A detailed chronology reveals the dark evolution of a fringe group from online theories to alleged violent crimes across multiple states. (Shutterstock)
- A complex web of violence unfolds as cultlike group moves across multiple states, culminating in deadly Border Patrol shootout.
- Group's activities span from California to Vermont, involving mysterious deaths, disappearances, and violent confrontations.
- Timeline reveals escalating pattern of violence leading to Border Patrol agent's death and multiple arrests.
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Here’s a look at the timeline of events in a series of killings that culminated in a Jan. 20 highways shootout that killed a Border Patrol officer in Vermont. It is based on Associated Press interviews and a review of police reports, court records and online postings:
Early Beginnings and Rationalist Movement
2016
Jack LaSota, a computer programmer and transgender woman living in the San Francisco Bay area, starts writing a blog under the online persona “Ziz” with complex and sometimes rambling theories about technology, gender identity and human cognition. LaSota, who uses feminine pronouns, gets involved in the rationalist movement, a community that seeks to understand human cognition and is concerned with the potential dangers of artificial intelligence.
2018
LaSota attends programs organized by rationalist groups but splits from them after they reject her theory that the two hemispheres of the brain can hold separate values and genders.
Protests and Legal Troubles
November 2019
LaSota and three others — Emma Borhanian, Gwen Danielson and Alexander Leatham — are arrested during what they called a protest against sexual misconduct within rationalist organizations.
August 2022
The U.S. Coast Guard responds to a report that LaSota had fallen out of a boat in San Francisco Bay. No body is found. An obituary is published.
November 2022
Curtis Lind goes to court seeking to evict LaSota, Borhanian, Leatham and others who have been living in vans and box trucks on his property in Vallejo, California, for nonpayment of rent. On Nov. 15, two days before the eviction deadline, Lind is impaled with a sword and partially blinded in an attack during which he shoots and kills Borhanian.
Concluding that Lind acted in self-defense, officials charge Leatham and Suri Dao with murder. LaSota is not charged, but police report having contact with her at the scene.
Related Story: Premature Baby Found in Border Patrol Facility in Texas
Escalating Violence and Investigations
December 2022
Rita and Richard Zajko are shot and killed in their home in Chester Heights, Pennsylvania, on New Year’s Eve. A neighbor’s doorbell camera captures audio and video of a car pulling up to their home, a voice shouting “Mom!” and another voice exclaiming, “Oh my God! Oh, God, God!”
January 2023
Police question the Zajkos’ daughter, Michelle, at her home in Vermont. A few weeks later, officers briefly take her into custody at a Pennsylvania hotel but release her without charges. LaSota, staying at the same hotel, is arrested and charged with obstructing the homicide investigation and disorderly conduct.
July 2023
Felix Bauckholt, also referred to in court documents as Ophelia, begins renting half a duplex in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
May 2024
Teresa Youngblut’s parents report her missing in Seattle after she sends her mother emails saying she has moved in with a friend and changed her number.
November 2024
Youngblut and Maximilian Snyder apply for a marriage license in Washington state. Also this month, Youngblut begins renting a condo near Bauckholt’s in North Carolina.
Fatal Shootout and Arrests
January 2025
Youngblut and Bauckholt check into a hotel in Lyndonville, Vermont, on Jan. 14. Investigators put the pair under surveillance after a hotel worker reports concerns about their all-black tactical clothing and the gun Youngblut was carrying.
On Jan. 17, Lind, the landlord in California is killed. Snyder is charged with murder, and prosecutors allege he was trying to prevent Lind from testifying against his earlier attackers.
On Jan. 20, U.S. Border Patrol officers pull Youngblut and Bauckholt over on Interstate 91 in Coventry, Vermont. Agent David Maland and Bauckholt are killed in a shootout. Youngblut, who is wounded, is charged with firearms charges.
February 2025
The FBI searches the Chapel Hill property where a landlord says Youngblut, Bauckholt and LaSota had been living earlier this winter.
On Feb. 16, LaSota was arrested in Maryland along with Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank. They face charges including trespassing, obstructing and hindering and possession of a handgun in a vehicle. A judge ordered LaSota held without bail on Feb. 18.
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