BOSTON (AP) — Maryland State Police have arrested three people believed to be part of a doomsday cult known as the Zizians. Investigators say it has ties to a handful of homicides, including the 2022 murder of a Delaware County couple.
Michelle Zajko, 33, of Media, Pennsylvania, was arrested Sunday afternoon along with two people from California — Daniel Blank, 26, and Jack Amadeus Lasota, 34.
All three face multiple charges including trespassing, obstructing and hindering.
The Zizians have been tied to the killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland near the Canadian border on Jan. 20 and five other homicides in Vermont, Pennsylvania and California.
Maland, 44, was killed in a Jan. 20 shootout following a traffic stop in Coventry, Vermont, a small town about 20 miles from the Canadian border. Investigators believe Zajko, who is considered a person of interest in the shooting deaths of her parents, Richard and Rita, in their Chester Heights home on Dec. 31, 2022, provided a gun used to kill Maland.
Officials have offered few details of the cross-country investigation, which broke open after the shooting death of Maland. Associated Press interviews and a review of court records and online postings tell the story of how a group of young, highly intelligent computer scientists, most of them in their 20s and 30s, met online, shared anarchist beliefs, and became increasingly violent.
Their goals aren’t clear, but online writings span topics from radical veganism and gender identity to artificial intelligence.
All three were taken to the Allegany County Detention Center.