![\"Zizians](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.animals24-7.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Picsart_25-02-09_20-44-40-280-e1739162711348.jpg?ssl=1\")
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<\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n BERKELEY, California\u2013\u2013<\/strong>A national dragnet is out for Jack Amadeus \u201cZiz\u201d LaSota,\u00a0 34,\u00a0 also known as Andrea Phelps,\u00a0 and Michelle Jacqueline \u201cJamie\u201d Zajko, \u00a032,\u00a0 fugitive \u201cpersons of interest\u201d in six murders and alleged leaders of a transexual vegan cult originating in Berkeley,\u00a0 California.<\/p>\n Members of the cult,\u00a0 called \u201cZizians\u201d by some former associates, \u00a0are implicated in two killings each in California,\u00a0 Pennsylvania,\u00a0 and Vermont.<\/p>\n The case has understandably touched off a media frenzy,\u00a0 not least because several \u201cZizians\u201d claim veganism as a primary motive for a multi-year string of bizarre and violent behavior having nothing whatever to do with recognizable vegan or animal rights-motivated protest.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n If \u201cWhen man bites dog,\u00a0 that\u2019s news,\u201d\u00a0 as 19th century New York Sun<\/em> editor John B. Bogart claimed,\u00a0 citing the rarity of the event,\u00a0 \u201cvegan suspected of murder\u201d is more newsworthy still.<\/p>\n Humans bite dogs many times per year,\u00a0 according to the ANIMALS 24-7<\/strong> archives,\u00a0 typically trying to fend off pit bull attacks on their own pet dogs,\u00a0 or occasionally on themselves or other humans.<\/p>\n By comparison, \u00a0ANIMALS 24-7 <\/strong>has record of only 34 homicides committed by nine alleged vegans since 1981.\u00a0 Over the same years,\u00a0 FBI crime statistics record 818,000 total homicides.<\/p>\n Of the nine alleged vegan killers,\u00a0 seven were parents who starved infants to death with inappropriate vegan diets.\u00a0 Four of them are now serving life in prison.\u00a0 One committed suicide.<\/p>\n <\/a> Vegan police. (Beth Clifton collage) <\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n There was one vegan mass murderer:\u00a0 Adam Lanza,\u00a0 who on December 14, \u00a02012 shot his mother,\u00a0 shot 20 children and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,\u00a0 Connecticut,\u00a0 and then shot himself.<\/p>\n There were two alleged vegan serial killers,\u00a0 Michael Bear Carson, \u00a0born James Clifford Carson,\u00a0 and his wife Suzan Barnes Carson,\u00a0 in prison since 1984,\u00a0 but unclear is whether either one was ever actually vegetarian,\u00a0 let alone vegan.<\/p>\n None of the alleged vegan killers,\u00a0 before the \u201cZizians,\u201d\u00a0 claimed compassion for animals as a motive for murder.<\/p>\n The parents who starved their children to death,\u00a0 along with eight others who were apprehended in time for authorities to save their lives,\u00a0 were primarily religious extremists,\u00a0 in the names of several different cults and recognized religions,\u00a0 obsessed with maintaining personal purity.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Cljfton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Adam Lanza appeared to have been venting generalized rage against the world.<\/p>\n The Carsons claimed to have been \u201chunting witches.\u201d\u00a0 As well as claiming to be vegetarians,\u00a0 they claimed to be Muslims.<\/p>\n Their known victims\u2013\u2013they are believed to have killed as many as nine more\u2013\u2013included 23-year-old aspiring actress Karen Barnes,\u00a0 bludgeoned with a frying pan and stabbed 13 times in 1981 after she allowed them to share her apartment in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco;\u00a0 26-year-old dope grower Clark Stephens of Humboldt County,\u00a0 California, \u00a0in 1982, \u00a0whom they shot,\u00a0 burned,\u00a0 and buried in chicken manure;\u00a0 and 30-year-old Jon Hellyar, \u00a0of San Diego,\u00a0 in 1983,\u00a0 after Hellyar picked them up hitchhiking in Bakersfield,\u00a0 California,\u00a0 while driving to Santa Rosa,\u00a0 California.<\/p>\n <\/a> Jack \u201cZiz\u201d LaSota.<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> Michael Barba, Matthias Gafni, \u00a0and Megan Cassidy on February 6,\u00a0 2025 traced the beginnings of the \u201cZizian\u201d cult to the meeting of LaSota and fellow transsexual Gwen Danielson,\u00a0 then 23,\u00a0 at a \u201crationalist\u201d event in October 2016.<\/p>\n They lived for a time on Danielson\u2019s sailboat at the Berkeley Marina.\u00a0 Later LaSota bought his own sailboat.\u00a0 Still later,\u00a0 with partners recruited through \u201crationalist\u201d online groups,\u00a0 they bought the 94-foot former U.S. Navy tugboat Panameta<\/em>,\u00a0 built in 1945,\u00a0 renamed the Caleb<\/em> and at the time anchored in Ketchikan,\u00a0 Alaska\u2013\u2013LaSota\u2019s home state.<\/p>\n LaSota,\u00a0 Danielson,\u00a0 and crew,\u00a0 what remained of it after several defections,\u00a0 sailed the Caleb <\/em>to the Pillar Point yacht harbor in California in mid-2017.\u00a0 There it sank in March 2022.<\/p>\n <\/a> Gwen Danielson. (Sonoma County Sheriff\u2019s Office photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Meanwhile LaSota,\u00a0 Danielson,\u00a0 et al<\/em> met Curtis Lind,\u00a0 an older man who lived on a 117-foot yacht docked nearby.<\/p>\n In 2020 Lind sold the boat and moved to a property he owned in Vallejo,\u00a0 California,\u00a0 63 miles north.\u00a0 The \u201cZizians\u201d followed him,\u00a0 living in small box trucks.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the summer of 2018,\u201d\u00a0 according to the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> investigative team,\u00a0 joined by a fourth reporter,\u00a0 Rachel Swan, \u00a0\u201cLaSota participated in an apprenticeship program run by the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and the Center for Applied Rationality,\u201d\u00a0 founded by Berkeley-based artificial intelligence researcher Elizier Yudowsky,\u00a0 45.<\/p>\n That association apparently ended when LaSota failed to convert Yudowsky and other participants in the program to veganism.<\/p>\n <\/a> Alexander Leatham.<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n On the afternoon of November 15,\u00a0 2019,\u00a0 LaSota and transgender associates Alexander \u201cSomni\u201d Leatham,\u00a0 Amir \u201cEmma\u201d Borhanian, \u00a0and Gwen Danielson disrupted a Center for Applied Rationality retreat at Westminster Woods, \u00a0a 200-acre conference facility alongside the Bohemian Highway north of Occidental,\u00a0 California.<\/p>\n Charged with conspiracy,\u00a0 obstructing a police officer,\u00a0 and wearing masks for an unlawful purpose, \u201cthe four defendants ran through numerous attorneys, \u00a0pushed to have judges dismissed, \u00a0requested a change of venue, \u00a0and leveled accusations of transphobia,\u201d\u00a0 summarized the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> team.<\/p>\n \u201cThe foursome had difficulty finding lawyers because they only wanted to hire vegans, \u00a0said Dan Kapelovitz, \u00a0a Los Angeles-based defense attorney who specializes in animal-rights cases,\u201d\u00a0 the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> team mentioned.<\/p>\n <\/a> Amir \u201cEmma\u201d Borhanian. (Solano County District Attorney\u2019s Office photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n During the same time frame,\u00a0 \u201cFor years, \u00a0LaSota, \u00a0in rambling blog posts, \u00a0set forth beliefs on topics such as machine learning, \u00a0veganism, \u00a0the importance of dual personalities, \u00a0and the natural gifts of transgender women, \u00a0luring a considerable number of followers \u2014 and critics \u2014 into the dark canyons of LaSota\u2019s mind,\u201d\u00a0 the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> team said.<\/p>\n On August 19,\u00a0 2022 LaSota faked his own death by drowning.\u00a0 LaSota\u2019s sister Naomi and the \u201cZizian\u201d Borhanian claimed in affidavits to the San Mateo County Superior Court claimed to have been witnesses to LaSota falling from one of his boats and disappearing.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile no body was found, \u00a0and no death certificate issued, \u00a0an obituary for Jack LaSota appeared in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner<\/em> and on\u00a0Legacy.com,\u201d\u00a0 the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> team learned.<\/p>\n The obituary mentioned that LaSota loved animals,\u00a0 one of the few published mentions of animals in connection with LaSota,\u00a0 despite LaSota\u2019s vehement veganism.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n After a dispute with the \u201cZizians\u201d over unpaid rent,\u00a0 Lind,\u00a0 then 80,\u00a0 began carrying a pistol.<\/p>\n In the early morning hours of November 15,\u00a0 2022,\u00a0 Lind testified,\u00a0 he was ambushed by three \u201cZizians\u201d who stabbed him multiple times,\u00a0 blinded his right eye,\u00a0 and ran him through with a samurai sword.<\/p>\n Lind,\u00a0 however,\u00a0 shot and killed Borhanian,\u00a0 critically wounding Leatham.<\/p>\n \u201cProsecutors later charged Leatham,\u00a0 29,\u00a0 and another member of the group, \u00a0Suri Dao,\u201d\u00a0 then 21, \u201cwith murder,\u201d\u00a0 the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> team reported, \u00a0\u201cunder the theory that it was their actions \u2014 not Lind\u2019s self-defense \u2014 that directly caused Borhanian\u2019s death,\u201d\u00a0 at age 31.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not clear exactly where LaSota was during the violence,\u201d\u00a0 the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> team narrated.\u00a0 \u201cBut hours after the incident, \u00a0Jerold Friedman,\u00a0 who had represented LaSota in a civil suit against Sonoma County over the Occidental protest response,\u201d\u00a0 was informed by a Solano County prosecutor that LaSota had been \u201ccontacted by police in Vallejo,\u201d\u00a0 who found him \u201calive and well.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> Michelle Zajko. (Solano County<\/strong><\/em> A little over six weeks after that,\u00a0 on the last day of 2022,\u00a0 Richard Zajko, 72, \u00a0and his wife, Rita, \u00a069,\u00a0 the parents of Michelle \u201cJamie\u201d Zajko,\u00a0 were shot dead in their Chester Heights home, \u00a0west of Philadelphia.<\/p>\n Michelle \u201cJamie\u201d Zajko,\u00a0 who turned 30 on New Year\u2019s Day 2023, \u00a0was found on January 13,\u00a0 2023 at the Candlewood Suites hotel in Chester, Pennsylvania.\u00a0 LaSota and an individual identified as Daniel Blank,\u00a0 who lived with Michelle \u201cJamie\u201d Zajko in Vermont, \u00a0were found in another room.<\/p>\n Charged with misdemeanor obstruction and disorderly conduct, \u00a0LaSota was released on bail in June 2023, \u00a0\u201cbut stopped showing up for court, \u00a0prompting a judge to issue an arrest warrant.\u00a0 To this day, her case is pending,\u201d\u00a0 the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> team said.<\/p>\n The \u201cZizians\u201d seem to have kept low profiles for the next year and a half,\u00a0 but on January 16, \u00a02025,\u00a0 the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> team recounted,\u00a0 \u201ca Solano County prosecutor pleaded with a judge to push the case Leatham and Suri Dao toward trial, \u00a0explaining that the key eyewitness,\u00a0 Curtis Lind, was now 82 years old with a fading memory.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> Border Patrol agent David Maland with a service dog. (Department of Homeland Security photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Leatham and Dao were potentially facing the death penalty.<\/p>\n \u201cThe following day, \u00a0witnesses told the Chronicle<\/em> that a man wearing all black put his arm around Lind and repeatedly stabbed him in the chest.\u00a0 They said the assailant ran off, \u00a0covered in blood, only to return and slit Lind\u2019s throat,\u201d\u00a0 the San Francisco Chronicle <\/em>reported,\u00a0 <\/em>not naming the sources apparently for their protection.<\/p>\n \u201cSolano County prosecutors charged Maximilian Snyder, \u00a0a 22-year-old affiliated with LaSota\u2019s fringe group, \u00a0with killing Lind in an attempt to silence a witness,\u201d\u00a0 the San Francisco Chronicle <\/em>added.<\/p>\n With that case under investigation in California,\u00a0 U.S. Border Patrol agent David Maland and a fellow agent whose name has not been disclosed on January 20,\u00a0 2025 stopped a blue Prius on I-5 near Coventry,\u00a0 Vermont,\u00a0 about 14 miles from the Quebec border at Derby Line.<\/p>\n Both allegedly carried firearms bought by Michelle \u201cJamie\u201d Zajko, \u00a0identified by law enforcement agency bulletins as a \u201cperson of interest\u201d in the murders of her parents.<\/p>\n <\/a> Teresa Youngblut.\u00a0 (Instagram photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n The Prius driver was Felix \u201cOphelia\u201d Bauckholt, \u00a0a German transexual.\u00a0 The passenger,\u00a0 Teresa Youngblut, \u00a0a 21-year-old computer science student,\u00a0 pulled a handgun and fired at the Border Patrol agents,\u00a0 killing Maland.<\/p>\n Return fire killed Bauckholt,\u00a0 wounding Youngblut.<\/p>\n Youngblut was soon found to have attended the elite private Lakeside High School in Seattle with Maximilian Snyder,\u00a0 and to have recently applied for a Washington state license to marry Snyder.<\/p>\n Picked up Open Vallejo<\/em>, \u00a0on January 27, \u00a02025,\u00a0 \u201cSnyder studied computer science and philosophy at the University of Oxford, \u00a0according to a LinkedIn profile matching his name.\u00a0 He was named a National Merit Scholar semifinalist in 2019, \u00a0according to the Seattle Times<\/em>. \u00a0In 2023, \u00a0Snyder won $11,000 in an Artificial Intelligence alignment awards research contest, \u00a0according to a post on the Effective Altruism Forum.<\/p>\n <\/a> Maximilian Snyder. (LinkedIn photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n \u201cYoungblut studied computer science and computer software engineering at the University of Washington,\u201d\u00a0 Open Vallejo <\/em>continued.<\/p>\n \u201cYoungblut, who was transported to a medical center in New Hampshire for treatment, has since been charged with two federal crimes: \u00a0intentional use of a deadly weapon while forcibly assaulting or interfering with federal law enforcement, \u00a0and use and discharge of a firearm during and in relation to an assault with a deadly weapon,\u201d\u00a0 Open Vallejo<\/em> added.<\/p>\n A friend of the couple,\u00a0 Jessica Taylor,\u00a0 told Open Vallejo<\/em> that \u201cveganism and animal rights are central\u201d to the \u201cZizian\u201d philosophy.<\/p>\n In addition,\u00a0 Open Vallejo<\/em> reported,\u00a0 \u201cA bio for an Instagram account that appears to belong to Youngblut reads, \u2018talk to me about being vegan and ai alignment.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\nDragnet is out for alleged leaders Jack Amadeus \u201cZiz\u201d LaSota & Michelle Jacqueline \u201cJamie\u201d Zajko<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u201cWhen man bites dog\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nOne veg mass murderer & two veg serial killers in 45 years<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u201cWitch hunters\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nTwo to tango<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nSplit with \u201cApplied Rationality\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nDisrupted retreat<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nBuilding the cult<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nAmbush of Lind brought death of Borhanian<\/h2>\n
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District Attorney\u2019s Office photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\nZajko parents murdered<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nKilled the witness<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nKilled Border Patrol agent<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u201cTalk to me about being vegan\u201d<\/h2>\n