--- title: "Gangs: The Zizians" description: "January 20th, 2025: a U.S. Border Patrol agent was gunned down on a snowy night near the Canadian border. Just a few weeks later, a sword-wielding attacker brutally slaughtered an 82-year-old man in California. Around the same time, a double murder in a well-off, peaceful Philadelphia suburb.\n\nTying all of these seemingly unrelated acts of violence together? A group of brilliant computer scientists, radicalized by isolation from broader society who became more and more extreme surrounding issues of veganism, transgenderism, artificial intelligence panic, and environmentalism.\n\nThis isn't just a story of murder. This is a fringe cult unlike anything you've ever heard of. This group truly has it all: radical philosophy, brilliant minds who studied and worked at some of the world's top institutions, family betrayals, faked deaths, sleep deprivation, and so much more.\n\nThis is the story of the Zizians—and how a philosophy designed to save the world collapsed into chaos and bloodshed.\n\n*Note to the audience: This article features a large number of transgender individuals, many of whom are in the middle of transitioning or questioning transitioning. We have done our best to stick to the facts and preferred names when possible, but please keep in mind that we are all humans and may have gotten a few things wrong here.*\n\n## The Early Life of Jack LaSota (1988-2015)\n\nThe Zizians did not start out as a violent cult. In fact, they didn't start out as even a separate philosophy at all—it would take many years of isolation and radicalization to reach that level. As with so many other cults, to understand its origin, we must first look at its founder and their backstory.\n\nJack LaSota—who would later transition to identify as a woman—was born in 1988 in Fairbanks, Alaska. Fascinated by technology from an early age, they made the natural decision to pursue a degree in computer science at the local University of Alaska Fairbanks. Successful from the start, she would go on to intern at both Oracle and NASA.\n\nDespite performing well academically, problems began to arise for LaSota. By the time she reached grad school, she was already feeling a sense of growing disinterest from the broader programming community and more drawn towards artificial intelligence—specifically, towards developing safeguards around it. She would ultimately drop out of grad school, staying active in programming a video game but spending more and more time online discussing the ins and outs of artificial intelligence and future threats to the world. This is where she first encountered the Rationalist community, who were active on numerous blogs that she would become deeply involved with such as LessWrong.\n\nRationalism as presented throughout this article is separate from the Enlightenment-era philosophy of Rene Descartes. Instead, Rationalism here refers to a philosophy and community largely based in the tech-centric Bay Area that focuses on using reason, logic, and evidence-based thinking to make better decisions to improve the world. Its members' main goals are thinking clearly about moral responsibility and preventing existential risks, which often focus on the rise of artificial intelligence. Unlike what you may think of when presented with an online philosophical movement, this was not a group of random, anonymous users spouting off about whatever topic interested them on any given day. Rationalists had considerable ties to large institutions in the Bay Area, including some of the largest tech companies in the world. There are even institutions fully devoted to this approach, such as the Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR), featuring interactive activities and retreats.\n\nLaSota, who around this time began to use she/her pronouns and adopt the online name of \"Ziz,\" was immediately captivated. This group focused on a lot of topics that she also was deeply intrigued in and found to be far more meaningful than a more mundane corporate job.\n\nAs time went on, LaSota found herself—now primarily going by the nickname \"Ziz\"—spending more and more time online and isolated from the outside world, whether it was on designing her video game or blogging about Rationalism. She was chronically unemployed and while she did apply to some more traditional jobs—at one point, landing one in her field, only to be fired within four days—she rapidly grew disillusioned with the job market as well as the concept of needing to work to pay rent.\n\nHaving moved to the Bay Area and making it her home, though, she couldn't just up and leave. This was where she wanted to be, and where most of her connections were as well. For anyone familiar with the area, saying that rent isn't exactly cheap is a bit of an understatement. To conserve what cash she had piled up in savings, she began to hop between Air B&B locations monthly, trying to keep herself in the area of the community she became associated with while also beginning to retreat from the world.\n\nShe was not a complete shut in, though. Around the end of 2015, she would meet someone going by the name of Gwen Danielson through mutual connections inside the Rationalist community. The two immediately clicked over a considerable number of similarities: both were transgender, both were dedicated vegans, and both were deeply concerned about the environment and the rise of artificial intelligence. Most impressive to LaSota was the fact that Gwen, fed up with the cost of living in the area, had \"opted out\" of the situation by choosing to live aboard a small sailboat full time.\n\nWhile they didn't know it at the time, this initially innocent friendship would be the rock upon which this bloodsoaked cult would be built.\n\n## The Rationalist Years (2016-2018)\n\nBy this point, Ziz LaSota had completely isolated herself from broader society and was continuing to float between different Air B&Bs, trying to conserve the cash she still had on hand with very little income coming in aside from the occasional odd job or freelance programming.\n\nRent, however, waits for no one—even aspiring philosophical leaders and would-be cult leaders. As the situation grew more desperate, Ziz decided the situation was desperate enough to move aboard Gwen's small boat docked in the Berkeley Marina. And when I say small, I mean small. At just 24 feet long, it did have an enclosed cabin—but it was hardly spacious for one, and two was a crowd.\n\nThe two friends, longtime ideological allies, were able to make it work—at least at first. The two spent many hours inside discussing and debating the ins and outs of \"transness,\" veganism, Rationalism, artificial intelligence, and general plans to save the world. It wasn't long until issues began to surface, though. Danielson, who suffered from both ADHD and autism, would spend long periods of time talking to herself. While some people may catch themselves doing that from time to time, this was not quite the case. Danielson wouldn't just hold one-way conversations with herself but would rather be in a two-way conversation. Worse yet, any attempt to interrupt these sessions resulted in terrible moods from Gwen that would last all day.\n\nSpace was also an issue. Accustomed to a three-way monitor setup, getting back into coding in a claustrophobic space with merely a laptop was a hard adjustment for Ziz. This situation could not last long.\n\nBy 2017, LaSota moved out onto her own sailboat she acquired for $600 and parked it near Gwen's. With two boats parked next to each other, the owners of which both shared the same philosophy, the idea was naturally born in Ziz's head to create the \"Rationalist Fleet.\" She had dreams of hosting a ship where fellow Rationalists could live for cheap in a community of like-minded people. With just two tiny boats, though, they weren't winning an invasion any time soon. They had to expand.\n\nLaSota, originally from Alaska, was able to find something that might do: Named the Caleb, it was a 94-foot-long tugboat from World War II. It wasn't going to exactly be a luxury cruise liner, but it was better than nothing. They planned to head to Alaska, buy it, and sail the Caleb down to the Bay Area. Keep in mind that this was not a normal ship, though—it was a tugboat. These things are the equivalent of a cargo-hauling locomotive: they're built for endurance, with the ability to haul boats significantly larger than themselves… slowly. Very, very slowly.\n\nThe Caleb could, on a good day, do 10 knots per hour. Many modern vessels could do around 20 knots without breaking a sweat. This trip, which would have taken modern vessels two weeks, ultimately took the Caleb more than four.\n\nWhat is a captain without a crew, though? Clearly, there would need to be some recruiting involved. Ziz began to advertise the opportunity to \"drive\" a tugboat from Alaska to the SF Bay, informing everyone that expenses will be covered.\n\nShe was able to piece together a crew of five which included: Gwen, herself, a Navy veteran with mechanical experience named Dan Powell, and two others whose identities are kept confidential for privacy reasons.\n\nThe trip got off to a good start but would quickly take a turn for the worse. It was clear from first setting foot on it that the ship was not in as good condition as they had believed. This initially appeared to largely just be cosmetic, with ample rust throughout the aging vessel. Shortly after setting sail, though, they would discover that the ship had a tendency to list rather dramatically to one side. The ship was old, slow, rusty, and only had one bathroom. Which, to make matters worse for all aboard, stopped working completely shortly after setting sail.\n\nThis was hardly the voyage that the crew had envisioned signing up for. This was worsened by the atmosphere aboard the ship, specifically from Ziz. While never outright hostile or threatening, something was a bit off. One of the unnamed volunteers would go on to say that while LaSota's views were still broadly within the Rationalist communities', \"Ziz was a little on the creepy side, but well below the scary threshold… she was more confident than I thought she had the right to be… and she was abrasive about it.\" This was nothing new with LaSota, who had developed a reputation for being aggressive on these issues, at one point blogging: \"I'm proud of the number of people who have gone vegan because they are afraid of me.\"\n\nBy the time that they had reached Washington State, Powell had reached his wit's end with the group. Ziz had allegedly taken it upon herself to confront him as she was convinced Powell was actually transgender as well. After forcefully telling her to drop it, he was done and disembarked in Washington. He severed all ties with LaSota and Danielson after losing what he claimed was tens of thousands of dollars into the project.\n\nAfter a long-delayed docking of the Caleb and establishment of their base of operations in late 2017, larger cracks began to form between LaSota's group and the broader Rationalist movement. While Rationalists were all about self-optimization and thinking of the greater good, LaSota and her followers took this to a whole different level.\n\n## The Birth of Zizianism (2017-2019)\n\nWith the Caleb now in place and able to host whoever was interested in coming aboard, the Rationalist Fleet was born. It is here that a distinctive \"Zizian\" philosophy and movement can be seen as emerging. At the heart of this split was the moral supremacy of veganism, which was not embraced by many in the Rationalist community, as well as deeper philosophical and pseudoscientific beliefs about moral dualism inside the body. The scandal of eating meat—a sin of sorts to LaSota, if you will—put on clear display the moral corruption that coursed through the societies she previously was a part of. She could take no more and formally broke off.\n\nOn a more philosophical level, the group diverged significantly from their Rationalist roots. Writing extensively on her blog, \"Sinceriously,\" Ziz embraced a philosophy of moral dualism within the self: people were divided between two \"cores,\" with most people having one good and one non-good core. Occasionally, some people would have two non-good cores, and she was one of the lucky few to have two good cores. Funny how that sort of luck normally plays out in these scenarios, huh?\n\nShe came to believe that the overwhelming majority of the world gave into their non-good core through compromise above all else. Merely existing in the world was a form of compromise—going about daily life, working to pay rent, and above all else the consumption of animals was a sign of surrender to the non-good.\n\nIf this approach sounds radical, it pales in comparison to their prescribed remedies. Compromise was a failure of the highest proportion, so it was better to remove yourself from society than to play a role in it and compromise your values. This included a favorite amongst cults universally: cutting off friends and family who are seen as morally corrupt, or those who question your involvement with such a movement.\n\nGwen in particular would go on to develop a downright dangerous approach to self-improvement involving sleep deprivation, where members would attempt to mimic the \"unihemispheric sleep\" that animals such as dolphins can achieve. Despite living in the ocean, these mammals breathe oxygen through lungs, not gills. They can hold their breath for long periods of time, but falling asleep like other mammals do would lead them to drown. To prevent this, they've evolved the ability to sleep one side of their brain while keeping the other active to preserve basic functions—unihemispheric sleep.\n\nTo be clear, the science is in on this. Humans biologically cannot practice unihemispheric sleep. The Zizians were determined not to let science stand in their way and were undeterred. They believed that this could be achieved in humans with sufficient determination and sleep deprivation, through resting with one eye open and focusing exclusively on one object. The logic behind this was that if your non-good core was your left one, you would put that side of your brain to sleep to establish the good core's dominance over it.\n\nThe issue here, of course, is that sleep deprivation can be immensely harmful to our bodies. We need sleep, and begin suffering from delayed motor functions and impaired judgement after missing even part of one night's sleep, much less several days.\n\nThis would impact some members more severely than others. A 28-year-old Polish citizen, born Chris Pasek who would later identify as Maia Pasek, began involving himself with the Zizians at some point in 2017. Immediately drawn in due to mutual beliefs surrounding Rationalism, transhumanism, and artificial intelligence, he began experimenting more and more with their philosophy and methodologies.\n\nAfter transitioning, Pasek became an enthusiastic adopted of the unihemispheric sleep approach. This would prove detrimental in her case, ultimately resulting in her committing suicide in early 2018.\n\nFor Ziz and her followers, this was no tragedy. Pasek was not a victim of a self-improvement approach gone wrong, but rather a martyr. She was someone who refused to compromise with the \"non-good\" within her, which despite the fatal ending was still preferable to them over giving in to the world around them. While LaSota would go on to claim that unihemispheric sleep \"did not doom Pasek,\" this was cast into doubt by her other writings. In a post titled \"Pasek's Doom,\" she wrote that \"Pasek's right hemisphere had been mostly dead\" and that \"we each went on our own journey of jailbreaking into psychopathy fully\". This hardly made for a convincing declaration of innocence.\n\nAfter a rather uneventful year passed, filled with isolation from the outside world aboard the Caleb, Ziz decided it was time for action. The first target would, of course, not be the main intellectual opponents of hers—but rather the Rationalist community. As with many cults, the focus was on targeting those who should have just known better. Enforcing ideological conformity within the cult took precedence over fighting an external enemy.\n\nAs former members of several Rationalist institutions, it was not especially difficult for them to find an event to target. As it turned out, the Center for Applied Rationality was to hold an event at the Westminster Woods' retreat center in California in just a week. This was perfect. The plan was set: they would arrive before them, and block the Rationalists from gaining access to the retreat center until and unless they were persuaded to adopt more of Ziz's views. This was not going to be an explicitly violent protest, but it wasn't going to be a hold-hands and sing-songs type of event either. They rented a box truck, a shuttle bus, as well as a Toyota Prius (a favorite of theirs for environmental reasons), all for the purpose of blocking the entrance. Four of them—Ziz, Gwen, and two others named Emma Borhanian and Alexander Leatham—arrived at the site dressed in long, flowing black robes donning Guy Fawkes masks.\n\nTo say that the protest did not go according to plan is a little like saying that cults are only slightly creepy - an understatement if ever there was one. They were mistaken about the dates—they arrived well after the Rationalist retreat began and were closer to their departure rather than arrival. Undeterred, they decided to change their approach: instead of blocking the Rationalists from entering the grounds, they would stop them from leaving.\n\nWhile neither approach was legal, blocking someone from leaving an enclosed area is definitely a notch higher on the \"police-get-involved\" scale than blocking the entrance would have been. To top things off, the Rationalists were not the only group at the retreat center that day. Apparently unbeknownst to the Zizians, there was a group on the shared ropes course that they were also blocking in. This was a children's group, with 24 young kids now trapped in the compound as well.\n\nWhile undoubtedly terrifying for those being held against their will, the scene is almost comedic in hindsight. Showing up looking like they just stepped out of \"V for Vendetta,\" the group completely botched their timeline and were unaware of the children's group they would be trapping. Panic set in among the counselors, one of whom ended up calling the police alleging to have seen one of the Zizians carrying a gun.\n\nWhat had originally been planned as an event to block the start of a retreat had turned into a Columbine-esque situation, with the police in complete not-screwing-around mode. The response was fast and overwhelming: they quickly had multiple SWAT teams on site, along with multiple armored vehicles and a helicopter. The children were evacuated from the retreat center, sheltering in bulletproof vehicles. The Zizians were immediately arrested on felony child endangerment and false imprisonment, amongst other charges. They would quickly post bail and have their charges reduced to misdemeanors.\n\n## Return to Land\n\nBy this point, things were not going well for the Zizians at all. Their attempt at protesting the Rationalist retreat had ended in complete disaster, failing to do much of anything other than terrify a group of school children. Publicity surrounding child endangerment typically does not make for many recruits, which meant the crew of the Caleb were more isolated than ever before.\n\nTo make matters worse, the boat was in worse shape than ever. It began to leak larger and larger quantities of oil into the harbor. The group was struggling just to keep the boat afloat; repairs of that magnitude were out of the question. It got so bad that the Coast Guard deemed the vessel an \"imminent threat to public health\" and ordered the nearly 3,000 gallons of diesel fuel aboard to be removed. Despite allegedly claiming to be hardcore environmentalists, the group would completely ignore this order, resulting in significant fines for harbor cleanup.\n\nBy March 2020, the Caleb reached a point of no return. They had to part with the vessel, and decided to anchor it at the harbor's work dock and simply abandoned the ship. Completely unclaimed and unable to find the owners, the ship began to take on water and ultimately sank in the outer parts of the harbor, coming to a stop semi-submerged due to the area's shallow bottom. The 345-ton heap of rusting metal lays off at the entrance to Half Moon Bay to this day, with estimates for removing clocking in at about $2 million.\n\nWhether or not the irony of a radical environmentalist group creating a multi-million environmental disaster and abdicating any responsibility for it ever occurred to the Zizians is unclear.\n\nAll was not lost for the group, though. While struggling with the Caleb, they had befriended a kind older man who frequented the harbor, Curtis Lind. A retired enthusiast of the arts and animal lover himself, he wanted to use some of the money he had accumulated throughout his life to give back by providing living space for artists and the like to take up residence for under-market rates.\n\nZiz was quick to accept his offer, moving in with a small group of dedicated followers to his property and setting up camp in box trucks in early 2020. After originally enjoying a good relationship with Lind, tensions began to surface on a number of issues, with rent being first and foremost.\n\nNow, keep in mind that this took place in 2020 at the height of the Covid pandemic. California was one of many states that put a total moratorium on evictions, attempting to prevent people whose jobs were impacted by the virus from losing their homes. While well intentioned, this essentially made rent \"optional\" for many, which was not lost on the Zizians. It wasn't long before they stopped paying, knowing Lind had little recourse. He was stuck with them.\n\nEmboldened by these developments and—for the first time in a long time beginning to attract recruits—they began to expand beyond their original box trucks to trailers intended for others Lind had invited to the property.\n\nWhat this group did all day has never been completely clear. They didn't hold traditional jobs, and they brought a considerable amount of technology. Several were seen walking around completely naked, sometimes talking to themselves.\n\nDespite being a peaceful man his whole life, Lind grew scared. He was powerless over these people on his own land, and it became clearer by the day that they were not there to make friends. He applied for a firearms permit and bought a handgun towards the end of 2020, which he increasingly found himself carrying for personal protection in case things took a turn for the worst.\n\nDespite his best efforts, he remained unable to remove the Zizians for years to come. This would ultimately come to a head in 2022, when the eviction moratorium was lifted. Around this time, though, a member of the cult called in an emergency from a boat off the coast: Ziz had fallen in and hadn't been seen or heard from since. Had she drowned? Had she swum to some remote shore and was trapped?\n\nThe Coast Guard was called in, and what began as a search and rescue eventually turned into a recovery mission for a body. They all would turn up empty. No body was found—Ziz was just gone. After nearly two days of around-the-clock searching, the Coast Guard called off the mission. LaSota, presumed dead, would have an obituary run in her hometown's newspaper. Cause of death? A boating accident.\n\nYou can only imagine the group's reaction after the eviction moratorium was lifted and Lind declared that he wanted the now over $60,000 of back rent the group had failed to pay. There was no way they could even come close to that. Leaderless and staring down the barrel of losing their only base of operations, they decided action must be taken.\n\nThe plan was set. They lured Lind onto the property under the guise of a maintenance issue. Shortly after entering, Alexander Leatham, Emma Borhanian, and another surrounded him, with Leatham leading the attack using a samurai sword. According to Lind's testimony, he looked down and saw a sword sticking through him. Borhanian would also join in the attack with a knife. It was a complete ambush; he was being stabbed by multiple people from multiple directions. They slashed through his back, on his stomach, across his eye.\n\nUnbeknownst to them, Lind was armed that day. He pulled out his pistol, raised it, and fatally shot Borhanian in a desperate attempt to save his own life. He also shot another attacker who would survive the event before fleeing the scene, gushing blood and on death's door himself.\n\nDespite being stabbed over 50 times, including multiple times by a sword, Lind would miraculously go on to survive the ordeal—although he would lose his right eye and be deeply traumatized by the ordeal. Despite all this, he never lost his love for nature or animals and would continue to do what he loved most after making a nearly full recovery.\n\n## Freefall\n\nThe Zizians at this point were entering the final stage of a cult: freefall. They may have believed they were still fighting for what they set out for, but it was a delusion. The movement by this point had all but forgotten its ideological roots of environmentalism. Instead, it rapidly descended into acts of self-preservation and retribution at all costs against anyone who became an inconvenience for them, using the linguistics and structures of their philosophical movement to justify any action they took. They were the good guys—just ask them, they'll tell you. And if you don't agree, that makes you the bad guy.\n\nIf you've ever read about any of history's most murderous movements, that sentence is likely sounding a warning sign in your brain. Across the centuries, people have used such reasoning to justify all sorts of atrocities. Sadly, the Zizians would soon join their number.\n\nOn New Year's Eve 2022, Rita and Richard Zajko were spending the evening inside. Having retired years ago in a well-off, quiet neighborhood outside Philadelphia, the two were planning on spending the holiday with each other in their house. That plan was shattered, as they would be slaughtered in their own home that night.\n\nAs they lived alone, it wasn't until several days later that they were found by a police officer doing a wellness check. Both had been shot in the head—Rita from behind, her husband Richard, from the side.\n\nTheir only daughter, Michelle, was shortly thereafter brought in for questioning by police in her hometown of Vermont. As coincidence would have it, she was a Zizian herself—and set to be the sole inheritor of her parents' estate as their only child. What's more, she was in possession of a firearm that not only fired the same caliber bullets as were found at the murder scene, but had purchased bullets made by the same manufacturer as well.\n\nNaturally, they applied for and were granted a search warrant. Zajko at this point was in Pennsylvania for her parents' funeral, where Pennsylvania State Troopers received a separate search warrant and stormed the Candlewood Suites hotel looking for her. After breaking down the door, the State Troopers did not find a gun. But what they did find was even more bizarre—Jack \"Ziz\" LaSota, alive and breathing (despite attempts to play dead to conceal this). It was a completely ridiculous scene: the State Troopers quickly figured out that Ziz was in fact alive, but they just couldn't get her to cooperate. Ziz went limp any time they attempted to move her, and would do so for hours—a police officer had to hold her head up for her mugshot. Both would be taken into custody, although they would both ultimately be released due to lack of sufficient evidence to link them to the murder at the time.\n\nAfter almost two years of laying low, the Zizians would find themselves back in the news in early 2025. During a traffic stop on January 20, Border Patrol Agent David Maland pulled over a blue Toyota Prius. Inside the vehicle were Teresa Youngblut and Felix Bauckholt—who also went by the name of Ophelia—both Zizians, both with strong academic backgrounds. Bauckholt in particular is a fascinating case: previously making over $500,000 a year on Wall Street, aged just 26, he left his previous life behind to join the group.\n\nThis stop was not quite random. The two had been under surveillance for some time after exhibiting bizarre behavior in public, including wearing tactical gear such as military-grade gas masks in public and openly carrying around firearms. Agent Maland was the initial officer to pull them over, but two more squad cars quickly joined him as backup. Inside the car, the Zizians had large amounts of tactical gear that they knew getting caught with would lead to further arrests. While the motivations for what would come next are partially conjecture, it is suspected that the two believed that they had to act before more reinforcements arrived.\n\nAbout 15 minutes into the stop, a gunshot rang out. Then another, then another. Catching Agent Maland completely off guard, one of the two in the stopped vehicle fatally shot him. The other two officers already on scene quickly returned fire—both the driver and the passenger would be shot. Youngblut survived; Bauckholt was killed in the firefight.\n\nThis should be considered as nothing short of the cult exerting its last, dying breath in a wave of desperate violence against anyone who stood in their way or had previously wronged them—but they were getting careless. Not only was this yet another case of the Zizians being tied to violence, but the weapons used on the attack on Border Patrol agents were registered to none other than Michelle Zajko. She would shortly thereafter be arrested along with Ziz, who had continued to live together after their run-ins with law enforcement in 2023, both on charges of firearms possessions, as well as obstructing and hindering investigations.\n\nThe Zizians had made it clear that anyone who stood in their way was a threat who needed to be dealt with. Unfortunately, this would not be the end of their killing spree: the trial against Zizian members for the assault of Curtis Lind was set to begin in just a few weeks. The prosecution argued that as Lind was forced to defend himself, the Zizians were responsible for the death of Emma Borhanian. Their only witness? Lind himself, now 82 years old.\n\nSneaking up to his house in the dark and hiding out of sight one cold January evening was Maximillian Snyder, partner to none other than Teresa Youngblut and a card-carrying Zizian himself. After Lind stepped outside his house, Snyder pounced. Lind never saw it coming, and didn't stand a chance against the attack. He would have his throat slit by Snyder and bled out at the scene. Youngblut and Snyder, despite bright, promising academic backgrounds, were now in jail on murder charges.\n\n## Closing Thoughts\n\nThis group is a very unique example of how otherwise successful people can become radicalized. Oftentimes, those who get caught up in cults are those who have gone through some great suffering in life and become radicalized as a result of being ostracized from society. While this can be seen to some extent with the Zizians—take LaSota struggling to hold down a job, being fired within four days, and so on—many others were quite different, enjoying large salaries at prestigious companies or attending some of the world's top schools.\n\nMaximilian Snyder, for instance, was a student studying computer science at Oxford University—one of the most prestigious institutions in the world. Despite this, he was socially isolated and quickly got caught up in the Zizian movement after developing a relationship with Teresa Youngblut, who he had met prior to attending university at his prestigious Lakeside School in his home state of Washington. They had applied for a marriage license in November 2024, just a few months before the killing spree.\n\nOriginally bound together by a seemingly genuine concern for the future on issues ranging from the environment to artificial intelligence, the group's increased radicalization led to a belief that their internal moral superiority justified just about any action they might take—even when those ran completely contrary to their original mission.\n\nAs a result, six people are now dead through a tragic cascading sequence of suicides and murders. What started out as protesting those deemed to be the \"ideological enemy\" devolved into the brutal murder of an 82-year-old man for past disputes over rent and the murder of a retired couple living a quiet, peaceful life. This is not to mention the trauma the children at the retreat center went through after being evacuated through armored police vehicles.\n\nAll this was done for what? Despite all of their violence, no progress was made on any of their main concerns. Their largest impact, aside from on the families of those who were lost to this cult, was the multi-million-dollar environmental disaster that was the semi-submerged Caleb, still standing as a testament to this group's carelessness in Half Moon Bay today.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- The Zizians began as a group of isolated, radicalized computer scientists with extreme views on veganism, transgenderism, AI, and environmentalism.\n- Jack LaSota, the founder, transitioned and became known as Ziz, leading the group through increasing isolation and extremism.\n- The group's philosophy evolved into a dangerous cult, promoting moral dualism and extreme self-improvement methods like unihemispheric sleep.\n- The Zizians committed multiple violent acts, including murders and attacks, driven by their belief in moral superiority and retribution.\n- Despite their initial concerns for the future, the Zizians' actions resulted in tragedy and environmental damage, with no progress on their main issues.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### Who founded the Zizians?\n\nJack LaSota, who later transitioned to identify as a woman, founded the Zizians.\n\n### What were the main philosophical beliefs of the Zizians?\n\nThe Zizians believed in veganism, transgenderism, artificial intelligence panic, and environmentalism. They also embraced a philosophy of moral dualism within the self, believing people were divided between two 'cores,' with most people having one good and one non-good core.\n\n### What was the Rationalist Fleet?\n\nThe Rationalist Fleet was an idea conceived by Jack LaSota to create a community of like-minded Rationalists living on boats. It started with two small sailboats and later included a 94-foot-long tugboat named the Caleb.\n\n### What was the significance of the Westminster Woods protest?\n\nThe Westminster Woods protest was an attempt by the Zizians to block Rationalists from accessing a retreat center. It ended in disaster when they arrived after the retreat had started and trapped a group of children, leading to their arrest on felony child endangerment and false imprisonment charges.\n\n### What happened to the tugboat Caleb?\n\nThe Caleb, which was in poor condition, began to leak oil into the harbor. The Coast Guard deemed it an 'imminent threat to public health' and ordered the removal of its diesel fuel. The group ignored the order, resulting in significant fines. Eventually, the Caleb sank in the harbor and remains there today.\n\n### Who was Curtis Lind and what was his connection to the Zizians?\n\nCurtis Lind was an older man who befriended the Zizians and offered them living space on his property. Tensions arose over rent, and the group stopped paying. Lind was later attacked and severely injured by members of the Zizians, who were trying to prevent their eviction.\n\n### What was the outcome of the traffic stop that led to the death of Border Patrol Agent David Maland?\n\nDuring a traffic stop, Teresa Youngblut and Felix Bauckholt, both members of the Zizians, fatally shot Border Patrol Agent David Maland. The two were under surveillance for exhibiting bizarre behavior in public and were found with large amounts of tactical gear in their vehicle.\n\n### What was the final act of violence committed by the Zizians?\n\nThe final act of violence was the murder of Curtis Lind, who was the main witness in an upcoming murder trial against Zizian members. Maximillian Snyder, a member of the Zizians, slit Lind's throat, leading to Snyder and Teresa Youngblut being arrested on murder charges.\n\n### What was the impact of the Zizians' actions on their original goals?\n\nDespite their violence, the Zizians made no progress on their main concerns such as environmentalism and artificial intelligence. Their largest impact was the multi-million-dollar environmental disaster caused by the sinking of the Caleb.\n\n### What was the significance of the name 'Ziz'?\n\nThe name 'Ziz' was the online nickname adopted by Jack LaSota after transitioning and becoming deeply involved in the Rationalist community. The name became associated with the Zizians and their philosophy.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Original Into the Shadows video: Gangs: The Zizians](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heteS5ZmkK4)\n- [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Canadian_National_Vimy_Memorial.jpg) by Kilyann Le Hen / openverse, by.\n\n## Related Coverage" url: https://intotheshadows.pub/article/gangs-the-zizians.md canonical: https://intotheshadows.pub/article/gangs-the-zizians datePublished: 2026-06-28 dateModified: 2026-06-28 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://intotheshadows.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: Into the Shadows image: "https://media.intotheshadows.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/heteS5ZmkK4/hero.jpg" type: Article contentHash: 11bd29ecae737718139d1ef5e428881da5ffbb898b67e567c64fff7ad6b2453e tokens: 9323 summaryUrl: https://intotheshadows.pub/article/gangs-the-zizians.md.summary.md --- January 20th, 2025: a U.S. Border Patrol agent was gunned down on a snowy night near the Canadian border. Just a few weeks later, a sword-wielding attacker brutally slaughtered an 82-year-old man in California. Around the same time, a double murder in a well-off, peaceful Philadelphia suburb. Tying all of these seemingly unrelated acts of violence together? A group of brilliant computer scientists, radicalized by isolation from broader society who became more and more extreme surrounding issues of veganism, transgenderism, artificial intelligence panic, and environmentalism. This isn't just a story of murder. This is a fringe cult unlike anything you've ever heard of. This group truly has it all: radical philosophy, brilliant minds who studied and worked at some of the world's top institutions, family betrayals, faked deaths, sleep deprivation, and so much more. This is the story of the Zizians—and how a philosophy designed to save the world collapsed into chaos and bloodshed. *Note to the audience: This article features a large number of transgender individuals, many of whom are in the middle of transitioning or questioning transitioning. We have done our best to stick to the facts and preferred names when possible, but please keep in mind that we are all humans and may have gotten a few things wrong here.* ## The Early Life of Jack LaSota (1988-2015) The Zizians did not start out as a violent cult. In fact, they didn't start out as even a separate philosophy at all—it would take many years of isolation and radicalization to reach that level. As with so many other cults, to understand its origin, we must first look at its founder and their backstory. Jack LaSota—who would later transition to identify as a woman—was born in 1988 in Fairbanks, Alaska. Fascinated by technology from an early age, they made the natural decision to pursue a degree in computer science at the local University of Alaska Fairbanks. Successful from the start, she would go on to intern at both Oracle and NASA. Despite performing well academically, problems began to arise for LaSota. By the time she reached grad school, she was already feeling a sense of growing disinterest from the broader programming community and more drawn towards artificial intelligence—specifically, towards developing safeguards around it. She would ultimately drop out of grad school, staying active in programming a video game but spending more and more time online discussing the ins and outs of artificial intelligence and future threats to the world. This is where she first encountered the Rationalist community, who were active on numerous blogs that she would become deeply involved with such as LessWrong. Rationalism as presented throughout this article is separate from the Enlightenment-era philosophy of Rene Descartes. Instead, Rationalism here refers to a philosophy and community largely based in the tech-centric Bay Area that focuses on using reason, logic, and evidence-based thinking to make better decisions to improve the world. Its members' main goals are thinking clearly about moral responsibility and preventing existential risks, which often focus on the rise of artificial intelligence. Unlike what you may think of when presented with an online philosophical movement, this was not a group of random, anonymous users spouting off about whatever topic interested them on any given day. Rationalists had considerable ties to large institutions in the Bay Area, including some of the largest tech companies in the world. There are even institutions fully devoted to this approach, such as the Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR), featuring interactive activities and retreats. LaSota, who around this time began to use she/her pronouns and adopt the online name of "Ziz," was immediately captivated. This group focused on a lot of topics that she also was deeply intrigued in and found to be far more meaningful than a more mundane corporate job. As time went on, LaSota found herself—now primarily going by the nickname "Ziz"—spending more and more time online and isolated from the outside world, whether it was on designing her video game or blogging about Rationalism. She was chronically unemployed and while she did apply to some more traditional jobs—at one point, landing one in her field, only to be fired within four days—she rapidly grew disillusioned with the job market as well as the concept of needing to work to pay rent. Having moved to the Bay Area and making it her home, though, she couldn't just up and leave. This was where she wanted to be, and where most of her connections were as well. For anyone familiar with the area, saying that rent isn't exactly cheap is a bit of an understatement. To conserve what cash she had piled up in savings, she began to hop between Air B&B locations monthly, trying to keep herself in the area of the community she became associated with while also beginning to retreat from the world. She was not a complete shut in, though. Around the end of 2015, she would meet someone going by the name of Gwen Danielson through mutual connections inside the Rationalist community. The two immediately clicked over a considerable number of similarities: both were transgender, both were dedicated vegans, and both were deeply concerned about the environment and the rise of artificial intelligence. Most impressive to LaSota was the fact that Gwen, fed up with the cost of living in the area, had "opted out" of the situation by choosing to live aboard a small sailboat full time. While they didn't know it at the time, this initially innocent friendship would be the rock upon which this bloodsoaked cult would be built. ## The Rationalist Years (2016-2018) By this point, Ziz LaSota had completely isolated herself from broader society and was continuing to float between different Air B&Bs, trying to conserve the cash she still had on hand with very little income coming in aside from the occasional odd job or freelance programming. Rent, however, waits for no one—even aspiring philosophical leaders and would-be cult leaders. As the situation grew more desperate, Ziz decided the situation was desperate enough to move aboard Gwen's small boat docked in the Berkeley Marina. And when I say small, I mean small. At just 24 feet long, it did have an enclosed cabin—but it was hardly spacious for one, and two was a crowd. The two friends, longtime ideological allies, were able to make it work—at least at first. The two spent many hours inside discussing and debating the ins and outs of "transness," veganism, Rationalism, artificial intelligence, and general plans to save the world. It wasn't long until issues began to surface, though. Danielson, who suffered from both ADHD and autism, would spend long periods of time talking to herself. While some people may catch themselves doing that from time to time, this was not quite the case. Danielson wouldn't just hold one-way conversations with herself but would rather be in a two-way conversation. Worse yet, any attempt to interrupt these sessions resulted in terrible moods from Gwen that would last all day. Space was also an issue. Accustomed to a three-way monitor setup, getting back into coding in a claustrophobic space with merely a laptop was a hard adjustment for Ziz. This situation could not last long. By 2017, LaSota moved out onto her own sailboat she acquired for $600 and parked it near Gwen's. With two boats parked next to each other, the owners of which both shared the same philosophy, the idea was naturally born in Ziz's head to create the "Rationalist Fleet." She had dreams of hosting a ship where fellow Rationalists could live for cheap in a community of like-minded people. With just two tiny boats, though, they weren't winning an invasion any time soon. They had to expand. LaSota, originally from Alaska, was able to find something that might do: Named the Caleb, it was a 94-foot-long tugboat from World War II. It wasn't going to exactly be a luxury cruise liner, but it was better than nothing. They planned to head to Alaska, buy it, and sail the Caleb down to the Bay Area. Keep in mind that this was not a normal ship, though—it was a tugboat. These things are the equivalent of a cargo-hauling locomotive: they're built for endurance, with the ability to haul boats significantly larger than themselves… slowly. Very, very slowly. The Caleb could, on a good day, do 10 knots per hour. Many modern vessels could do around 20 knots without breaking a sweat. This trip, which would have taken modern vessels two weeks, ultimately took the Caleb more than four. What is a captain without a crew, though? Clearly, there would need to be some recruiting involved. Ziz began to advertise the opportunity to "drive" a tugboat from Alaska to the SF Bay, informing everyone that expenses will be covered. She was able to piece together a crew of five which included: Gwen, herself, a Navy veteran with mechanical experience named Dan Powell, and two others whose identities are kept confidential for privacy reasons. The trip got off to a good start but would quickly take a turn for the worse. It was clear from first setting foot on it that the ship was not in as good condition as they had believed. This initially appeared to largely just be cosmetic, with ample rust throughout the aging vessel. Shortly after setting sail, though, they would discover that the ship had a tendency to list rather dramatically to one side. The ship was old, slow, rusty, and only had one bathroom. Which, to make matters worse for all aboard, stopped working completely shortly after setting sail. This was hardly the voyage that the crew had envisioned signing up for. This was worsened by the atmosphere aboard the ship, specifically from Ziz. While never outright hostile or threatening, something was a bit off. One of the unnamed volunteers would go on to say that while LaSota's views were still broadly within the Rationalist communities', "Ziz was a little on the creepy side, but well below the scary threshold… she was more confident than I thought she had the right to be… and she was abrasive about it." This was nothing new with LaSota, who had developed a reputation for being aggressive on these issues, at one point blogging: "I'm proud of the number of people who have gone vegan because they are afraid of me." By the time that they had reached Washington State, Powell had reached his wit's end with the group. Ziz had allegedly taken it upon herself to confront him as she was convinced Powell was actually transgender as well. After forcefully telling her to drop it, he was done and disembarked in Washington. He severed all ties with LaSota and Danielson after losing what he claimed was tens of thousands of dollars into the project. After a long-delayed docking of the Caleb and establishment of their base of operations in late 2017, larger cracks began to form between LaSota's group and the broader Rationalist movement. While Rationalists were all about self-optimization and thinking of the greater good, LaSota and her followers took this to a whole different level. ## The Birth of Zizianism (2017-2019) With the Caleb now in place and able to host whoever was interested in coming aboard, the Rationalist Fleet was born. It is here that a distinctive "Zizian" philosophy and movement can be seen as emerging. At the heart of this split was the moral supremacy of veganism, which was not embraced by many in the Rationalist community, as well as deeper philosophical and pseudoscientific beliefs about moral dualism inside the body. The scandal of eating meat—a sin of sorts to LaSota, if you will—put on clear display the moral corruption that coursed through the societies she previously was a part of. She could take no more and formally broke off. On a more philosophical level, the group diverged significantly from their Rationalist roots. Writing extensively on her blog, "Sinceriously," Ziz embraced a philosophy of moral dualism within the self: people were divided between two "cores," with most people having one good and one non-good core. Occasionally, some people would have two non-good cores, and she was one of the lucky few to have two good cores. Funny how that sort of luck normally plays out in these scenarios, huh? She came to believe that the overwhelming majority of the world gave into their non-good core through compromise above all else. Merely existing in the world was a form of compromise—going about daily life, working to pay rent, and above all else the consumption of animals was a sign of surrender to the non-good. If this approach sounds radical, it pales in comparison to their prescribed remedies. Compromise was a failure of the highest proportion, so it was better to remove yourself from society than to play a role in it and compromise your values. This included a favorite amongst cults universally: cutting off friends and family who are seen as morally corrupt, or those who question your involvement with such a movement. Gwen in particular would go on to develop a downright dangerous approach to self-improvement involving sleep deprivation, where members would attempt to mimic the "unihemispheric sleep" that animals such as dolphins can achieve. Despite living in the ocean, these mammals breathe oxygen through lungs, not gills. They can hold their breath for long periods of time, but falling asleep like other mammals do would lead them to drown. To prevent this, they've evolved the ability to sleep one side of their brain while keeping the other active to preserve basic functions—unihemispheric sleep. To be clear, the science is in on this. Humans biologically cannot practice unihemispheric sleep. The Zizians were determined not to let science stand in their way and were undeterred. They believed that this could be achieved in humans with sufficient determination and sleep deprivation, through resting with one eye open and focusing exclusively on one object. The logic behind this was that if your non-good core was your left one, you would put that side of your brain to sleep to establish the good core's dominance over it. The issue here, of course, is that sleep deprivation can be immensely harmful to our bodies. We need sleep, and begin suffering from delayed motor functions and impaired judgement after missing even part of one night's sleep, much less several days. This would impact some members more severely than others. A 28-year-old Polish citizen, born Chris Pasek who would later identify as Maia Pasek, began involving himself with the Zizians at some point in 2017. Immediately drawn in due to mutual beliefs surrounding Rationalism, transhumanism, and artificial intelligence, he began experimenting more and more with their philosophy and methodologies. After transitioning, Pasek became an enthusiastic adopted of the unihemispheric sleep approach. This would prove detrimental in her case, ultimately resulting in her committing suicide in early 2018. For Ziz and her followers, this was no tragedy. Pasek was not a victim of a self-improvement approach gone wrong, but rather a martyr. She was someone who refused to compromise with the "non-good" within her, which despite the fatal ending was still preferable to them over giving in to the world around them. While LaSota would go on to claim that unihemispheric sleep "did not doom Pasek," this was cast into doubt by her other writings. In a post titled "Pasek's Doom," she wrote that "Pasek's right hemisphere had been mostly dead" and that "we each went on our own journey of jailbreaking into psychopathy fully". This hardly made for a convincing declaration of innocence. After a rather uneventful year passed, filled with isolation from the outside world aboard the Caleb, Ziz decided it was time for action. The first target would, of course, not be the main intellectual opponents of hers—but rather the Rationalist community. As with many cults, the focus was on targeting those who should have just known better. Enforcing ideological conformity within the cult took precedence over fighting an external enemy. As former members of several Rationalist institutions, it was not especially difficult for them to find an event to target. As it turned out, the Center for Applied Rationality was to hold an event at the Westminster Woods' retreat center in California in just a week. This was perfect. The plan was set: they would arrive before them, and block the Rationalists from gaining access to the retreat center until and unless they were persuaded to adopt more of Ziz's views. This was not going to be an explicitly violent protest, but it wasn't going to be a hold-hands and sing-songs type of event either. They rented a box truck, a shuttle bus, as well as a Toyota Prius (a favorite of theirs for environmental reasons), all for the purpose of blocking the entrance. Four of them—Ziz, Gwen, and two others named Emma Borhanian and Alexander Leatham—arrived at the site dressed in long, flowing black robes donning Guy Fawkes masks. To say that the protest did not go according to plan is a little like saying that cults are only slightly creepy - an understatement if ever there was one. They were mistaken about the dates—they arrived well after the Rationalist retreat began and were closer to their departure rather than arrival. Undeterred, they decided to change their approach: instead of blocking the Rationalists from entering the grounds, they would stop them from leaving. While neither approach was legal, blocking someone from leaving an enclosed area is definitely a notch higher on the "police-get-involved" scale than blocking the entrance would have been. To top things off, the Rationalists were not the only group at the retreat center that day. Apparently unbeknownst to the Zizians, there was a group on the shared ropes course that they were also blocking in. This was a children's group, with 24 young kids now trapped in the compound as well. While undoubtedly terrifying for those being held against their will, the scene is almost comedic in hindsight. Showing up looking like they just stepped out of "V for Vendetta," the group completely botched their timeline and were unaware of the children's group they would be trapping. Panic set in among the counselors, one of whom ended up calling the police alleging to have seen one of the Zizians carrying a gun. What had originally been planned as an event to block the start of a retreat had turned into a Columbine-esque situation, with the police in complete not-screwing-around mode. The response was fast and overwhelming: they quickly had multiple SWAT teams on site, along with multiple armored vehicles and a helicopter. The children were evacuated from the retreat center, sheltering in bulletproof vehicles. The Zizians were immediately arrested on felony child endangerment and false imprisonment, amongst other charges. They would quickly post bail and have their charges reduced to misdemeanors. ## Return to Land By this point, things were not going well for the Zizians at all. Their attempt at protesting the Rationalist retreat had ended in complete disaster, failing to do much of anything other than terrify a group of school children. Publicity surrounding child endangerment typically does not make for many recruits, which meant the crew of the Caleb were more isolated than ever before. To make matters worse, the boat was in worse shape than ever. It began to leak larger and larger quantities of oil into the harbor. The group was struggling just to keep the boat afloat; repairs of that magnitude were out of the question. It got so bad that the Coast Guard deemed the vessel an "imminent threat to public health" and ordered the nearly 3,000 gallons of diesel fuel aboard to be removed. Despite allegedly claiming to be hardcore environmentalists, the group would completely ignore this order, resulting in significant fines for harbor cleanup. By March 2020, the Caleb reached a point of no return. They had to part with the vessel, and decided to anchor it at the harbor's work dock and simply abandoned the ship. Completely unclaimed and unable to find the owners, the ship began to take on water and ultimately sank in the outer parts of the harbor, coming to a stop semi-submerged due to the area's shallow bottom. The 345-ton heap of rusting metal lays off at the entrance to Half Moon Bay to this day, with estimates for removing clocking in at about $2 million. Whether or not the irony of a radical environmentalist group creating a multi-million environmental disaster and abdicating any responsibility for it ever occurred to the Zizians is unclear. All was not lost for the group, though. While struggling with the Caleb, they had befriended a kind older man who frequented the harbor, Curtis Lind. A retired enthusiast of the arts and animal lover himself, he wanted to use some of the money he had accumulated throughout his life to give back by providing living space for artists and the like to take up residence for under-market rates. Ziz was quick to accept his offer, moving in with a small group of dedicated followers to his property and setting up camp in box trucks in early 2020. After originally enjoying a good relationship with Lind, tensions began to surface on a number of issues, with rent being first and foremost. Now, keep in mind that this took place in 2020 at the height of the Covid pandemic. California was one of many states that put a total moratorium on evictions, attempting to prevent people whose jobs were impacted by the virus from losing their homes. While well intentioned, this essentially made rent "optional" for many, which was not lost on the Zizians. It wasn't long before they stopped paying, knowing Lind had little recourse. He was stuck with them. Emboldened by these developments and—for the first time in a long time beginning to attract recruits—they began to expand beyond their original box trucks to trailers intended for others Lind had invited to the property. What this group did all day has never been completely clear. They didn't hold traditional jobs, and they brought a considerable amount of technology. Several were seen walking around completely naked, sometimes talking to themselves. Despite being a peaceful man his whole life, Lind grew scared. He was powerless over these people on his own land, and it became clearer by the day that they were not there to make friends. He applied for a firearms permit and bought a handgun towards the end of 2020, which he increasingly found himself carrying for personal protection in case things took a turn for the worst. Despite his best efforts, he remained unable to remove the Zizians for years to come. This would ultimately come to a head in 2022, when the eviction moratorium was lifted. Around this time, though, a member of the cult called in an emergency from a boat off the coast: Ziz had fallen in and hadn't been seen or heard from since. Had she drowned? Had she swum to some remote shore and was trapped? The Coast Guard was called in, and what began as a search and rescue eventually turned into a recovery mission for a body. They all would turn up empty. No body was found—Ziz was just gone. After nearly two days of around-the-clock searching, the Coast Guard called off the mission. LaSota, presumed dead, would have an obituary run in her hometown's newspaper. Cause of death? A boating accident. You can only imagine the group's reaction after the eviction moratorium was lifted and Lind declared that he wanted the now over $60,000 of back rent the group had failed to pay. There was no way they could even come close to that. Leaderless and staring down the barrel of losing their only base of operations, they decided action must be taken. The plan was set. They lured Lind onto the property under the guise of a maintenance issue. Shortly after entering, Alexander Leatham, Emma Borhanian, and another surrounded him, with Leatham leading the attack using a samurai sword. According to Lind's testimony, he looked down and saw a sword sticking through him. Borhanian would also join in the attack with a knife. It was a complete ambush; he was being stabbed by multiple people from multiple directions. They slashed through his back, on his stomach, across his eye. Unbeknownst to them, Lind was armed that day. He pulled out his pistol, raised it, and fatally shot Borhanian in a desperate attempt to save his own life. He also shot another attacker who would survive the event before fleeing the scene, gushing blood and on death's door himself. Despite being stabbed over 50 times, including multiple times by a sword, Lind would miraculously go on to survive the ordeal—although he would lose his right eye and be deeply traumatized by the ordeal. Despite all this, he never lost his love for nature or animals and would continue to do what he loved most after making a nearly full recovery. ## Freefall The Zizians at this point were entering the final stage of a cult: freefall. They may have believed they were still fighting for what they set out for, but it was a delusion. The movement by this point had all but forgotten its ideological roots of environmentalism. Instead, it rapidly descended into acts of self-preservation and retribution at all costs against anyone who became an inconvenience for them, using the linguistics and structures of their philosophical movement to justify any action they took. They were the good guys—just ask them, they'll tell you. And if you don't agree, that makes you the bad guy. If you've ever read about any of history's most murderous movements, that sentence is likely sounding a warning sign in your brain. Across the centuries, people have used such reasoning to justify all sorts of atrocities. Sadly, the Zizians would soon join their number. On New Year's Eve 2022, Rita and Richard Zajko were spending the evening inside. Having retired years ago in a well-off, quiet neighborhood outside Philadelphia, the two were planning on spending the holiday with each other in their house. That plan was shattered, as they would be slaughtered in their own home that night. As they lived alone, it wasn't until several days later that they were found by a police officer doing a wellness check. Both had been shot in the head—Rita from behind, her husband Richard, from the side. Their only daughter, Michelle, was shortly thereafter brought in for questioning by police in her hometown of Vermont. As coincidence would have it, she was a Zizian herself—and set to be the sole inheritor of her parents' estate as their only child. What's more, she was in possession of a firearm that not only fired the same caliber bullets as were found at the murder scene, but had purchased bullets made by the same manufacturer as well. Naturally, they applied for and were granted a search warrant. Zajko at this point was in Pennsylvania for her parents' funeral, where Pennsylvania State Troopers received a separate search warrant and stormed the Candlewood Suites hotel looking for her. After breaking down the door, the State Troopers did not find a gun. But what they did find was even more bizarre—Jack "Ziz" LaSota, alive and breathing (despite attempts to play dead to conceal this). It was a completely ridiculous scene: the State Troopers quickly figured out that Ziz was in fact alive, but they just couldn't get her to cooperate. Ziz went limp any time they attempted to move her, and would do so for hours—a police officer had to hold her head up for her mugshot. Both would be taken into custody, although they would both ultimately be released due to lack of sufficient evidence to link them to the murder at the time. After almost two years of laying low, the Zizians would find themselves back in the news in early 2025. During a traffic stop on January 20, Border Patrol Agent David Maland pulled over a blue Toyota Prius. Inside the vehicle were Teresa Youngblut and Felix Bauckholt—who also went by the name of Ophelia—both Zizians, both with strong academic backgrounds. Bauckholt in particular is a fascinating case: previously making over $500,000 a year on Wall Street, aged just 26, he left his previous life behind to join the group. This stop was not quite random. The two had been under surveillance for some time after exhibiting bizarre behavior in public, including wearing tactical gear such as military-grade gas masks in public and openly carrying around firearms. Agent Maland was the initial officer to pull them over, but two more squad cars quickly joined him as backup. Inside the car, the Zizians had large amounts of tactical gear that they knew getting caught with would lead to further arrests. While the motivations for what would come next are partially conjecture, it is suspected that the two believed that they had to act before more reinforcements arrived. About 15 minutes into the stop, a gunshot rang out. Then another, then another. Catching Agent Maland completely off guard, one of the two in the stopped vehicle fatally shot him. The other two officers already on scene quickly returned fire—both the driver and the passenger would be shot. Youngblut survived; Bauckholt was killed in the firefight. This should be considered as nothing short of the cult exerting its last, dying breath in a wave of desperate violence against anyone who stood in their way or had previously wronged them—but they were getting careless. Not only was this yet another case of the Zizians being tied to violence, but the weapons used on the attack on Border Patrol agents were registered to none other than Michelle Zajko. She would shortly thereafter be arrested along with Ziz, who had continued to live together after their run-ins with law enforcement in 2023, both on charges of firearms possessions, as well as obstructing and hindering investigations. The Zizians had made it clear that anyone who stood in their way was a threat who needed to be dealt with. Unfortunately, this would not be the end of their killing spree: the trial against Zizian members for the assault of Curtis Lind was set to begin in just a few weeks. The prosecution argued that as Lind was forced to defend himself, the Zizians were responsible for the death of Emma Borhanian. Their only witness? Lind himself, now 82 years old. Sneaking up to his house in the dark and hiding out of sight one cold January evening was Maximillian Snyder, partner to none other than Teresa Youngblut and a card-carrying Zizian himself. After Lind stepped outside his house, Snyder pounced. Lind never saw it coming, and didn't stand a chance against the attack. He would have his throat slit by Snyder and bled out at the scene. Youngblut and Snyder, despite bright, promising academic backgrounds, were now in jail on murder charges. ## Closing Thoughts This group is a very unique example of how otherwise successful people can become radicalized. Oftentimes, those who get caught up in cults are those who have gone through some great suffering in life and become radicalized as a result of being ostracized from society. While this can be seen to some extent with the Zizians—take LaSota struggling to hold down a job, being fired within four days, and so on—many others were quite different, enjoying large salaries at prestigious companies or attending some of the world's top schools. Maximilian Snyder, for instance, was a student studying computer science at Oxford University—one of the most prestigious institutions in the world. Despite this, he was socially isolated and quickly got caught up in the Zizian movement after developing a relationship with Teresa Youngblut, who he had met prior to attending university at his prestigious Lakeside School in his home state of Washington. They had applied for a marriage license in November 2024, just a few months before the killing spree. Originally bound together by a seemingly genuine concern for the future on issues ranging from the environment to artificial intelligence, the group's increased radicalization led to a belief that their internal moral superiority justified just about any action they might take—even when those ran completely contrary to their original mission. As a result, six people are now dead through a tragic cascading sequence of suicides and murders. What started out as protesting those deemed to be the "ideological enemy" devolved into the brutal murder of an 82-year-old man for past disputes over rent and the murder of a retired couple living a quiet, peaceful life. This is not to mention the trauma the children at the retreat center went through after being evacuated through armored police vehicles. All this was done for what? Despite all of their violence, no progress was made on any of their main concerns. Their largest impact, aside from on the families of those who were lost to this cult, was the multi-million-dollar environmental disaster that was the semi-submerged Caleb, still standing as a testament to this group's carelessness in Half Moon Bay today. ## Key Takeaways - The Zizians began as a group of isolated, radicalized computer scientists with extreme views on veganism, transgenderism, AI, and environmentalism. - Jack LaSota, the founder, transitioned and became known as Ziz, leading the group through increasing isolation and extremism. - The group's philosophy evolved into a dangerous cult, promoting moral dualism and extreme self-improvement methods like unihemispheric sleep. - The Zizians committed multiple violent acts, including murders and attacks, driven by their belief in moral superiority and retribution. - Despite their initial concerns for the future, the Zizians' actions resulted in tragedy and environmental damage, with no progress on their main issues. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Who founded the Zizians? Jack LaSota, who later transitioned to identify as a woman, founded the Zizians. ### What were the main philosophical beliefs of the Zizians? The Zizians believed in veganism, transgenderism, artificial intelligence panic, and environmentalism. They also embraced a philosophy of moral dualism within the self, believing people were divided between two 'cores,' with most people having one good and one non-good core. ### What was the Rationalist Fleet? The Rationalist Fleet was an idea conceived by Jack LaSota to create a community of like-minded Rationalists living on boats. It started with two small sailboats and later included a 94-foot-long tugboat named the Caleb. ### What was the significance of the Westminster Woods protest? The Westminster Woods protest was an attempt by the Zizians to block Rationalists from accessing a retreat center. It ended in disaster when they arrived after the retreat had started and trapped a group of children, leading to their arrest on felony child endangerment and false imprisonment charges. ### What happened to the tugboat Caleb? The Caleb, which was in poor condition, began to leak oil into the harbor. The Coast Guard deemed it an 'imminent threat to public health' and ordered the removal of its diesel fuel. The group ignored the order, resulting in significant fines. Eventually, the Caleb sank in the harbor and remains there today. ### Who was Curtis Lind and what was his connection to the Zizians? Curtis Lind was an older man who befriended the Zizians and offered them living space on his property. Tensions arose over rent, and the group stopped paying. Lind was later attacked and severely injured by members of the Zizians, who were trying to prevent their eviction. ### What was the outcome of the traffic stop that led to the death of Border Patrol Agent David Maland? During a traffic stop, Teresa Youngblut and Felix Bauckholt, both members of the Zizians, fatally shot Border Patrol Agent David Maland. The two were under surveillance for exhibiting bizarre behavior in public and were found with large amounts of tactical gear in their vehicle. ### What was the final act of violence committed by the Zizians? The final act of violence was the murder of Curtis Lind, who was the main witness in an upcoming murder trial against Zizian members. Maximillian Snyder, a member of the Zizians, slit Lind's throat, leading to Snyder and Teresa Youngblut being arrested on murder charges. ### What was the impact of the Zizians' actions on their original goals? Despite their violence, the Zizians made no progress on their main concerns such as environmentalism and artificial intelligence. Their largest impact was the multi-million-dollar environmental disaster caused by the sinking of the Caleb. ### What was the significance of the name 'Ziz'? The name 'Ziz' was the online nickname adopted by Jack LaSota after transitioning and becoming deeply involved in the Rationalist community. The name became associated with the Zizians and their philosophy. ## Sources - [Original Into the Shadows video: Gangs: The Zizians](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heteS5ZmkK4) - [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Canadian_National_Vimy_Memorial.jpg) by Kilyann Le Hen / openverse, by. ## Related Coverage