A woman linked to the cultlike organization known as the Zizians has been formally charged with murder in connection with the shooting deaths of her mother and father at their Pennsylvania home — a crime that took place on her 30th birthday — and prosecutors say they believe others were involved.
Michelle Zajko, who has been held in a Maryland jail since February 2025 on separate charges, now faces murder, burglary, and conspiracy counts in the deaths of Rita and Richard Zajko, according to Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse, who made the announcement at a Wednesday news conference.
Rouse stated that Zajko was involved in her parents’ deaths to a significant degree, saying that “to the extent that if she wasn’t the one who actually pulled the trigger, she was certainly aligned with those who did.”
As of Wednesday, online court records did not show whether Zajko had legal representation in the Pennsylvania case. Her attorney in the Maryland case did not respond to a request for comment, and the Delaware County Public Defender’s office also declined to speak on the matter.
The couple was shot and killed inside their home on New Year’s Eve. Police say a neighbor’s doorbell camera recorded footage of a vehicle arriving at the Chester Heights property, followed by a voice calling out “Mom!” and another voice crying, “Oh my God! Oh, God, God!”
Zajko has maintained her innocence, and in court documents suggested her father may have shot her mother before taking his own life. In an April 2025 document she called an “Open Letter to the World,” she wrote plainly: “I didn’t murder my parents.”
Despite her denials, authorities had long considered Zajko a person of interest in what they describe as a double homicide connected to a broader pattern of violence. The Zajko killings are among six deaths tied to a group of young, highly educated computer scientists who reportedly share extreme views on veganism, animal rights, gender identity, and artificial intelligence.
Going back to 2022, group members have been connected to the death of one of their own during an assault on a California landlord, the subsequent killing of that landlord, the deaths of the Zajkos in Pennsylvania, and a highway shooting in Vermont that left a U.S. border agent and another Zizian member dead.
Zajko is also accused of supplying the firearm used to kill U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland in January 2025. She was arrested in Maryland weeks after that incident, along with Daniel Blank and Jack “Ziz” LaSota, who authorities identify as the group’s leader. Officers responding to a landowner’s report of suspicious individuals living in box trucks on his land noted that the group had “ties with the Zizians Cult” and said they would be investigated for crimes across the country.
All three face state charges of trespassing and illegal possession of firearms and drugs. LaSota additionally faces a federal charge of illegal gun possession as a fugitive. A judge recently approved a defense motion for a competency evaluation in that federal case.
In court filings, LaSota’s legal team stated that their client rejects the label “Zizian” and denies that she and her associates constitute a cult. Zajko, for her part, has claimed that the Maryland arrests were carried out to stop the group from helping clear Teresa Youngblut, who has entered a not guilty plea in Vermont to murder charges and could potentially face the death penalty if found guilty.
At the time of her parents’ deaths, Zajko was living in Vermont and was interviewed by police there shortly afterward. Weeks later, she was briefly detained at a Pennsylvania hotel but released without being charged. LaSota, who was also staying at that hotel, was charged with obstructing the homicide investigation and disorderly conduct.
The prosecutor revealed that Zajko had been estranged from her family in the year before the killings. On the night of the murders, her mother sent her a text message in an effort to mend their relationship. “Her mother reached out and explained that she was sorry for the rift that had grown between them,” Rouse said. “That text went unanswered.”
Within hours of that unanswered message, at least two individuals entered the home. As Rouse described it: “The lights go on in the home, and Richard and Rita Zajko are executed.”
