 2023. Authorities believe Lasota is leader of a small group of people that included Michelle Youngblut, 21, who has been charged in connection with Maland’s death. Lasota and Zajko had been interviewed by police in connection with her parents' deaths, but they were not arrested or charged.
"There's significant evidence that Jack Lasota is the person who is the idea engine for these people," said Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow and policy adviser at the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism. "There are certainly suspicions that need to be investigated."
Maryland court records show Lasota faces charges of trespassing, obstruction and possession of a handgun in a vehicle. Zajko faces charges of trespassing, resisting or interfering with an arrest, obstruction and carrying a handgun. Blank faces charges of trespassing, obstruction and hindering, police said. All three were arrested in a rural area of Maryland near the Pennsylvania border, about 230 miles west of where Zajko's parents lived.
All three were due in court Tuesday, court records show. Blank was reported missing from Pennsylvania near where Zajko's parents lived on Dec. 15, 2022, according to Pennsylvania State Police.
Though investigations have not yet publicly announced the specific connection between the deaths, court records and interviews indicate members of the group had lived in box trucks in California and North Carolina and operated like a small religious group calling themselves “Zizians,” a reference to Lasota’s preferred name.
Lasota may have faked his own death at one point; his hometown newspaper published an obituary for him in 2022. Online posts attributed to Lasota indicate he may have been transgender.
Jessica Taylor, who is friends with several of the people involved, said she worried that the group had become a "death cult" or a "murder gang" over their adherence to a moral code at odds with mainstream laws and behavior, including strict veganism.
"You're talking about being willing to kill people who they think are bad," said Taylor, who briefly dated a German national, Ophelia Backholt, who was killed in the Jan. 20 shootout between Youngblut and the Border Patrol.
Poulomi Saha, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies the behavior of groups that mainstream Americans would consider cults, said groups like the Zizians are hard for many to understand. She said members "live" online, making it hard for the public or even law enforcement to track their shift from talk to action.
"The internet culture and the absolute immersion that's possible there means there are forms of connection that only appear only after the fact," said Saha, who has been following the cases. "We are kind of grasping for a story that makes sense of it. ... People on the outside can never fully know what's happening on the inside."
As with similar groups, Saha said, she suspects the Zizians fell under the sway of a charismatic leader who persuaded followers to do things they ordinarily wouldn't do. In participating in those extreme acts, Saha said, people fall victim to a group psychology that permits and encourages more extreme behavior.
"The kind of violence of the accused crimes is really quite startling," she said.
Youngblut is in custody. A man she grew up with and got a license to marry, Max Snyder, 22, is jailed in California on charges he ambushed and mortally stabbed a landlord who owned the property where Lasota and others lived several years ago.
That landlord said he had been attacked by group members, and he shot two of them in self-defense, killing one, court records show.
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