{"id":227091,"date":"2026-06-24T18:55:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T18:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/227091\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T18:55:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T18:55:14","slug":"a-member-of-the-cultlike-zizians-group-is-charged-in-the-killings-of-her-parents-in-pennsylvania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/227091\/","title":{"rendered":"A member of the cultlike Zizians group is charged in the killings of her parents in Pennsylvania"},"content":{"rendered":"

AP\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\n <\/p>\n

\n A member of the cultlike group known as Zizians<\/a> has been charged with murder in the shooting of her parents at their Pennsylvania home on her 30th birthday, and a prosecutor said Wednesday that authorities don\u2019t believe she was acting alone.\n <\/p>\n

\n Michelle Zajko, who has been jailed in Maryland on other charges since February 2025, has been charged with murder, burglary and conspiracy charges in the deaths of Rita and Richard Zajko, Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse said at a news conference. The prosecutor said she did not act alone.\n <\/p>\n

\n Rouse said that Zajko is known to have been among those who killed her parents \u201cto the extent that if she wasn\u2019t the one who actually pulled the trigger, she was certainly aligned with those who did.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Online court records didn\u2019t immediately indicate whether Zajko had an attorney in the Pennsylvania case as of Wednesday. An attorney representing her in Maryland did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment, and the Delaware County Public Defender\u2019s office declined to comment.\n <\/p>\n

\n The couple was shot to death in their home on New Year\u2019s Eve after police say a neighbor\u2019s doorbell camera captured video of a car pulling up to their home in Chester Heights, a voice shouting \u201cMom!\u201d and another voice exclaiming, \u201cOh my God! Oh, God, God!\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

\n Michelle Zajko has denied any involvement, and in court filings suggested her father might have killed her mother and then himself.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI didn\u2019t murder my parents,\u201d she wrote in an April 2025 \u201cOpen Letter to the World.\u201d<\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\n Authorities, however, had long described Zajko as a person of interest in the double homicide, two of the six deaths<\/a> linked to a group of young, highly intelligent computer scientists who appear to share radical beliefs about veganism, animal rights, gender identity and artificial intelligence.\n <\/p>\n

\n Since 2022, members have been tied to the death of one of their own during an attack on a California landlord<\/a>, the landlord\u2019s subsequent killing, the Zajkos\u2019 deaths in Pennsylvania, and a highway shootout in Vermont<\/a> that left a border agent and another Zizian dead.\n <\/p>\n

\n Zajko, who is charged with providing the gun used to kill US Border Patrol Agent David Maland in January 2025, was arrested in Maryland a few weeks later<\/a> along with Daniel Blank and Jack \u201cZiz\u201d LaSota, whom authorities describe as the group\u2019s leader. Police who responded to a landowner\u2019s complaint about suspicious people parked in box trucks on his property described them as having \u201cties with the Zizians Cult\u201d and said they would be questioned about crimes across the country.\n <\/p>\n

\n All three face state charges of trespassing and illegal gun and drug possession, while LaSota faces 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.\n <\/p>\n

\"In<\/p>\n

\n In court filings, LaSota\u2019s 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<\/a>, who has pleaded not guilty in Vermont to murder and could face the death penalty if convicted.\n <\/p>\n

\n Zajko was living in Vermont at the time of her parents\u2019 deaths and was questioned there by police shortly after they died. A few weeks later, officers briefly took her into custody at a Pennsylvania hotel but released her without charges. LaSota, staying at the same hotel, was charged with obstructing the homicide investigation and disorderly conduct.\n <\/p>\n

\n Zajko had been estranged from her parents in the year leading up to their deaths, the prosecutor said. They were killed hours after Rita Zajko texted her daughter in an attempt to reconcile. \u201cHer mother reached out and explained that she was sorry for the rift that had grown between them,\u201d the prosecutor said. \u201cThat text went unanswered.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n A few hours later, at least two people entered the home. \u201cThe lights go on in the home, and Richard and Rita Zajko are executed,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AP\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 A member of the cultlike group known as Zizians has been charged with murder in the shooting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-227091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}