A member of the cultlike Zizians group is charged in the killings of her
parents in Pennsylvania
[June 25, 2026]
By HOLLY RAMER
A member of the cultlike group known as Zizians has been charged with
murder in the shooting of her parents at their Pennsylvania home on her
30th birthday, and a prosecutor said Wednesday she wasn't acting alone.
Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse said evidence from a
neighbor’s doorbell camera, ballistics and analysis of cellphone records
have left investigators certain Michelle Zajko is at least partly
responsible for the deaths of her parents, Rita and Richard. They were
shot in her childhood playroom on New Year’s Eve 2022, surrounded by her
old dolls and toys.
"At this time we do not know who her co-conspirators were, but we are
very certain that Michelle Zajko was in the home and arranged for the
death of her parents,” Rouse said.
The new charges against Zajko, who has been jailed in Maryland on other
charges since February 2025, include murder, burglary and conspiracy
charges in her parents’ deaths. She has denied killing them, and in
court filings suggested her father might have killed her mother and
himself.
“I didn’t murder my parents,” she wrote in an April 2025 “ Open Letter
to the World” that her attorney sent to The Associated Press.
Authorities had long described Zajko as a person of interest.
The two deaths 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. Since 2022, members have been tied to the death of one of
their own during an attack on a California landlord, the landlord’s
subsequent killing, the Zajkos’ deaths in Pennsylvania, and a highway
shootout in Vermont that left a border agent and another Zizian dead.
Ballistics and list of mistakes provided links to Zajko
In the Pennsylvania case, investigators spent years painstakingly
collecting evidence, Rouse said, including video from a neighbor's
doorbell camera that captured two people getting out of a car outside
the Zajkos' home in Chester Heights, a voice shouting “Mom!” and another
voice exclaiming, “Oh my God! Oh, God, God!”
Authorities haven't found a weapon, but Zajko made a list describing
mistakes such as leaving shell casings behind, he said. Those casings
matched ammunition from Zajko's home in Vermont and from a firing range
in her backyard, Rouse said.
“If she wasn’t the one who actually pulled the trigger, she was
certainly aligned with those who did,” he said.
Online court records didn't indicate whether Zajko had an attorney in
the Pennsylvania case as of Wednesday. An attorney representing her in
Maryland did not respond to a message seeking comment, and the Delaware
County Public Defender’s office declined to comment.
Zizians face charges in multiple states
Zajko, now 33, also is charged with providing the gun used to kill U.S.
Border Patrol Agent David Maland in January 2025, though nothing has
happened in that case. 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.
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In this image from video, Michelle Zajko, who is associated with a
cultlike group known as Zizians that is linked to several deaths
across the U.S., is escorted into court for a pretrial hearing on
trespassing, gun and drug charges in Cumberland, Md., Friday, Jan.
16, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Scolforo, File)
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 defense request for a competency
evaluation in the federal case.
In court filings, LaSota’s attorneys said their client eschews the
term Zizian and denies that she and her friends have formed a cult.
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 questions remain unanswered in the Pennsylvania killings
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 nonsuperficial 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,” 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.”
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.”
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Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire.
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