Member of Zizian group says she did not kill her parents

CONCORD, N.H. – The girl of a Pennsylvania mates whose deaths are among six connected to a cultlike radical says she has been falsely accused of sidesplitting her parents.

Michelle Zajko’s denial was portion of a 20-page handwritten “Open Letter to the World” her lawyer provided to The Associated Press connected Tuesday. Dated March 9, the missive besides attempts to support Jack LaSota, besides known arsenic Ziz, whom authorities person described arsenic the evident person of an “extremist group” called the Zizians.

“You, the public, are being lied to,” Zajko wrote. “And portion I don’t committedness to reply each your questions, I deliberation the information astir my friends and I volition marque a batch much consciousness than what you’ve been speechmaking astir successful the papers.”

The radical has been linked to killings successful Vermont, Pennsylvania and California. A cross-country probe into LaSota and the Zizians broke unfastened successful January erstwhile 1 subordinate of the radical died and different was arrested aft the shooting decease of U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland successful Vermont.

Authorities accidental Zajko provided the weapon that was utilized successful the Vermont shooting, and successful February, she, LaSota and different subordinate were arrested successful Maryland and charged with trespassing, obstructing instrumentality enforcement and amerciable weapon possession aft a antheral told constabulary that 3 “suspicious” radical parked container trucks connected his spot and asked to campy there.

She besides was questioned but not charged successful transportation with the deaths of her parents, Rita and Richard Zajko, who were changeable and killed successful their Chester Heights, Pennsylvania, location connected New Year’s Eve 2022. A fewer weeks later, LaSota was charged with disorderly behaviour aft refusing to cooperate with officers investigating the deaths, but Zajko said LaSota was conscionable “in the incorrect spot astatine the incorrect time.”

“The constabulary lied to her & told her that I had confessed (to thing I didn’t do),” she wrote.

“My friends and I are being described arsenic similar Satan’s lapdogs, the devil & the Manson household each rolled into one,” she wrote. “These papers are flagrantly lying. For instance, determination were nary truck-fulls of guns, nary instrumentality gun, & I didn’t execution my parents.”

Members of the Zizian radical besides person been tied to the decease of 1 of their ain during an onslaught connected a California landlord successful November 2022 and the landlord’s consequent sidesplitting successful January. Maximilian Snyder, who is charged with sidesplitting landlord Curtis Lind, had applied for a matrimony licence with Teresa Youngblut, who is accused of shooting astatine the Border Patrol cause successful Vermont. But Zajko said Youngblut had fled from Snyder successful November.

“The newspapers bash not look to recognize that determination are aggregate groups, & that my friends & I are not with Snyder,” she wrote.

Youngblut is accused of firing astatine Maland during a postulation halt and has pleaded not blameworthy to national firearms charges. Felix Bauckholt, a rider successful the car, besides was killed successful a shootout.

Bauckholt and LaSota were surviving unneurotic successful North Carolina arsenic precocious arsenic this winter, according to their landlord, who besides was renting a duplex to Youngblut successful the aforesaid neighborhood. Zajko’s lawyer said Tuesday that Zajko besides had been surviving successful North Carolina earlier the radical moved northbound to Frostburg, Maryland.

“The quality media has utterly terrified this tiny municipality into reasoning we were present to wounded them,” wrote Zajko, who said their lone plans were “eating (vegan) brushed pretzels with guacamole, repairing a diesel heater, & camping.”

Zajko besides alleges that LaSota and others were victims of a smear run led by radical associated with rationalism, a question that seeks to recognize quality cognition and code the imaginable dangers of artificial intelligence. “Stalkers and abusers” wrong the assemblage person tried to discredit Zizians for trying to exposure intersexual maltreatment wrong rationalist organizations, she said.

She described LaSota arsenic an bonzer person who rescued her from an abusive relationship.

“Ziz is not my leader, and I americium not her’s. What we person is called friendship, and I emotion her infinitely much than I could ever express," she wrote. “She doesn't merit her atrocious reputation. She deserves to beryllium free.”

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