A woman linked to a Vermont shoot-out that left a border patrol agent dead has been arrested in Maryland.
Michelle Zajko, 32, is facing four misdemeanor charges in Allegany County, court and jail records show: trespassing on private property, obstructing and hindering, resist/interfere with arrest, and handgun on person.
Zajko was booked around the same time on Sunday as Jack “Ziz” LaSota, 33. He’s the inspiration for a fringe group known as the Zizians, which has been described as a radical offshoot of the philosophical movement known as Rationalism. Adherents appear to have a shared affinity in veganism, animal rights and artificial intelligence.
The group has been linked to a tangled web of violence that spans both coasts of the U.S. LaSota is listed as living in Berkeley, Calif., not far from where a member of the Zizian group is suspected of killing an elderly landlord in January.
LaSota faces charges in Maryland for trespassing on private property, handgun in vehicle, and obstructing and hindering.
Both Zajko and LaSota are being held without bond and are scheduled to appear in Allegany County Court on Tuesday morning, the records show.
VTDigger first reported the arrests of Zajko and LaSota.
LaSota has no apparent links to Vermont. But Zajko was the subject of a federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives alert that asked licensed firearms dealers for help in identifying any guns Zajko may have purchased.
At least one of those weapons is believed to have been used in last month’s fatal shooting of U.S. Border Patrol agent David “Chris” Maland during a traffic stop on Interstate 91. A 21-year-old woman, Teresa Youngblut, is accused of starting the January 20 shoot-out that killed Maland and Youngblut’s companion, Felix Bauckholt, a German in the U.S. on a visa. Authorities say Bauckholt was shot while attempting to draw a gun.
Youngblut has pleaded not guilty to two federal charges and is being held without bond in Vermont.
Zajko, meanwhile, owns vacant land in the town of Derby and lived for some time in a remote Orleans house not far from where the border patrol shooting occurred. The house, located on Webster Road, was purchased in 2020 through a managed trust, and Zajko lived at the address after the sale. Allegany County is in rural western Maryland, bordered by West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Zajko is originally from Media, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb. She’s a person of interest in the January 2023 murders of her parents, Richard and Rita Zajko, 71 and 68, who were found fatally shot inside their home.
That case remains unsolved. But police searched Michelle Zajko’s house in Orleans about a week after the murders and found a handgun and ammunition that matched the bullet casings found at the scene of the homicides.
Related Stories
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
