Michelle Zajko, a member of the cultlike group known as Zizians, has been charged with murder in the 2022 killings of her parents in Pennsylvania, a prosecutor announced on Wednesday. Zajko has been jailed in Maryland since February 2025 on other charges.
Charges Announced
Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse said at a news conference that Zajko faces charges of murder, burglary and conspiracy in the deaths of Rita and Richard Zajko. Rouse stated that Zajko did not act alone. Online court records did not immediately indicate whether Zajko had an attorney in the Pennsylvania case as of Wednesday. An attorney representing her in Maryland did not respond to a request for comment, and the Delaware County Public Defender's office declined to comment.
The Killings
The couple was shot to death in their home on New Year's Eve 2022. Police said a neighbor's doorbell camera captured video of a car pulling up to their home in Chester Heights, a voice shouting "Mom!" and another voice exclaiming, "Oh my God! Oh, God, God!" Michelle Zajko has denied any involvement. In court filings, she suggested her father might have killed her mother and then himself. In an April 2025 "Open Letter to the World," she wrote, "I didn't murder my parents."
Group Ties
Authorities had long described Zajko as a person of interest in the double homicide, one of six deaths linked to the Zizians, a group of young computer scientists with radical beliefs about veganism, animal rights, gender identity and artificial intelligence. Since 2022, members have been tied to a California landlord's killing, the Zajko deaths, and a Vermont highway shootout that left a border agent and another Zizian dead.
Zajko is also charged with providing the gun used to kill U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland in January 2025. She was arrested in Maryland weeks later along with Daniel Blank and Jack "Ziz" LaSota, described as the group's leader. Police responding to a landowner's complaint found them in box trucks and described them as having "ties with the Zizians cult."
Legal Proceedings
All three face state charges of trespassing and illegal gun and drug possession. 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. LaSota's attorneys said their client eschews the term Zizian and denies forming a cult. Zajko has claimed authorities arrested the group to prevent them from exonerating Teresa Youngblut, who pleaded not guilty in Vermont to murder and could face the death penalty.
Zajko was living in Vermont at the time of her parents' deaths and was questioned by police shortly after. 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.
