Daughter Connected With Transgender Zizian Cult Charged With Murder Of Parents After Three-Year Cold Case

Interesting cold case, murder, pennsylvania, zizians admin June 26, 2026 0 Comments

Daughter Connected With Transgender Zizian Cult Charged With Murder Of Parents After Three-Year Cold Case

Pennsylvanian authorities charged a woman tied to the transgender Zizian cult with the alleged murder of her parents Wednesday, closing a three-year cold-case investigation.

Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse announced that Michelle Zajko, 33, has been charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder related to the shooting of her parents, Rita and Richard Zajko, on her 30th birthday. Authorities discovered the two dead from gunshot wounds in their home in Chester Heights, a suburb of Philadelphia, on Jan. 2, 2023, according to NBC News.

Rouse said prosecutors suspect Zajko helped plan the murder, although she may not have actually committed it.

“We know Michelle Zajko was with the killers, killer,” Rouse said. “To the extent that she wasn’t the one that actually pulled the trigger, she was certainly aligned with those that did.”

Investigators’ forensic analysis allegedly revealed cellphone messages in which Zajko expressed wishes that she had done things differently surrounding the homicide. Authorities also conducted a ballistic analysis that linked shell casings at the scene of the crime with a firearm used in Zajko’s backyard shooting range in Vermont, Rouse alleged. Video footage from a neighbor’s doorbell camera captured two individuals walking up to the house and audio of an individual at the front door yelling “Mom!” right before the shooting, according to Fox News Digital.

“We don’t have a smoking gun. It is piece after piece after piece of evidence that has been collected painstakingly over years,” Rouse said. (RELATED: New Video Shows DC Police Shoot Murder Suspect On Bus With Passengers Aboard)

Zajko became estranged from her parents in 2022. The murder occurred on New Year’s Eve 2022, several hours after Zajko’s mother texted her apologizing for their broken relationship, the attorney alleged.

She allegedly has connections to the Zizians, a transgender cult of vegans obsessed with the dangers posed by artificial intelligence, NBC said. The Zizians have been linked with a number of violent deaths throughout the country during the past four years.

Jack “Ziz” Amadeus LaSota, an Alaskan computer scientist, is believed to be the group’s leader, according to the outlet. LaSota, like multiple other members, is transgender and identifies as a woman. Authorities allegedly discovered him and Zajko in the same hotel room ten days after the murder, the outlet reported.

Zajko refused to cooperate with the police, who said they would release her. The woman fled from authorities after they asked her to wait for them to return her car and was charged with obstructing justice. She failed to show up in court after her release, NBC said.

After avoiding detection for years, she and Lasota were arrested in Maryland in February 2025 on charges of trespassing and weapons offenses, the outlet reported. She has also been accused of providing the weapon used to shoot U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland in January 2025 in another violent death connected to the Zizians, according to Fox News Digital.

Zajko has denied helping with the murder of her parents.

“I didn’t murder my parents,” she wrote in an April 2025 “Open Letter to the World,” which her attorney provided to the Associated Press.

The Daily Caller reached out to Christopher Nieto, a lawyer for Zajko, and the Delaware County Public Defender’s Office, but did not hear back in time for publication.