A 'death cult' on the run: The Bay Area fringe group terrorizing America

Strange new details have emerged about the Bay Area Zizian cult

SFist, California/February 13, 2025

By Andrew Chamings, Katie Dowd

A sprawling web of violence across America, which has left at least six dead, has been linked to a fringe group of radical Berkeley pseudo-intellectuals known as the Zizians. Investigators across the country are piecing together connections between the double homicide of a wealthy married couple in Pennsylvania, a deadly shootout in Vermont and two brutal knife attacks on a landlord in Vallejo. Four people who are allegedly Zizian cult members are in custody facing homicide charges, despite multiple escape attempts. Three members of the fringe group are missing and wanted, including the leader, Jack “Ziz” LaSota, who faked their death in the San Francisco Bay.

Around a dozen individuals appear to have in-person links to Ziz, some of whom worked at NASA and Google before the arrests began. Many of them advocate for veganism and identify as transgender. Some met through the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, a Berkeley nonprofit buoyed by Peter Thiel and Sam Bankman-Fried and associated with the rationalist movement; MIRI teaches scientific techniques to enhance human decision-making and warns about human destruction brought on by the rise in AI.

Here’s what we know about the group members and their current whereabouts.

Jack ‘Ziz’ LaSota

Jack Amadeus “Ziz” LaSota is the namesake and most influential member of the fringe group of radical Bay Area rationalists connected to the recent spate of violence.

LaSota, who goes by the name “Ziz,” was born in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1991. After studying computer science at the University of Fairbanks, where their father is currently employed, Ziz interned at NASA and moved to California in 2016. “I moved to the Bay Area for proximity to the tech industry which I considered sort of my destiny,” Ziz wrote in a 2019 blog post.

Ziz’s attempts to make it in tech in Silicon Valley were a failure. For a time, they lived in a communal duplex on Alcatraz Avenue in Berkeley while trying to find work. On their blog, Ziz detailed getting fired from a startup job and struggling to make rent, referring to the Bay Area as “hell.”

In 2017, Ziz and some associates sailed a rusty tugboat named “Caleb” from Alaska to Half Moon Bay, with plans to live rent-free on the water as part of what they called the “Rationalist Fleet.” In a video montage of the trip, set to the Lonely Island’s “I’m on a Boat,” Ziz appears to be in the final shot in a Jedi-like black hooded robe. The dream of living rent-free on the ocean soon sank, after money got tight and Ziz, a strict vegan, tried to make some cash taking crabbers out to drop their pots off Half Moon Bay. The abandoned tugboat currently sits half submerged near Pillar Point Harbor. Later, Ziz lived with another member of the group, Gwen Danielson, on a sailboat in Berkeley Marina, but complained that they didn’t have enough room there to code. “Couldn’t set up my 3 monitors, there was no room,” Ziz wrote. “Couldn’t have a programming flow state for 9 hours.”

Ziz was an active contributor to online rationalist forums like LessWrong and their own blog, which was filled with incomprehensible self-important jargon and video game analogies. There, they discussed saving the world through rationalism, using sociopathy to avoid being “pwnd” and fantasies about killing their abusers.

Ziz pondered in posts what would happen if society were to “strip away ‘morality.’” They wrote of “evil people ganging up to kill off good people.” Another post stated that the Rationalist Fleet’s goals “ultimately required sociopathy.”

They also practiced “unihemispheric sleep” or “partial sleep,” a scientifically dubious technique apparently developed by Danielson, in which one half of the brain rests while the other is active. A later anonymous blog post accused Ziz of using the technique as a form of sleep deprivation to manipulate followers. The post alleged partial sleep was used on a Zizian in Poland named Maia Pasek, who was born Chris Pasek and transitioned later in life. A post from Pasek’s online alter ego, Squirrel in Hell, titled “Decision Theory and Suicide” has been referenced as a possible suicide note. A 28-year-old named Chris Pasek died in Slaskie, Poland, a few weeks later, although SFGATE could not confirm this was the same person.

In 2019, Ziz and three associates — Danielson, Emma Borhanian and Alexander Leatham — turned their online complaints against the rationalist community into a very real, and strange, protest.

The foursome descended on a summer alumni retreat held by the Center for Applied Rationality at the Westminster Woods children’s camp in Sonoma County, where they donned Guy Fawkes masks and handed out flyers accusing the organization of anti-trans discrimination and sexual misconduct. They were arrested and charged with trespassing and child endangerment. Ziz and the others later sued Sonoma County, alleging abuse while they were in custody.

In 2022, in an apparent attempt to evade the law, Ziz faked their own death. A U.S. Coast Guard report stated that Ziz went overboard in San Francisco Bay at approximately 11 p.m. on Aug. 19, 2022, at the midpoint between Oakland Airport and Candlestick Point. Despite hours of searching — in calm seas and clear weather on a 60-degree night — Coast Guard members found no trace of Ziz. An obituary posted to Legacy.com appeared not long after, stating only that LaSota “left our lives but not our hearts on Aug. 19 after a boating accident. Loving adventure, friends and family, music, blueberries, biking, computer games and animals, you are missed.”

Ziz was found to be very much alive a year later when they were arrested in Pennsylvania in connection with the killings of Richard and Rita Zajko, the parents of another Zizian, Michelle Zajko. During a search of a hotel room in Chester City, Pennsylvania, where Michelle Zajko was staying, Ziz was found lying on the floor. They refused to move, open their eyes or speak, the arresting officer said. Ziz was charged with obstruction of justice and disorderly conduct and eventually released on bail after five months in jail.

Ziz is wanted by authorities in California and Pennsylvania. Their current whereabouts are unknown.

Emma Borhanian

Emma Borhanian was shot dead by Vallejo landlord Curtis Lind in 2022 after Zizians who lived on Lind’s property allegedly attacked him with knives and a samurai sword. Lind was 80 at the time. The parcel of land, on a dead-end street near the Napa River at 633 Third St., was home to numerous recreational vehicles and trailers that had been kitted out for computer programming by the group.

Borhanian was born in South Carolina in 1991 and grew up in North Carolina. She was diagnosed with Asperger’s in her youth and transitioned to female at the age of 21. Borhanian exhibited “brilliant” intelligence as a child and started computer programming in sixth grade, a person close to her, who was granted anonymity due to safety concerns in accordance with Hearst’s ethics policy, told SFGATE.

As a teenager, Borhanian would scour Google’s code and identify mistakes, for which the company would send her money, the person close to Emma remembered. Around 2013, she moved to the Bay Area to work officially for Google, first as an apprentice and then as a programmer, winning awards for her work. During this period, Borhanian lived in various places around the Bay Area, including Mountain View, Albany and Berkeley. (Google did not return a request for comment for this story.)

Borhanian later became disillusioned with Google, telling her family the company was “corrupt.” She grew concerned about the threat of AI and started spending time with the MIRI community in Berkeley, to which she donated $12,000. (MIRI’s website lists Borhanian’s contribution, alongside much larger donations from Peter Thiel’s Thiel Foundation and Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research.) Through the rationalist community, Borhanian met other Zizians, including Ziz, Danielson and Alex Leatham, but the foursome soon turned on the rationalist movement, accusing it of anti-trans beliefs.

The group’s protest against the rationalist community in Westminster Woods in 2019, and its subsequent court case against Sonoma County, appears to have radicalized it further.

By 2022, Borhanian was living at Lind’s Vallejo property in a modified trailer fitted out with computers and solar panels. The tenants, who numbered over 20 at times, were often referred to as a “cult” by neighbors and seen walking around in the nude, talking to themselves and wearing gas masks. (A Google Streetview image of the property taken in August 2022 reveals a semi-naked figure bending over next to a red Toyota Prius.)

Lind alleged the attack happened on Nov. 13, 2022, after he was asked to come to the property to check on a water leak. The Zizians dispute this version of events, alleging that Lind had been harassing them for months. Sometime during the attack, in which Lind was impaled through the chest with a sword and lost an eye, he shot at the group, injuring Leatham and killing Borhanian.

Borhanian is buried in Oakland.

Lind was killed on the property in January 2025, in an alleged attempt to stop him from testifying in the upcoming trial against Leatham and another tenant, Suri Dao. Leatham and Dao are accused of the attempted murder of Lind, along with Borhanian’s killing, in the 2022 knife attack. Prosecutors allege it was their actions, not Lind’s self-defense, that led to her death. The case against Dao and Leatham is set to go to trial in April.

Maximilian Snyder

Maximilian Snyder, a 22-year-old Oxford-educated data scientist and Dungeons and Dragons enthusiast, is currently awaiting trial in Lind’s homicide, for which he could face the death penalty.

Snyder had allegedly been loitering on the street near the Vallejo property in January, wearing all black and peeking through windows. Eyewitnesses told the San Francisco Chronicle that on Jan. 17, Snyder approached Lind, put an arm around his neck and then stabbed him repeatedly with a long knife. He walked away and then returned to Lind and slit his throat, prosecutors allege. (The Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms.)

Snyder is an accomplished pianist and has published articles on becoming an “absurdly strong” wizard in the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, according to his LinkedIn profile, which also states Snyder attended Oxford University from 2020 to 2024, studying computer science and philosophy. (Oxford University did not return a request for comment by publication time.)

More recently, he lived in a condo in Kirkland, northeast of Seattle, that is owned by his mother.

“I would like to help advance the technological frontier of humanity in a responsible manner,” Snyder wrote on his LinkedIn profile prior to his arrest. He denied being friends with Ziz in a statement given to the San Francisco Chronicle from jail.

Snyder’s next court appearance is scheduled for Feb. 21.

Teresa Youngblut

Teresa Youngblut, a 21-year-old from Washington state, is the center of some of the biggest mysteries in the ongoing case. Youngblut and Snyder, who is a year older, both attended Lakeside School, one of Seattle’s most elite private high schools. Former classmates told the Seattle Times that Youngblut and Snyder didn’t appear to be friends at that time and that Snyder contacted Youngblut on Instagram after graduation, when the two began a relationship. Youngblut attended the University of Washington, where she studied computer science.

At some point over the past year, the Times reported, Youngblut began cutting ties with friends and family, eventually disappearing altogether. In May 2024, her parents reported her missing to police. She resurfaced in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in November, putting down $10,000 to rent an Airbnb through March. That same month, Youngblut and Snyder applied for a marriage license in Washington on Guy Fawkes Night, Nov. 5, 2024.

Around Jan. 15, Youngblut and German national Ophelia Bauckholt checked into the Newport City Inn and Suites in Vermont. The motel was about a 6-mile drive from a property owned by fellow Zizian Michelle Zajko. It’s not known if they intended to meet with Zajko, but motel workers did observe Youngblut and Bauckholt acting strangely. They wore all black, openly carried guns and wrapped their phones in aluminum foil. A motel worker alerted police to their suspicious behavior, prompting the pair to be put under surveillance.

On Jan. 20 — three days after Lind was killed in Vallejo — U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland pulled over the pair’s Toyota Prius. According to investigators, Bauckholt pulled out a gun, prompting a shootout that killed her and Maland. Youngblut was arrested and now faces assault charges in Vermont.

What drew Youngblut and Bauckholt to Vermont remains a mystery, as does Youngblut’s connection to LaSota and her current relationship with Snyder.

Ophelia Bauckholt

Ophelia Bauckholt, 26, was born in Germany and was named Felix before transitioning to female later in life. Loved ones described her as a math genius, awing friends with her intelligence and scoring a $500,000-a-year job at a New York trading firm, straight out of university. For a time, she had a thriving social life, but in 2023, as friends told NBC News, Bauckholt’s personality began to change. She was evasive about her phone calls and wouldn’t tell friends where she was taking weekend trips. In November 2023, she reportedly took a flight out of Newark Liberty International Airport and disappeared off the map.

“She is very naive, altruistic and trusting,” a former roommate told NBC News, “and that makes her exploitable.”

It appears she ended up in Chapel Hill, where an Airbnb owner rented a unit to her and a man whose identity is currently unknown. “They were always wearing black and in the back of my mind, this entire time, I’m just thinking, ‘What is going on with these people?’” the Airbnb owner told the Associated Press.

According to the landlord, who also rented a unit to Youngblut, a box truck was sometimes parked out front of the rental. On occasion, they saw Bauckholt running an electrical cord into the truck. In January, Bauckholt died in the shootout with Border Patrol Agent David Maland after traveling with Youngblut to Vermont.

A friend of Bauckholt’s, Jessica Taylor, told Open Vallejo she had warned Bauckholt about the Zizians, describing the group on X as a “death cult.”

Suri Dao

Details are slim about Suri Dao, one of two people charged in connection with the melee at Lind’s property. Dao, 23, was allegedly part of the group that attacked Lind in November 2022, resulting in the death of Borhanian. Dao was taken into custody and charged with first-degree murder.

According to court records reviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle, Dao has allegedly been in communication with Ziz since being put in custody. Ziz reportedly encouraged Dao to escape from jail, prompting Dao to attempt to flee from her cell. In 2023, Solano County court records show that Dao underwent mental health hearings, including testimony from doctors. It appears she was transferred to a state hospital to await trial, as she no longer appears in the Solano County inmate roster.

Dao’s next court appearance is scheduled for Feb. 19.

Alexander Leatham

Also in Solano County jail is Alexander “Somni” Leatham. Although jail records identify the 29-year-old as male, Leatham identifies as female. Leatham was present at the Westminster Woods camp protest and is responsible for stabbing Lind in the torso with a sword, investigators said.

Details are thin about Leatham’s life, but it appears she grew up in the Los Angeles area. While at Yale in 2019, her sister wrote about growing up with Leatham in a column called “Act Your Gender.” She described Alex as a “crafty boy-scout-boy” who now “wears dresses more often than I do.”

Since being taken into custody, Leatham has made at least two escape attempts. In one attempt, Leatham was at a Vacaville hospital, accompanied by a deputy, when she feigned falling asleep. The deputy went to use the restroom, and Leatham made a run for the door. She was quickly apprehended and charged with another felony for fleeing custody, jail records show. Like Dao, she is next due in Solano County Superior Court on Feb. 19.

Michelle Zajko

Michelle Zajko is another highly educated member of the Zizian group. She received a master’s degree in bioinformatics from Temple University. According to her LinkedIn, Zajko began working for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in 2015, where she analyzed “blood samples and physiological data to determine how predictive miRNAs are of neurobehavioral susceptibility in sleep deprived individuals.” A spokesperson from the hospital told SFGATE Zajko is no longer employed there.

It appears Zajko fell into Ziz’s orbit through a series of comments they left on each other’s posts online. Like many who know Ziz, Zajko’s relationship with them was tempestuous; in one February 2022 blog post, Zajko wrote that Ziz had threatened to kill her.

How they met in person is a mystery, but on Dec. 31, 2022, a Ring camera in a Chester Heights, Pennsylvania, neighborhood caught the sound of someone screaming for their mother. Two days later, police conducting a welfare check in the neighborhood discovered the Zajkos — Rita, 69, and Richard, 72 — shot to death in their home. Investigators made contact with their daughter Michelle at her home in Orleans, Vermont. Ten days later, she was back in Pennsylvania, where investigators served a warrant on her Chester County Airport hotel room. In another room at the hotel, police found Ziz with Daniel Blank, 26, another known member of the Zizian group. This is the last known contact anyone has had with Zajko and Blank, who was reported missing later in 2023.

According to law enforcement, she is a person of interest in her parents’ deaths. Court records indicate investigators believe she also bought the handguns used by Bauckholt and Youngblut in their Vermont shootout with Border Patrol. Zajko is currently on the run.

Gwen Danielson

Little is known about Gwen Danielson, beyond the fact that she was once an integral part of Ziz’s group, who sometimes fought with the leader, and later also appears to have faked her own death.

In Ziz’s lengthy, rambling blog posts on the group’s attempts to live aboard the rusty tugboat on Half Moon Bay, Danielson receives most mentions, with Ziz often commenting on the power dynamic between the two.

“Gwen and me were living on Caleb. And we were running out of money,” one post begins. Ziz goes on to call Danielson a “money vampire” who used mind control against them. Ziz details a moment at night on the boat where they stood up in the darkness, ready to attack Danielson. “We might as well try to kill each other right then and there,” Ziz wrote.

At some point, to make ends meet, it appears that Danielson worked selling flowers in a Bay Area Costco. At a rationalist event in 2017, Danielson taught a controversial sleep technique involving “separating” the two hemispheres of the brain — the same technique Ziz would later be accused of using to manipulate followers.

Danielson was arrested at the Westminster Woods rationalist protest in 2019. She was then 25 years old and listed as “transient,” according to news reports at the time. Named a plaintiff in the subsequent court case against Sonoma County, Danielson accused sheriff’s deputies of anti-trans abuse while she was in custody.

That suit ended in unusual fashion in 2023, when the group’s lawyer, Jerold Friedman, withdrew the case because three of his four clients were “definitely or possibly deceased.”

“I heard rumor that Gwen Danielson may have committed suicide,” Friedman said. “I have since attempted to contact Gwen Danielson by the same means that we usually communicate including by e-mail and phone approximately ten times.”

Her last known contact with her lawyer occurred on Jan. 21, 2022.

The FBI declined to comment on its investigation into the Zizians for this story but pointed toward the wider conspiracy in a statement issued after Teresa Youngblut’s arrest.

“Teresa Youngblut is believed to have associations with other individuals suspected of violent acts in multiple states, to include Pennsylvania and California,” Sarah Ruane, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Albany, New York, office said in a statement. “The FBI is coordinating information sharing on any case related details with our partners from various law enforcement agencies to effectively follow every lead and aggressively investigate these connections.”

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