Michelle Zajko Charged with Murder of Parents
A member of the cultlike group known as Zizians has been charged with murdering her parents. Michelle Zajko, 33, is facing trial over the killings of Rita and Richard Zajko, who were shot dead at their Pennsylvania home on her 30th birthday on New Year’s Eve 2022. Their bodies were found in Zajko’s childhood playroom surrounded by her old dolls and toys.
Prosecutors Allege Orchestrated Killings
Prosecutors said they are ‘very certain that Michelle Zajko was in the home and arranged for the death of her parents’, but do not believe she acted alone. Zajko denies charges of murder, burglary and conspiracy, and suggested in court findings that her father may have killed her mother and then himself. In an April 2025 note titled ‘Open Letter to the World’, she wrote: ‘I didn’t murder my parents.’
Six Deaths Linked to Zizians Group
The deaths of Mr and Mrs Zajko are among six linked to the Zizians, a group of young, highly intelligent computer scientists who appear to share radical beliefs about veganism, animal rights, gender identity and artificial intelligence. Members are suspected in the deaths of one of their own during the killing of a California landlord, the Zajkos, and a highway shootout in Vermont that left a border agent and another Zizian dead.
Additional Charges and Arrests
Zajko is further charged with providing the gun used to kill US Border Patrol Agent David Maland in January 2025. She was arrested in Maryland a few weeks later along with Daniel Blank and Jack ‘Ziz’ LaSota, whom authorities describe as the group’s leader. Police who responded to a landowner’s complaint about suspicious people parked in box trucks on his property described them as having ‘ties with the Zizians Cult’ and said they would be questioned about crimes across the country.
Not Guilty Pleas and Competency Evaluation
All three have pleaded not guilty to charges of trespassing and illegal gun and drug possession, while LaSota also has pleaded not guilty to a federal charge of illegal gun possession by a fugitive. A judge recently granted a defence request for a competency evaluation in the federal case. In court filings, LaSota’s attorneys said their client shuns the term Zizian and denies that she and her friends have formed a cult.
Zajko's Claims and Estrangement
Zajko has claimed authorities arrested the group in Maryland to prevent them from exonerating Teresa Youngblut, who has pleaded not guilty to murder in the Vermont shooting and could face the death penalty if convicted. Zajko was living with Blank in Vermont at the time of her parents’ deaths and was questioned there by police shortly after they died. A few weeks later, officers briefly took her into custody at a hotel while she was in Pennsylvania for the funeral but released her without charges. LaSota, staying at the same hotel, was charged with obstructing the homicide investigation and disorderly conduct. Her attorney at the time has said she is innocent of those charges.
Family's Pain and Prosecutor's Remarks
Zajko had been estranged from her parents in the year leading up to their deaths, the prosecutor said. In a January 2022 text message to her father, she complained that her mother had ‘assumed the worst’ about her since she was a child. ‘Every time I interact with mom in a non-superficial way she spends the time insulting a life she knows nothing about,’ Zajko wrote. Hours before her death, Rita Zajko apologized to her daughter and wished her a happy birthday. ‘That text went unanswered,’ Delaware county district attorney Tanner Rouse said.
Richard Zajko’s sister-in-law, Roseanne Zajko, thanked police and prosecutors Wednesday, saying that her family has endured ‘countless days of darkness and despair’ waiting for justice. ‘We don’t know yet if the trial will begin to heal the void in our lives and the ache in our hearts, but we do know that the detectives, the DA’s office, and we, the family, have done everything possible to achieve justice for Rick and Rita,’ she added.
The prosecutor described their deaths as a crime that ‘goes beyond comprehension’. ‘I can’t wrap my mind around or figure out what led to this point,’ he said. ‘We are clearly talking about someone that has gone down an unimaginably dark road and has led to a tragedy that just defies any sort of description.’
