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THIS JUST IN ~ CURRENT CRIME STORIES #2 (4 Viewers)

Tresir said:
Yep. Four murders including the Border guy and nobody seems to be even reporting on it. There is probably more they don't know about. It's crazy when you think of the media attention the murder of the NY insurance guy received.

These are federal crimes too as they have crossed state borders, same as Mangione.
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Makes me think of all the drones we had all through the northeast us NJ NH MA NY VT CT, ME, it could add up lol
 
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Cousin Dupree said:
Well, they're vegans, so we know they didn't cannibalize them.
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The DM have it all in this one crazy article. Checkout the mugshots.

www.dailymail.co.uk

The tech genius accused of faking her death and leading a 'death cult'

Jack LaSota was a highly-educated whizz kid who moved to the Bay Area to pursue a career in tech. Now known as 'Ziz,' she allegedly runs a radical vegan cult tied to a string of murders.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk

There was the attack on the 80-year-old man, leaving him blind in one eye and with a Samurai sword sticking out of his chest.

Two years later, an assailant returned to finish the job, slashing the now-82-year-old's throat in broad daylight outside his home.

There was the New Year's Eve execution-style murders of a couple in their Pennsylvania home.

And there was the Inauguration Day shootout between two suspects and Border Patrol agents in Vermont, which left an agent and one of the suspects dead.

On their own, these cases are each shocking. And on the surface, they appear to be unconnected.

Yet, each of these horror events lead back to a loosely-connected radical group of highly educated, vegan and mostly transgender women that's been described as a cult and dubbed by online observers as the 'Zizians'.

Described as a 'death cult' by those in the know, Zizianism is an extreme offshoot of the rationalist movement - a philosophical movement based on the belief that reason is the primary source of knowledge - according to Open Vallejo.

At the heart of the Zizian cult lies a figurehead who goes by the name Ziz - an individual previously known as Jack Amadeus LaSota. Now, LaSota is a wanted fugitive in two states.

Jack LaSota is allegedly the figurehead at the center of a radical cult made up of highly educated, vegan and mostly transgender female members known as the Zizians

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Jack LaSota is allegedly the figurehead at the center of a radical cult made up of highly educated, vegan and mostly transgender female members known as the Zizians
It's a knotty, tangled web of violence, murder and faking deaths.

So how did this privileged, highly-intelligent, 34-year-old computer programmer wind up at the heart of a sprawling case that has perplexed and sent shockwaves across America?

Technological advancements seemed part of LaSota's DNA. Her father, Dan, is an AI researcher for the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

LaSota followed a similar path, graduating from the University of Alaska Fairbanks with a degree in computer engineering.

She interned at NASA and Oracle and, like many young tech entrepreneurs, 'moved to the Bay Area for proximity to the tech industry which I considered sort of my destiny,' she wrote in a 2019 blog post.

There, she had a stint at Google, took part in an apprenticeship by the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) and the Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR) and became part of a rationalist movement in Berkeley, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Jessica Taylor, a former research fellow at the AI research non-profit MIRI told DailyMail.com she met LaSota around 2015 or 2016 at an MIRI or rationalist event.

'We talked about things like when people make commitments (like New Year's resolutions) that try to coerce or bind their future self and how this is confused and alternatives to it,' she said, adding that these are 'fairly normal ideas for self-help or rationality around CFAR.'

Taylor said it was only later that 'stuff got weird' and more extreme, pushing the belief that people have 'conflict between their two brain hemispheres, only one of which is good.'

Curtis Lind, 82, was stabbed to death in front of his home (pictured) on January 17 2025, two years after surviving a similar attack

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Curtis Lind, 82, was stabbed to death in front of his home (pictured) on January 17 2025, two years after surviving a similar attack
In the 2022 attack, Curtis Lind, 82, (pictured) was impaled with a Samurai sword and lost his right eye

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In the 2022 attack, Curtis Lind, 82, (pictured) was impaled with a Samurai sword and lost his right eye
LaSota began sharing these ideas and beliefs in a blog, titled Sinceriously.

Taylor said LaSota amassed something of a following through the blog, including her own friend Felix Baukholt, who went by the name Ophelia.

The lengthy blog posts, which ran from 2016 to 2019, included titles such as 'My Journey to the Dark Side,' 'Vampires and More Undeath,' 'Punching Evil,' 'Self-Blackmail' and 'Engineering and Hacking Your Mind.'

In one, LaSota described 2016 as the year she made a 'turn to the dark side.'

But it was 2019 when LaSota first hit headlines.

LaSota and three alleged accomplices - Alexander 'Somni' Leatham, Emma Borhanian and Gwen Danielson - descended on CFAR's annual retreat in Westminster Woods, Sonoma County, that November and barricaded the exits.

The four protesters were dressed in black robes and Guy Fawkes masks and had flyers railing against the two nonprofit rationalist organizations CFAR and MIRI, the San Francisco Chronicle reported at the time.

'CFAR does not do remotely what they claim to do on their website: they do not appreciably develop novel rationality/mental tech,' one of the flyers claimed, per the Chronicle. 'CFAR's founding premise (that people were blocked in having the tools to think) was falsified long ago.'

Jack LaSota began sharing these ideas and beliefs in a blog, titled Sinceriously

Jack LaSota began sharing these ideas and beliefs in a blog, titled Sinceriously
Jerold Friedman, an attorney who represented the group in a subsequent civil case, told DailyMail.com that the group was actually protesting over their belief that people at the event were engaged in pedophilia.

Friedman said he never saw any evidence to back up those claims. He said his clients claimed to have evidence to support their beliefs but the case was dismissed before it reached the point where such evidence would be shared.

DailyMail.com has contacted CFAR and MIRI for comment.

All four protesters were arrested on charges including conspiracy, obstructing an officer and wearing a mask for an unlawful purpose.

To defense attorney Dan Kapelovitz, who represented LaSota in the criminal case, it was 'a classic case of someone being overcharged and falsely accused.'

'LaSota seemed like a very kind and thoughtful person who cared about animals and protested against injustice,' he told DailyMail.com.

The criminal case ended up stalling in the courts for years.

Meanwhile, the four defendants filed a civil suit against Sonoma County alleging mistreatment following their arrests, including being deprived of food, water and sleep in jail.

Emma Borhanian (pictured) and Alexander Leatham were both charged over the 2019 protest with LaSota

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Emma Borhanian (pictured) and Alexander Leatham were both charged over the 2019 protest with LaSota
Leatham (pictured) and Borhanian were then both allegedly involved in the attack on Curtis Lind

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Leatham (pictured) and Borhanian were then both allegedly involved in the attack on Curtis Lind

Friedman said he was hired by the group because, like them, he is vegan and 'they wanted someone who shared their values.'

From what he saw, this was a group of 'passionate,' 'non-violent' young people.

'These were four kids that just struck me as very cohesive, very passionate and who cared about the state of the world and not just themselves,' he said.

'They were committed to veganism and cared about the relationship between humans and animals. They cared about pedophilia and cared about children… They very much believed in what they believed in. They were passionate and, as far as I saw, non-violent.'

In the spring of 2022, the case then took a bizarre turn.

Friedman said he received information that Danielson had died by suicide.

Then, that August, he learned LaSota had died in a boating accident in San Francisco Bay.

In November, things got even stranger.

During the 2022 attack, Curtis Lind (pictured) managed to pull a gun and open fire on his attackers

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During the 2022 attack, Curtis Lind (pictured) managed to pull a gun and open fire on his attackers
Lind, who lost an eye in the attack, was set to testify in the trial but was killed before he could

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Lind, who lost an eye in the attack, was set to testify in the trial but was killed before he could
Curtis Lind, an 80-year-old landlord in Vallejo, was attacked by a group of tenants when he was called to fix something in a trailer.

He was stabbed multiple times and was impaled through the chest with a sword.

During the attack, Lind managed to pull a gun and open fire on his attackers.

Tenant Patrick McMillan told NBC Bay Area at the time that Lind came knocking on his door with a sword sticking out of his chest.

'He banged on my door and I woke up and came out,' he said. 'He said 'I'm dying' and he had blood squirting out and a sword sticking through him.'

Lind miraculously survived but lost his right eye.

One of the attackers was LaSota's old friend Borhanian, who was shot and killed in the chaos.

Fellow so-called Zizians Leatham and Suri Dao were charged with Borhanian's murder, attempted murder, and aggravated mayhem.

'I was completely gobsmacked,' Friedman said of the moment he heard about the Vallejo attack.

Pictured: Richard Zajko (right), 71, and his wife Rita (left), 69 were found dead in their Pennsylvania home in 2023

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Pictured: Richard Zajko (right), 71, and his wife Rita (left), 69 were found dead in their Pennsylvania home in 2023
He added: 'I've only ever had one case where the other party died, never where my party died. So to have even one death is just bizarre.

'Then out of the four, I had one dead, two others apparently dead and not communicating, and the fourth in jail.'

Friedman informed the court and the civil case over the 2019 protest was ultimately dismissed.

But, there were still more surprises to come.

Kapelovitz, LaSota's criminal defense attorney, told DailyMail.com that he got an email informing him that police had encountered the late LaSota during the Vallejo attack.

'The deputy district attorney sent me an email stating that LaSota was 'alive and well.' I like 99.9 percent of my clients, so it is always depressing when one of my clients dies,' he said. 'So I was very happy to learn that LaSota was alive.'

Two months later, police across the other side of the country would report a second interaction with LaSota.

On New Year's Eve 2022, Richard Zajko, 72, and his wife Rita Zajko, 69, were shot dead inside their home in Chester Heights, Pennsylvania.

Their bodies were found two days later when officers performed a welfare check.

US border patrol agent shot and killed in Vermont



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Investigators believed that the couple's daughter Michelle Zajko was in possession of the murder weapon and so swooped on the Candlewood Suites hotel in Chester City where she was staying on January 13 2023, according to a court hearing transcript seen by Open Vallejo.

The search did not turn up Zajko or the firearm.

Instead, authorities found an individual called Daniel Blank and LaSota inside a hotel room.

LaSota was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and obstruction.

Had LaSota faked her own death? And, might Danielson have done the same?

In Danielson's case, Friedman said he never saw a death certificate or evidence of her passing.

But, for LaSota's death, he said he obtained the US Coast Guard report about her apparent drowning and the hours-long search in vain as evidence.

Yet, here she was very much alive and well and accounted for on the East Coast.

US Border Patrol agent David Maland, 44, was shot dead during the Inauguration day shooting in Coventry, Vermont
 
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Further to the previous post, this is the person charged with the later killing of Lind I believe.

I think i now have this straight

Probably a thread is needed for this.
(Four murders in three states - Washington, Pennysylvania and Vermont.)

FOUR murders altogether - 82 yo Curtis Lind, from Vallejo, Washington, Richard Zajko, 71, and his wife Rita, 69 ( the parents of Youngblut, who were found dead in their Pennsylvania home in 2023) and the border guard, Agent David Maland in Vermont.

www.thereporter.com

Jail arraignment reset for defendant in fatal Vallejo stabbing case

Defense attorney excused from murder case as Snyder seeks new legal representation, and Superior Court Judge Jeffrey C. Kauffman reassigns Feb. 21 arraignment to Department 23 in the Justice Building in Vallejo.
www.thereporter.com www.thereporter.com

From the link -

NEWS​

Jail arraignment reset for defendant in fatal Vallejo stabbing case​

Maximilian B. Snyder case may have links to other killings across the U.S.​


Maximilian B. Snyder, 22, of Kirkland, Washington, walks with his hands up as he appears in Solano County Superior Court for jail arraignment Thursday in Fairfield. Snyder is charged with the Jan. 17 fatal stabbing of an 82-year-old Vallejo landlord, Curtis Lind, to prevent him from testifying in a murder case against his former tenants. Snyder asked for additional weeks to obtain defense counsel, and the judge reassigned the case to Department 23 in Vallejo. (Chris Riley/The Reporter)

Maximilian B. Snyder, 22, of Kirkland, Washington, walks with his hands up as he appears in Solano County Superior Court for jail arraignment Thursday in Fairfield. Snyder is charged with the Jan. 17 fatal stabbing of an 82-year-old Vallejo landlord, Curtis Lind, to prevent him from testifying in a murder case against his former tenants. Snyder asked for additional weeks to obtain defense counsel, and the judge reassigned the case to Department 23 in Vallejo. (Chris Riley/The Reporter)
Author

By RICHARD BAMMER | rbammer@thereporter.com | Vacaville Reporter
PUBLISHED: February 6, 2025 at 2:47 PM PST

The attorney for a 22-year-old defendant charged last month with a fatal stabbing in Vallejo told Solano County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey C. Kauffman on Thursday that she could no longer represent Maximilian Bentley Snyder.

During the morning proceeding, the judge granted Amanda I. Bevins’ request to be released from the defense, then asked Snyder if he needed more time to obtain an attorney in the high-profile case, which has attracted media attention from the Bay Area and Seattle to Pennsylvania and Vermont, where a U.S. Border Patrol agent was shot and killed last month. Investigators believe a series of crimes are linked because of Snyder’s relationship with a woman charged with the Vermont killing.

In court for a rescheduled jail arraignment, Snyder, shackled and clad in a striped jail jumpsuit, bearded, his black hair reaching to near the middle of his back, told Kauffman that he needed more time to secure legal representation.

The judge then granted him two weeks to do so and reassigned the case to Department 23, Judge John B. Ellis’ courtroom, resetting arraignment for 8:30 a.m. Feb. 21 in the Justice Building in Vallejo.

Deputy District Attorney Ilana Shapiro leads the prosecution.

Snyder, of Kirkland, Wash., who remains without bail in Solano County Jail, is charged with the Jan. 17 fatal stabbing of an 82-year-old Vallejo landlord, Curtis Lind. The prosecution alleges Lind was killed to prevent him from testifying in a murder case against former tenants.

Jail records show Vallejo police officers arrested Snyder in the early hours of Jan. 24 in Redding, where he was detained by police. Snyder was taken into custody on a Ramey warrant, a type of warrant issued by a judge that allows law enforcement to arrest a suspect before formal criminal charges are filed by a district attorney.

The Solano County DA’s office filed its complaint against Snyder on Jan. 27, charging him with first-degree murder with use of a dangerous weapon, a knife. The charging document included alleged special circumstances that Lind was a witness to a crime who, according to the complaint’s wording, “the defendant intentionally killed for the purpose of preventing his testimony in a criminal proceeding or the victim was a witness to a crime and defendant intentionally killed him in retaliation for his testimony in a criminal proceeding” and did so “by means of lying in wait.”

Snyder’s latest court appearance comes as a Washington state woman linked to him was ordered held without bail last month in connection with the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in a case that has grown to encompass killings in multiple states.

According to a Jan. 30 Associated Press report, Teresa Youngblut, 21, faces federal firearms charges in the Jan. 20 death of Agent David Maland. She’s accused of opening fire on agents during a traffic stop in northern Vermont, sparking a shootout that also left her companion, Felix Bauckholt, dead.

Maximilian B. Snyder, charged with a fatal Jan. 17 stabbing of an 82-year-old man in Vallejo, appears Thursday in Solano County Superior Court for jail arraignment Fairfield. (Chris Riley/The Reporter)
Maximilian B. Snyder, charged with a fatal Jan. 17 stabbing of an 82-year-old man in Vallejo, appears Thursday in Solano County Superior Court for jail arraignment Fairfield. (Chris Riley/The Reporter)
Pennsylvania state police said on Jan. 29 that the gun used in the Vermont shooting was purchased by a person of interest in the Dec. 31, 2022, killings of Richard and Rita Zajko, who were shot to death in their Chester Heights home. Both Youngblut and the buyer were in frequent contact with someone who was detained as part of the Pennsylvania investigation and is a person of interest in the Vallejo killing of Lind, U.S. Attorney Michael Drescher said in a court filing.

In the meantime, police and court records have shed some light on the connections, according to the AP.

Jack LaSota is currently facing charges of obstructing law enforcement and disorderly conduct in Pennsylvania. Authorities did not indicate whether those charges are related to the Zajko deaths, but court records show that police were searching for a gun used in two killings when they arrested LaSota 12 days later at a hotel about 10 miles from the scene of the killings.

LaSota also has connections to some of the key players in the Vallejo case, investigators say.

In 2019, LaSota and three others were arrested while protesting an event hosted by the Center for Applied Rationality at a camping retreat in Occidental, in Sonoma County, according to a San Francisco Chronicle report. In 2022, two of the others, Emma Borhanian and Alexander Jeffrey Leatham, were accused of using a sword to attack their Vallejo landlord, Lind, who survived the November 2022 attack but was stabbed to death Jan. 17.

In November, someone with the same name as Maximilian Snyder applied for a marriage license with a Teresa Youngblut in Kirkland. At the time, Bevins declined to comment on the charges.

LaSota may have been present during the 2022 landlord attack, according to court documents that also suggest LaSota had been falsely reported dead three months earlier.

On Aug. 19, 2022, the U.S. Coast Guard responded to a report that LaSota had fallen out of a boat in San Francisco Bay and conducted a search but didn’t find a body, according to documents included in a civil rights lawsuit LaSota and others had filed after their 2019 arrest. An obituary was published, and LaSota’s mother confirmed the death to LaSota’s criminal defense attorney. But months later, a prosecutor emailed the attorney and said LaSota was contacted by police in Vallejo and was “alive and well” at the site of a crime on or about Nov. 13, the date Lind was attacked.

Information from The Associated Press was used to compile this story.
 
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Update on this case posted in the old thread below:

SheWhoMustNotBeNamed said:
www.mirror.co.uk

Man linked to teen Alicia Navarro is charged with child sexual abuse

Alicia Navarro had disappeared on September 15, 2019, days before her 15th birthday from Arizona. She showed up alone at a small-town police station in Montana in late July this year
www.mirror.co.uk www.mirror.co.uk

Man linked to former missing teen Alicia Navarro is charged with child sexual abuse​

The man linked with the disappearance of Alicia Navarro, a teen who had previously been missing, has been charged with child sexual abuse.

Edmund Davis, the 36-year-old man from Montana who reportedly had been in a sexual relationship with the now-19-year-old girl has been arrested and charged with two felony counts of abuse of children over material found on his cellphone.

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen announced charges of two felony counts of sexual abuse of children resulting from child sexual abuse material found on the suspect's cell phone.

The attorney general said that the child sex abuse material was found on his cellphone, which was seized when a search warrant was executed in Havre, Montana earlier this year. Davis is being held in the Hill County Detention Center on a $1 million bond as ordered by state District Court Judge Kaydee Snipes Ruiz. After Navarro turned up to the police in July, the Havre Police Department served a search warrant on Davis's apartment, as they learned that the teenage girl was living there.


Dozens of images of suspected child sex abuse material were located on the device, confirmed to belong to Davis. Following their protocols, Glendale Police selected ten images from those found and brought them to medical experts.

The review determined the individuals depicted to be under the age of 13, with two images of children under the age of 5, the attorney general said.
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www.nbcnews.com

Man linked to Alicia Navarro, teen missing for 4 years, sentenced to 100 years for child sex abuse

Edmund Davis pleaded guilty in September to one count of sexual abuse of children after authorities found explicit material on his electronic devices.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com

Man linked to Alicia Navarro, teen missing for 4 years, sentenced to 100 years for child sex abuse​

A Montana man linked to the case of Alicia Navarro — the girl who walked into a police station four years after she vanished as a teenager — was sentenced to 100 years in prison in an unrelated child sex abuse case.

Edmund Davis pleaded guilty in September to one count of sexual abuse of children after authorities found explicit material on his electronic devices during a search of the apartment he shared with Navarro in Havre, Montana.

He was sentenced to 100 years in the Montana State Prison with 50 years suspended. He will not be eligible for parole for 25 years, the state Justice Department said in a news release Tuesday.

"A review of the content determined the individuals depicted to be under the age of 13, with two images of children under the age of 5, including images of infants and toddlers and other computer-generated or animated content showing children being sexualized," the state Justice Department said.

Investigators previously said they found over 80 images on Davis’ phone.

Authorities have not said how Navarro ended up in Montana. Davis has not been charged in connection with her disappearance.

Her mother, Jessica Nuñez, told NBC News on Tuesday that Navarro is with her, but she did not disclose further details. She also said she was pleased with Davis' sentencing.

"I am very happy that he is behind bars and he won't cause anymore harm," she said in a statement. "I can't recover the years that I was not with her and I cannot change the trauma but I can appreciate my daughter is alive and that we are healing together as a family."
 
Wow, I wish all such cases were taken that seriously and sentenced that seriously. It would of course be better if he actually had to serve the 100 years but 25 for sure and if he does not get paroled, up to 50.

It has to be a relief for Navarro and family.
 
SheWhoMustNotBeNamed said:
Update on this case posted in the old thread below:



www.nbcnews.com

Man linked to Alicia Navarro, teen missing for 4 years, sentenced to 100 years for child sex abuse

Edmund Davis pleaded guilty in September to one count of sexual abuse of children after authorities found explicit material on his electronic devices.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com

Man linked to Alicia Navarro, teen missing for 4 years, sentenced to 100 years for child sex abuse​

A Montana man linked to the case of Alicia Navarro — the girl who walked into a police station four years after she vanished as a teenager — was sentenced to 100 years in prison in an unrelated child sex abuse case.

Edmund Davis pleaded guilty in September to one count of sexual abuse of children after authorities found explicit material on his electronic devices during a search of the apartment he shared with Navarro in Havre, Montana.

He was sentenced to 100 years in the Montana State Prison with 50 years suspended. He will not be eligible for parole for 25 years, the state Justice Department said in a news release Tuesday.

"A review of the content determined the individuals depicted to be under the age of 13, with two images of children under the age of 5, including images of infants and toddlers and other computer-generated or animated content showing children being sexualized," the state Justice Department said.

Investigators previously said they found over 80 images on Davis’ phone.

Authorities have not said how Navarro ended up in Montana. Davis has not been charged in connection with her disappearance.

Her mother, Jessica Nuñez, told NBC News on Tuesday that Navarro is with her, but she did not disclose further details. She also said she was pleased with Davis' sentencing.

"I am very happy that he is behind bars and he won't cause anymore harm," she said in a statement. "I can't recover the years that I was not with her and I cannot change the trauma but I can appreciate my daughter is alive and that we are healing together as a family."
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This is great news!!
 
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