← Serialously with Annie Elise
Serialously with Annie Elise
344: Vegan Hipsters Start Their Own Murdering Cult?! | The Zizian Group
01:03:06
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- [00:00]
Announcer
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Commercial Narrator 1
When officers arrived at the scene, they.
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Annie Elise
Found three members of what police believe is a west coast cult. What happens? You get this paranoia when you're in a cult like this and the leader makes you hate the world but love each other. Ziz and some of his alleged followers staged a protest standing up for their beliefs and the story gets progressively more violent.
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Commercial Narrator 1
They showed up there in all black.
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Annie Elise
Robes and By Fawkes masks with a school bus.
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Co-host
The questions how did the group start and how did they get here?
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Annie Elise
Who's behind this latest trail of terror?
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Co-host
Hey, true crime besties.
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Annie Elise
Welcome back to an all new episode of Serial Asleep.
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Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to an all new episode of Serial As Lee with me, Annie Elise, your true crime bestie here to take you on another roller coaster of a case. Because let me just tell you, today's case is wild. But before we get into all of that, hoping you are having a good start to your week. Hope you had a fantastic weekend. Whether you're driving, whether you're at home just chilling, whether you're cleaning, wherever it is you're at.
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Co-host
I hope that you're just, you know, mentally ready.
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Annie Elise
I hope that you're in a state of, I don't want to say Zen, but maybe Zen, maybe Zen just ready to Hear the unthinkable and ready to go on this truly twisted roller coaster with me today. Because to say that today's case is a weird one is like the understatement of the universe. It is a case that is filled with everything. I'm talking about an online cult, dead bodies, bizarre beliefs, a true obsession over AI disappearances, fake disappearances, fake identities. And somehow in the mix of all of that, as if that wasn't odd enough, throw in some Harry Potter fan fiction for a little added sprinkle into it. I mean, it's really wild. But to really understand how this entire insane case unfolded, we've got to go back and start with where a lot of bizarre things really start in today's day and age.
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Co-host
And.
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Annie Elise
And that is the deep dark corners of the Internet. Now, in this particular case, it was a handful of people who got really, really into specific blog posts about philosophical stuff, you know, people's values, how human beings think, the power of computers, things like that.
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Co-host
And they really started bonding together over.
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Annie Elise
These blog posts and they believed in this way of thinking that basically rejected human emotions and it relied on logic for everything. And it was like these very like techie, techy type of people, kind of like, you know, a little bit of nerd alert stuff, if I'm being totally honest with you. But pretty much it's kind of like the type of content where maybe you or I would see it and we'd be like, wow, that's really intense. Scroll past that. Want to get to my mom, talk video or want to get to some prank on TikTok, things like that, where I. We don't really think too many people would like dive into it and just become immersed in it. However, some people who ended up reading these posts didn't just move on like I would, or maybe even you would have, but instead they started taking what they were consuming very, very seriously. And then over time, this group of mostly online strangers, they started seeing themselves.
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Co-host
As the only ones who could truly.
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Annie Elise
Understand how broken the world is. And they thought that they were the only ones who could fix it. So with that, it led them to some very dark places. And it ended with some six different deaths across multiple states. So buckle up, because this is the story of how a bunch of online philosophers turn into one of the strangest, one of the deadliest, and one of the most vegan cults that you've probably ever heard of. So this is the story of the Zizians, and today's case starts in Anchorage, Alaska, which maybe not exactly where you would expect, like the seed of an online cult to really be planted and spark into fruition. But that's where the person at the center of all of this got their start. And that person was Jack Lasota, a transgender woman who now goes by Zyzz, a name that kind of started out as her online alias. Now, Jack grew up in Alaska and was, by all accounts, incredibly smart. I mean, think studying computer science at the University of Alaska, doing research on computer processors, even interning at NASA. And Ziz had the kind of brain power that you would expect to land someone in, like, Silicon Valley, working for Apple or some sort of tech thing, or maybe even SpaceX, who the heck knows? But after college, Ziz started grad school, but didn't stick with it. Instead, she dropped out and she moved to the bay area around 2016. And once she settled there, Ziz really struggled to hold down a job and even hold down stable housing. She also started a pretty strange blog. It discussed everything from, you know, vampires to how your brain is capable of having two separate identities to a type of Harry Potter fanfiction that uses the actual Harry Potter universe to explain philosophy and science. And it was kind of all over the place. And look, I'll be honest. I don't know anything about Harry Potter. I'm not. I don't know if I'm a Gryffindor for I think that's the name, or a. Whatever the heck. Whatever house you're in, or I. I have no idea. I've never seen the movies, I've never read. The books don't come for me. But she wrote a lot of fanfiction about Harry Potter and used it as a way to explain science and things like that. Now, one idea that popped up a lot in these blog posts was that Zy posted something called Timeless Decision Theory, and it sounded really complicated. But here's the gist. Basically, if somebody crosses you, you don't wait. You hit right back immediately, and you hit them harder than they ever hit you in the first place. And that doesn't mean physical. It can be, you know, emotional, mental, whatever it is. However, somebody crosses you. And the goal in doing this, striking back harder and immediately, is to make people think twice before messing with you in the future. So, I mean, pretty bold and, I don't know, maybe I'm just a passive person, but feels kind of aggressive a little bit. But eventually people started finding Z's posts online and some people started agreeing with her. And slowly it started to build this community of online friendships and Then it started to build from there, where if you really now were a part of this online community and you really were passionate and believed about the stuff that was being put out there, you were welcome to join the conversation in a deeper way. And you could then refer to yourself as a Zizian. Now, to be a Zizian, you also needed to be a very strict vegan. Not just no cheese, no eggs, not something like that, but. But very, very vegan. So much so that some of them believed that eating meat was essentially the same as committing mass murder, which, again, feels very, very extreme to me. But what do I know? Now, there were even some blog posts put out there arguing that killing a meat eater could actually be justified, because according to Zizians, if the meat eater was dead, then it was ultimately preventing more future harm from being done. Which I guess I could theoretically understand that for a moment. And before you guys get carried away and, like, clip this a million ways to say that I'm justifying murdering people who aren't vegans, let me just explain. I could understand where somebody could think or get to the place of, oh, if this person eats steak all day, every day and they die, then it saves the cow's life. But then it takes you to the bigger conversation of, like, the circle of life and animals, sustainability, all these things. But, you know, I'm not here to get philosophical with you. That's not my forte. That's not my area of expertise. I'm just saying, like, not that I would ever get to the point of thinking that that makes enough sense to our big, yeah, so we got to kill that meat eater. But I could see where possibly the entry point of justification came in even just a tiny bit, even just squeezing it in a little bit. Now, another huge focus that was central to Zizian ideology is, was artificial intelligence. Zizians believed that if we built artificial intelligence in the wrong way, that it could completely just wipe out humanity, which they're not totally wrong. Right. It is scary. Who knows where we're going to go with AI? But they got a little bit more extreme with it because they then started to convince themselves that they were the only ones who were thinking clearly enough to stop what was happening, to stop what was coming down the pike with AI and with people who eat steak and order a cheeseburger, things like that. So basically, to sum it up, in order to be a Zizian, you had to be an anarchist, you had to be pro transgender rights, you had to be cautious about AI, you had to never eat any sort of meat or use any type of animal products. And you also had to learn how to do something called uni hemispheric sleep, which that's the first time I've ever heard that term, but apparently it's where you literally sleep, but half your brain is still awake. And I'm sure that that is very difficult to do. I'm sure it's as hard as it sounds, but you had to be able to do that too. And as you can probably guess, not many people know how to do that. Not many people even know what it means. So at that point, for those few who could or who claimed that they could, they developed this sense of being the chosen ones, the ones who had all the answers. And it started to seep into every single part of their lives, including how they should be living every single day, which I'll just say it. Anytime somebody refers to themselves or a group that they are a part of as the chosen ones or the chosen few, you are in a cult. You are in a cult. I am going to throw it out there and say it with my chest. Be careful Now. As these blog posts that Zy wrote about continued to grow in popularity, so did her following, as many cult leaders do. And so did this whole like way of life that the Zizians had. A lot of people who ended up getting involved were living in the San Francisco area, which by the way, is one of the most expensive places in the country. So at one point, while Ziz had been living on a 90 foot long tugboat that she had hauled down from Alaska, later, an entire group of Zizians ended up parking their trucks and buses on a piece of land north of San Francisco in Vallejo, essentially kind of building their own little compound that was off the grid. And I want to quickly touch on how this group worked. There was no real hierarchy. I mean, yes, Ziz was basically the founder, but it's not like she was worshiped like these other cult leaders or that there was some sort of religion aspect to it. The Zizians pretty much all communicated online and through blog posts. They also talked through discord chats, shared Google Docs. But it wasn't like normal cult groups like FLDS or what is the other one? I'm thinking of Nexium or things like that, where it's a lot of like these gatherings and I don't know, it just was a little bit different. It had more of like an online central kind of basis to it. Some of the members didn't even know each other in Real life. A few did, but not all of them. And what's also really surprising, or I guess not too surprising, depending on what you think, but before getting sucked into the Zizian group, a lot of them were doing totally fine in the outside world. Most of them were highly educated. They had advanced degrees in science, math or engineering, they worked in tech or finance, and they made good money. It also wasn't a huge group by cult standards. I mean, at the group's peak, there were an estimated 30 to 50 people involved. That's it for the whole worldview of Zizian. And it kind of sparks the question, right, of when you are someone who is seemingly accomplished on the surface and you have everything going for you, you're well educated, how do they get sucked into these groups? Is it because the group leader finds a tiny little weakness to exploit? Is it because the aspiration of this ideology is so extreme and enticing that they just kind of like, I get zeroed in on it. I really don't know. But before we go any further, and trust me, there is still a lot to get into, I do want to pause for a second and ask a question that a lot of people are still debating, which was, are the Zizians actually a cult or were they just like minded people who met on the Internet? And it's not a cut and dry answer. It's really not. Because on the surface, the Zizians didn't fit the classic image that most of us picture when we hear the word cold. There were no matching outfits, no isolated compounds in the woods, no leader demanding loyalty, or as we like to see, often, sexual favors in exchange for some sort of salvation. Also, nobody was physically recruiting other people. They just happened to stumble upon each other online, whether it was in comment sections or maybe even chat rooms, and then just kind of slowly go down that rabbit hole together. And people could leave the group whenever they wanted. And as far as we know, there also wasn't any sign of any sort of financial exploitation, which we know is very, very common in traditional cults. But then on the flip side of that, like other cult groups, a lot of members did start isolating themselves from their families and friends. And the person at the center of all of this, Ziz, she had a lot of influence. Now, there's no public evidence that Ziz ever told anyone directly that they needed to commit violence. However, her blog post would often talk about people who, quote, didn't contribute value, and suggested that logically, death could be a reasonable outcome in some cases like that. And for the people who were already very deep in it, that kind of language could really shift how they saw the world and how they saw the people in it. So some people see the Zizians as more of, like, this fringe philosophy or even a fan base that eventually went too far. I mean, at the very least, it is a textbook example of online radicalization and how ideas in certain blog posts can just truly spill over into real life with very real consequences. Because in the beginning, the Zizians just had shared some beliefs that they bonded over. They hadn't even really been a real problem for anyone. They weren't a thorn in anybody's side. But that all started to change in 2019. That year, Zyz got arrested at a protest outside a Northern California retreat center. The center was holding an event for people who were involved in an organization called the center for Applied Rationality. And a few of Ziz's close friends were also there, too, including a girl by the name of Emma and a guy, Alexander. Now, according to Zyz and her friends, they were protesting what they claimed was sexual misconduct within the group at the retreat. Basically, they felt like this group was against trans women, but they ended up going too far in their protest for whatever reason, and they got arrested. And it wasn't a huge story in the media at the time, but it was maybe the first moment that pushed Ziz's group out of the world of blog posts and into real world disruption. Now, as we all know, right around that time, Covid hit in 2020. So that kind of threw a wrench into all of the court dates and everything else that was supposed to transpire after these Zizians were arrested. So from the time it went down until 2021, there was kind of this super messy legal back and forth. The cops claimed that the Zizians had weapons on them during that protest, but they all denied it. Then the Zizians filed a civil rights complaint saying that they were victims of excessive force. They started blogging about it constantly. They started accusing the police of filing false reports. And it was just very, very Messy. Then in 2021, when it finally came time for some actual court dates, the Zizians had turned against their own legal team. And not long after that, their accusations of harassment and torture were completely tossed out. So, basically, the Zizians were kind of popping up in more and more bizarre situations. But nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to what happened Next. Because in 2022, things took an even weirder turn when Ziz suddenly died under very mysterious circumstances in August of that year, Ziz was allegedly involved in a nighttime boating accident in the San Francisco Bay. A full blown Coast Guard search was launched too, and 167 square miles were covered looking for her body, but they didn't find anything. So Ziz's family and everybody else assumed that she had drowned, that she had died. Her obituary was published in her hometown in Alaska, and eventually Liz was declared legally deceased. But still, even after Zyzz had died, the group that she founded continued on.
- [17:49]
Co-host
And whether it was a cult or.
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Annie Elise
Not, the results were the same because even more people ended up dead. People that did not deserve at all what happened to them.
- [18:05]
Co-host
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- [19:10]
Annie Elise
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Co-host
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- [19:45]
Annie Elise
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- [19:48]
Co-host
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- [19:51]
Annie Elise
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- [21:12]
Annie Elise
Now, as we know, not every cult will jump straight to murder. But eventually the Zizians beliefs they turned deadly. And I want to get into that. The first confirmed act of violence that was tied to the Zizians happened in November of 2022 in Vallejo, California. Now, Vallejo is a waterfront city that is about 30 miles northeast of San Francisco. You may know about it from the Zodiac killer, things like that, but it's not exactly a sleepy town. It's not a huge urban center either though, has just over 120,000 people. And it's the kind of place with both working class neighborhoods and new money, mobile home parks, and people who have owned property for decades. So one person with ties to the area was Curtis Lind, an 80 year old guy who owned a few properties around the greater Vallejo area. Now he was definitely not a slumlord or a real estate mogul by any means. He was just kind of like this older man who rented out a few pieces of land here and there. And he was known for being fair but firm and he enjoyed meeting new interesting people. And some of his friends actually said that that kind of was a bad thing for him because he was a super trusting guy in certain situations where maybe he shouldn't have been. And sure enough, he got to know the Zizians after helping them with an anchor for their tugboat. And here's one of his friends explaining.
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Friend of Curtis
That that big tugboat was being anchored by someone who didn't know what they were doing. So I went to Kurt, who has a big marine yard.
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And I said, do you have an anchor to spare? A really big anchor? And I said, do you have a launch? Kurt has everything.
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And he brought it out here. We went out to their boat, we said, look, we have a present for you.
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Annie Elise
So in 2022, Curtis was renting some land to a few tenants living in converted box trucks on one of his lots. And by box trucks, I mean that basically they were like these souped up trailers, kind of like how van life is a big thing now. They were doing with box trucks as well, just converting these trucks. And two of those tenants were 21 year old Suri Dow and 27 year old Alexander Letham, both of whom were connected to the Zizian community. Alexander was more active online. He posted in forms, and he shared a lot of the group's more extreme, you know, logic over emotion type of ideas. While Suri, on the other hand, was quieter publicly, but still very deeply involved in the group. According to some neighbors, both of them seemed extremely smart, but apparently they had become very paranoid and very agitated, especially because Curtis was trying to evict them. As it turns out, the Zizians who had been staying on Curtis's land hadn't paid rent in several months. And there had also been some complaints about some strange behavior and extra people showing up and living there without permission. But the eviction process was going extremely slow because there are a lot of different housing protections in place, so especially here in California. But then one morning, things took a very violent turn. On November 13, 2022, Curtis was asked to come by and check on a water leak in one of the Zizian trucks. But when he got there, he was suddenly ambushed. And what happened next is mostly based on two accounts. Curtis himself and a longtime friend, Patrick McMillan, who was also 80 years old at the time and lived nearby. Now, Curtis said that when he stepped inside the trailer, he was immediately knocked unconscious. Then he was stabbed and beaten by multiple people. He says that he totally blacked out and that when he came to, he was surrounded by this group of people who were all trying to kill him. He also said, get this, that he had a samurai sword just impaled in his chest. He also had a very serious head injury and one of his eyes was very badly damaged. Yet somehow, despite all of that, he somehow miraculously managed to reach for a gun that he had on himself and he fired in self defense. So he shot and killed one of his attackers, who sure enough was Emma. Remember we talked about Emma earlier as being one of the friends and she was also part of the Zizian group. He also injured somebody else before ultimately running out of ammunition. Now Curtis's friend Patrick, he didn't see the stabbing happen, but he did hear all of the commotion. So he opened his door and he found his friend outside, stumbling, bleeding, completely disoriented and with this freaking sword sticking out of his body. He called 911 multiple times begging for help. And in one of those 911 calls, you can even hear the panic in his voice as he describes Curtis's condition. He tells the operator, he's been stabbed, he's bleeding everywhere, he's been beat up bad. And I want you to take a listen to Patrick recounting what happened to his friend.
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Witness/Neighbor
Basically what led to it was the idea, I think, that these transgender homicidal.
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Computer scientists, vegans.
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Thought that they could get away with not paying him any rent by killing him. And they jumped him and tried to chop him up and solve them in a tank of lie was her intent.
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Annie Elise
Now, thankfully, Curtis survived the attack, but he did have to spend a month in the hospital and he actually ended up losing his right eye. Unfortunately though, there was no surveillance cameras around that area that captured this brutal attack. So it really became a case of he said, she said with attempted murder on the table. Still though, it was enough to arrest the surviving Zizians who were a part of this attack, Surrey and Alexander. Now, when the cops started investigating this incident more, they found that the Zizians who were living on that property had a stockpile of knives, also swords and all sorts of like weird weapons. They even had chemicals that had been mixed and ready, just prepared on standby, which they thought it was possibly to try to dissolve Curtis's body after the fact, which that's so crazy when you just step back for a moment and think about it, cult or not, you have this group of like 20 year olds, 20 something year olds trying to kill a senior citizen using samurai swords, possibly using a chemical to dissolve his body after the fact. I mean, thank God Curtis had this gun and was able to use it in self defense because this could have been a very, very different outcome. So Suri and Alexander were arrested and charged with attempted murder for the attack on Curtis and also for the death of their friend and fellow Zizian, Emma. And even though it was Curtis who had pulled the trigger and actually shot and killed Emma, prosecutors argued that Suri and Alexander's actions are what caused the chain of events that led to her death. So because of that, they could be held responsible for it. And at the time, the whole thing was kind of treated as a very disturbing but isolated incident. A disgruntled landlord against their tenant, that kind of dispute, just, again, very siloed and isolated. But then, just a few weeks later, something even more insane happened in the Zizian circle. On New Year's Eve in 2022, the Philadelphia suburb of Chester Heights in Pennsylvania was filled with people who were all getting ready to ring in the new year with their family and their friends. And inside one of the homes in that suburb was Richard and Rita zadjko, A retired couple living in their 70s who had lived in that home for decades. Neighbors described them as warm, very private. Rita was very friendly, very active in the community, and Richard was always fixing something, kind of keeping their home nice and ready, and nearby rental properties also in good shape, and just really kind people, you know, just passing, going for walks as a family. He was always outside cutting his grass.
- [28:52]
Witness/Neighbor
Or cleaning the leaves or, you know.
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Annie Elise
They always had impeccable Christmas lights every single year. Richard and Rita had adopted their only daughter, Michelle, as a baby back in the early 90s. And for most of Michelle's childhood, she was just like the apple of their eye. They absolutely doted on her, adored her, and loved her. But as Michelle grew up, her relationship with her parents became more complicated. See, Michelle was super creative and very, very smart, but she was also a little offbeat. In high school, she called herself an art nerd, but at home, things were very tense. So much so that at one point, Michelle wrote that her parents had forced her to eat meat and had forced her to dye her hair, which were both things that were apparently completely against her values. So to Michelle's family, it was nothing more, you know, than teen rebellion, A teen acting out and trying to find her own place in the world. But at the time, the friends who knew Michelle said that they started to feel her pull away. Then after high school, she went on to university, which family was hopeful she would find herself, that she would kind of regulate back to the Michelle that.
- [29:55]
Announcer
They knew they loved.
- [29:57]
Annie Elise
But while she was at university, she ended up switching majors after she had found this community of rationalist thinkers online. So she ended up earning a master's degree in bioinformatics and eventually moved to California. And sure enough, when she made that move, she got involved with the Zizian group, and online, she defended their beliefs, and she spoke very highly of Ziz. So going back to new Year's Eve. By New year's Eve of 2022, Michelle hadn't seen her parents in almost a year. And the truth was, she never would again. Because around 11:30pm, a neighbor's ring camera caught a car pulling into Richard and Rita's driveway. Then a few minutes later, someone inside the house shouted, mom. Then, oh, my God. Oh, God.
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Co-host
Oh, God.
- [30:41]
Annie Elise
And nine minutes after that, two people were seen leaving the house and driving away. Now, to this day, the identities of who went into that family's home that night, it still remains a mystery. But two days later, on January 2, 2023, police entered the home, and they discovered the bodies of Richard and Rita. Rita had been shot once in the back of the head, and Richard had been shot in the temple. Only two bullets were fired, but both of them were deceased. Now, inside the house, the investigators found Michelle's id, which they thought that that could be crucial piece of evidence in this investigation. They used it to start tracing her movements and her location, and they found her all the way up in Vermont. Now, when they found her, Michelle was cooperative with the police, and she gave them a voluntary interview. She claimed that she hadn't even been to Pennsylvania since before the pandemic and that she hadn't seen her parents since early 2022. But later, she admitted that her mom had text her just hours before the murders about a savings bond that Michelle could cash soon. So, initially, it seemed like while Michelle was trying to kind of give off the vibe that she and her parents were estranged and hadn't seen each other in a long time, the reality was they were definitely still in touch with one another. Michelle wasn't arrested, but it is safe to say that she was on the police's radar because the cops also learned that she had legally purchased a Smith and Wesson handgun in Vermont a few months earlier. And the same kind of ammo that had been used for that gun was the type of ammo that had been used in the murder of her parents. And sure enough, when the police took a closer look at Michelle's gun, they had noticed that it had recently been cleaned. Still, though, without any hard proof placing her at the scene in Pennsylvania states away, no charges were filed. But like I said, Michelle was definitely still on the investigator's radar because they wanted to execute a search warrant. They wanted to see what else they could figure out about this situation. Now, the warrant finally came in at the end of January, 2023. So a few weeks after the double murder, and after the warrant came in, they were able to dig a Little bit deeper into Michelle now. By then, Michelle was staying at a hotel in Pennsylvania along with another Zizian follower named Danielle Blank. So the police arrive, they are there to serve and execute this warrant. And when they arrived, what's very, very interesting is they found Michelle in her room, Daniel hiding in the bathroom with the shower running. And they also found a third person there, none other than Ziz herself. Ziz was alive. She wasn't dead. It turns out she had faked her drowning and her death. It was all just this huge ruse and bigger attempt to be as off grid as possible. Meanwhile, she had continued building her online group and she had fooled everyone for a while anyway, people thought she was dead. She was legally declared dead, but sure enough, now here's is was in the flesh.
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Co-host
I'm going to set the scene for you really quick. Okay. Most of us are juggling a hundred.
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Annie Elise
Different things at once.
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Co-host
Work, family, errands, routines, recording.
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Annie Elise
Like me.
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Co-host
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Annie Elise
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Annie Elise
Threats when they're outside.
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Annie Elise
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- [36:41]
Annie Elise
So it turned out that Ziz had faked her death in that San Francisco Bay boating accident. She got her sister and other Zizians to give statements that she was out on the boat and that she went overboard and that she was never seen again. And the exact reason isn't super clear why she wanted to do that. But again, I think it was in an attempt to not only be as off the grid as possible, but but also I think it's safe to assume that it had something to do with her facing those charges from the 2019 protest incident. Because now the courts were opening back up, things were going, you know, she was going to have to be accountable for that. And just in general, again, this whole Zizzian group loved this whole idea of being off the grid. And what's more off the grid than being dead? Right? And Ziz wasn't the only member of the group that had this whole like dead missing person thing going for her either. It turns out Daniel Blank was also a reported missing person. His last known contact with his family had been back in 2022 during a Thanksgiving visit to the Bay Area. His parents said that he had been Acting very strange, very secretive, and pretty withdrawn. Seemingly out of nowhere, too. Just kind of randomly one day, he claimed that he had this job at an online startup in Ohio, but he wouldn't give them any details. Said, you know, I signed an NDA. I can't share any more information. And sure enough, that holiday ended up being the last time that they ever saw him. Then, not long after allegedly taking this job in the Midwest, Daniel cut off all contact. But not until after he sent a truly graphic video to his family about animals being slaughtered and about how eating meat is basically the equivalent of committing murder. So, again, very strict, very strong, very bold beliefs. So, anyway, in the hotel room that day, Michelle and Daniel were detained but not arrested. Ziz, on the other hand, she refused to cooperate, and she was arrested on charges of obstruction and disorderly conduct. She was taken to jail, and she actually stayed there for almost six months until June of 2023, when she posted bail. Now, once Ziz got out, she just completely stopped showing up for court. And because of that, a bench warrant was issued for missing a scheduled court appearance. She also apparently had another open warrant from California that had been tied to that 2019 protest, which I mentioned at the beginning of this episod episode. Now, when they were searching the hotel room itself, the cops didn't exactly find what they were hoping for. However, they did find that Michelle had about $40,000 worth of cash on her, which, let's be honest, that's not exactly just like spare change that you would have lying around. But it didn't really prove that she was involved in killing her parents, even though it certainly was weird and maybe even looked like she was planning on going on the run. Yes, but there was no real evidence. So with no real leads or evidence that placed any of the Zizians at the scene of the crime, the case into Richard and Rita went cold. But the question surrounding what happened that night and who might have been involved, that never went away. Because if it wasn't Michelle, if it wasn't a part of her group, who would have wanted this couple dead? And why? And why would her ID have been left at the scene? Why would the bullets coincidentally match there? I mean, there's just so much circumstantial evidence, right? But after Richard and Rita were killed, the Zizian group and, like the chatter within it, started to die down for a little while, but not for long. Just a couple of Years later, by January 2025, the group was about to be right back smack in the headlines, this time connected to Two more very intense deadly situations. Now, remember that first case that we talked about, the one in Vallejo where Suri, Alexander and Emma tried to kill their landlord Curtis with the samurai'd sword? But Curtis ended up surviving and then shooting and killing Emma in self defense. Well, by the start of 2025, that case still hadn't gone to trial yet, but it was moving through the court system and it looked like the trial was getting ready to start. So that meant that Curtis, who was now 82 years old, was going to be a key witness in this. He and his friend Patrick, the guy who called 911 to report the attack, were the only witnesses who could tell the full story of what truly happened that day. But sure enough, just weeks before he was expected to testify, something truly unthinkable happened. On January 17, 2025, Curtis was attacked again. Now, ever since the original incident in 2022, Curtis had been living in fear. He actually ended up moving out of Vallejo entirely. And he had been mostly staying with a friend in San Mateo county, which is about an hour south of San Francisco. He still owned the property where that attack went down and he would occasionally return to check on it or handle issues if they popped up. But he had actually been trying to sell it and offload it. He didn't want any attachment to that area anymore. And anytime that he did go there after the attack, he always made sure to carry a gun, admitting to his loved ones that he was just scared. He was terrified to go alone. So on January 17, 2025, at around 2:30pm, Curtis was out, just going about his day. He had been near another property that he owned, different from where the attack went down. And as he was just standing there, standing outside on the sidewalk that day, someone walked right up to him and stabbed him in the neck in broad daylight. And by the time an ambulance arrived, Curtis was dead. Now, the attacker was wearing a black beanie, a mask, dress pants and a purple shirt. And witnesses described the suspect as an Asian male. So police launched an immediate search and they even brought in California Highway Patrol helicopter to scour the area. However, the suspect managed to slip away and evade the officers, which Curtis's friends and family were absolutely devastated. They had described him as kind, generous, a little idealistic. He had this big heart for the community, always wanted to help people. He also loved boating. He would pitch creative ideas to help the homeless situation, saying, you know, we could use old cruise ships as shelters, things like that. And Curtis never imagined that his life would end the way it did. Just being targeted twice. And the timing of Curtis's death raised some serious questions. Right, like could the Zizians have been behind this second attack as well? And if so, was it because their plan was to stop him from testifying? I mean, after all, he was the main witness in a murder case that had gone wrong. And he was about to testify as the trial was about to start. But while the police were scrambling for leads in California and searching for Curtis's killer, another violent act was about to unfold 3,000 miles away in Vermont. January 20, 2025 started out like any other day for David Christopher Milland, a 44 year old U.S. border Patrol agent who was working near the U.S. canada border in northern Vermont. Now he went by Chris for short. And Chris was a veteran of both the Air Force and his current Border Patrol job. He had once even worked security at the Pentagon during 9 11. And he had spent the last decade of his life patrolling the northern U.S. canada border. His friends and co workers all described him as humble, dedicated, just extremely kind. And I know a lot of people have this idea probably of what it's like working border patrol and how it probably is super intense all the time. And don't get me wrong, I'm sure it can be. But most of the days, especially at this northern border, were essentially pretty uneventful and pretty peaceful. Agents would spend most of their time just checking IDs, responding to alerts, monitoring crossing points. Violence was very, very rare, not the norm. But January 20th, that was different. Because that day Chris pulled over a Toyota prius on Interstate 91 in a town just about a half hour south of the Canadian border in Vermont. And it was supposed to be just a standard stop. Apparently, authorities had reason to believe that one of the passengers in the car might have an expired visa. Which kind of begs the question, okay, well who was in the car? Why was that an issue? Well, inside the Prius that day was 21 year old Teresa Youngblood. She's from Washington State, and she also had a friend with her named Felix Baukhold, a German citizen who now identified as a woman and used the name Ophelia. So both Teresa and Ophelia were already on federal law enforcement's radar because just a few days earlier, a hotel employee in Vermont had reported seeing the pair dressed in full tactical gear. Obviously not something that you normally see every day. And I'm talking about black clothing, body armor, visible firearms. They were also apparently carrying night vision equipment, a ballistic helmet, dozens of rounds of hollow point ammo. I mean, just Something that is definitely scary. And let me just talk about Teresa for a second here, because it turns out, just like Daniel, Teresa was actually a missing person, according to her parents, anyway, who had reported her missing back in May of 2024. They told the police that their daughter had cut off all contact, that she stopped talking to her friends, changed her number, and that they were afraid that she was in a very controlling relationship. And on the morning of January 20, Ophelia was seen at a local Walmart buying aluminum foil and then wrapping objects with it while making a phone call. Just, I mean, talk about paranoia, right? Anytime somebody's wrapping windows or devices or objects with aluminum foil, it's giving. Paranoid. It's giving. You're hiding something, right? So they were already on people's radar for their bizarre behavior and certain interactions along their travel. So later that day at the Border Patrol, when Chris pulled them over, he was expecting to just check their visas. But when Teresa got out, what she did next shocked everyone. Teresa immediately pulled out a gun, and she opened fire without any hesitation. All of a sudden, Chris was just fired off and hit in the neck. Everything went down incredibly fast. And another Border Patrol agent on the scene saw Ophelia also reach for a weapon and fired back. Ophelia was hit twice in the chest and died at the scene. Teresa was also shot once in the arm and once in the leg, but she survived. Unfortunately, though, Agent Chris, he didn't. He died from his injuries shortly after. And Chris's family had this to say about his death.
- [46:56]
Co-host
We are deeply touched at the outpouring of love and support. To think people who never knew David Christopher Mayland personally would reach out with condolences and beautiful words of support has been beyond our imagination. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.
- [47:12]
Annie Elise
Teresa was arrested at the scene and later pleaded not guilty to federal firearm charges. Authorities haven't confirmed whose bullet hit Chris, which I guess means that there's a chance that maybe it was Ophelia's or possibly even the other Border Patrol agents. But because, remember, it all went down super fast. And sometimes, you know, that can happen in the crossfire. But as the police tried to piece together exactly what went down that day, they discovered something really jaw dropping. The guns that were used by Teresa and Ophelia in that shooting were originally purchased by a name that was already known to law enforcement. Michelle, the Zizian Group member whose parents had been murdered in cold blood back on New year's Eve in 2022. So the police immediately put out a bulletin saying that Michelle was likely armed, very dangerous, and they were seeking her whereabouts. Police also asked the public for any tips as they looked for Michelle and her 2013 Subaru Outback. And once the investigators connected Michelle to the border shooting, it became clear that this was another act of violence that had been carried out by the Zizians, this weird online cult. Then, on Friday, January 4, 2025, just four days after Chris, the border agent was killed, there was a major break in the murder case related to the landlord, Curtis, back in California. Authorities tracked a suspect in Curtis's murder to Redding, California. And there they arrested a 25 year old man named Maximilian Snyder. And you probably guessed it by now, Max was also a confirmed Zizian follower. And as it turns out, he was also the boyfriend of Teresa, the same woman who had just been arrested in connection with that deadly stop in Vermont. Now, Max, like several others who were caught up in the Zizian world, had a very impressive resume. He had studied computer science and philosophy at Oxford University, which is one of the most prestigious schools in the world, and had just this incredibly bright future ahead of himself. But when Max was arrested, he was charged with first degree murder. And with special circumstances attached, he was accused of killing Curtis to prevent him from testifying. So, in other words, silencing a witness. And his arrest sent shockwaves through the community and really the whole country, because now it was clear just how intertwined and deadly all of these attacks involving the Zizians were. Max's arrest also confirmed what Curtis had feared all along, that somebody was planning on coming back to kill him.
- [49:49]
Co-host
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Annie Elise
It'S made totally differently.
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Co-host
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- [51:09]
Announcer
Now.
- [51:09]
Annie Elise
I do want to clarify that right now, at least at the time of this recording. Prosecutors have not accused Teresa of being involved in Curtis's murder. But the connections between these cases, I mean, they were growing harder and harder to ignore. And it left the police asking how many more Zizian killers are really out there? Which, let's pause for a second and just do a quick recap because by this point it is kind of a lot to keep track of. But by late January 2005, six people had lost their lives as a direct or indirect result of the Zizian ideology. Here they are in order. First, it was Curtis, the 82 year old landlord in Vallejo, who first, remember, survived the brutal sword attack in 2022, but then was murdered in 2025 after being stabbed in broad daylight in the neck just weeks before he was supposed to testify in court. Then you have Emma, the Zizian member who was shot and killed by Curtis in self defense from the 2022 sword attack. You have Richard and Rita, the retired couple in Pennsylvania who were executed in their bedroom on New year's Eve in 2022. Their daughter Michelle, who is a known Zizian, remains a person of interest. You have Chris, the US Border Patrol agent who was killed during that traffic stop in Vermont when Teresa allegedly opened fire on him. And then you have Ophelia, the Zizian, who was in the car with Teresa during that stop, who was killed by law enforcement after she had reached for a weapon. And while arrests were finally being made, I mean, the scope of what had happened and what might still be uncovered was overwhelming. Let me also quickly go over who exactly was in custody at this point by the end of January 2025, because I know that this case does have a lot of players and a lot of people involved. But Teresa was in federal custody for her involvement in the border stop. Max was also arrested for the murder of Curtis, the landlord. He was also identified as Teresa's boyfriend, Alexander, who had already been charged in the 2022 attack on Curtis with the sword. And then Suri, who was also charged in that attack and is believed to have helped. Yet despite the growing list of suspects, no one had been charged with the double homicide. Yet for Rita and Richard, Michelle, their daughter, remained a Person of interest. But she was never labeled an official suspect and nobody had ever been arrested in connection with it. And it's interesting because it seems like all of these members of this group are being arrested. Yet Ziz, the one who faked her death, hasn't been connected to any of these murders or crimes themselves. Yet she's the leader of this group. Right? So was Z hiding out somewhere? I mean, for a while, nobody really seemed to know. Remember, she had faked her death years earlier to try to go off the grid. Of course, she had been found in that hotel room with Michelle and Daniel. So her cover was officially blown, but nobody knew where she was. But then finally, on February 16, 2025, the whole world was about to find out that Ziz was alive and was found. Because that day, Ziz was arrested alongside Michelle and Daniel. Apparently, the three of them were found trespassing on private land in a remote area near the border of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. According to court documents, they were dressed head to toe in black. They had approached a nearby resident asking if they could camp on the property for a month. The resident had said no, and then called the police, scared, unsure what these people were planning to do, what their motives were. And good on them, too, because that would be scary. If somebody just came up to me and was like, hey, can I camp on your. How at your house for a month? And they were dressed in all black. I'd be like, hell no, and I'm calling the police. So weird. But then when the officers showed up to the property, they found two white box trucks that had been parked at the end of the road and. And inside one of them, Ziz and Daniel were there. And they were wearing gun belts loaded with ammunition. When the police searched the vehicles, they also found even more incriminating stuff. I'm talking a long rifle in the back, handguns on the floor. And it didn't stop there. Federal prosecutors say that Ziz was in possession of a.50 caliber sniper rifle, also a handgun, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, which that is serious firepower. If convicted on those charges alone, she could face up to 15 years in federal prison. Now, for now, a judge has ordered her to be held without bail, calling her both a flight risk and also a danger to public safety, which couldn't agree more. Michelle and Daniel, as I said, were also arrested, but they weren't hit with federal charges. Not yet anyway. So far they've been charged locally with trespassing, obstruction, and weapons related offenses. And just to be clear, once again, Zyzz has not been charged in connection with any of the murders. But this arrest definitely did start to change everything, and it kind of put the whole Zizian group and story front and center in the news. But the case still isn't done. There are even more twists and turns because get this, In June of 2025, a judge finally set a trial date for Suri and Alexander, the two surviving Zizians who were involved in that sword attack on 80 year old Curtis. That trial was supposed to begin in October of 2025, but has been rescheduled. And if it's anything like the pre trial hearings have been, we are in for a very wild ride. Alexander has been very outspoken in the courtroom. Anytime that there's an appearance, and all of the delays and the outbursts are kind of what has played a part in dragging this entire thing out for years. But at the most recent trial, she apparently disrupted the court and shouted over 20 times, I waive my right to a speedy trial. And another time, after the judge approved a motion to combine her and Suri's cases, Alexandra started yelling, someone please help me. I am surrounded by trans misogynists. They are torturing me for being transgender. All while the judge was attempting to just read her the charges. Nasuri, on the other hand, has been much more quiet, appearing at hearings on Zoom instead of in court. And get this, ever since, her photo has been sort of like out there in the media and in the news, and people have come forward saying she's not Suri at all. Some people believe that Suri was once someone named Tessa Burns, and some investigators think she just made up the name Suri on the spot when she was arrested. Her lawyers claim that they have ever known her as Suri, though. But someone who claims that they went to high school with her and also used to be very good friends with her claims that she's certain that the identity is Tessa Burns. And this person had even heard rumors that Tessa had joined a cult after pretty much falling off the face of the earth and. And cut off contact with almost everyone that they used to associate with. Which, as we know, that certainly adds up here, right? You join a cult, you assume a new identity, get a new name, leave that person behind. So apparently even Suri's adoptive mother has identified her as Tessa. So I think that kind of speaks volumes as to who she might really be. Now, as for Max Snyder, the Zizian member accused of killing Curtis, he entered a plea of not guilty in the murder charge against him. He was supposed to have another hearing in June of 2025, but it looks like it got pushed to August because his defense claimed that they needed more time for evidence discovery. In his court appearances so far, he's been very calm, very collected, and during one, he even was heard humming a song while he was just like sitting there waiting for everything to begin. But I want you to take a listen to one of Curtis's friends reflecting on what happened to him.
- [58:25]
Friend of Curtis
He would take in people from the streets who needed a place to stay. He was a kind hearted person, and so he's a lot more well loved than most of us will be. They were a murderous group of people who didn't want to get evicted. Okay, Just full stop. He happened to end up with a bad batch of tenants who made him suffer the ultimate price.
- [58:48]
Annie Elise
Now the next Zizian still facing justice is Teresa, the 21 year old who's charged with killing the border patrol agent and also just so happens to be in a relationship with Max. Now, they applied for a marriage license before all of this went down. And her trial is still in the discovery phase as well, with attorneys currently arguing over evidence. But her attorneys have also said that they think that there's a chance that the federal government will go for the death penalty. However, that hasn't been officially decided yet. There's also no official trial date set. And because this is a federal case, it likely will be a while, probably going into 2026 or, I don't know, maybe even beyond. There's also going to be some upcoming court dates for Daniel, who was arrested on those gun and trespassing charges earlier in the year alongside Michelle and Ziz. And honestly, not a lot is known about Daniel's full involvement or if he was involved in any of the actual murders. But in court documents that had been filed this past February, his name is actually mentioned as being under investigation for the murder of Richard and Rita, Michelle's parents. So whatever ends up happening with Daniel, his association with this crew is obviously not a good look. And he's likely going to be found guilty on those charges that have been brought against him so far. But only time will tell. Michelle is also expected to face a judge for her charges of trespassing, obstruction and hindering, resisting arrest and having a handgun on her person. And not only that, but she was also charged by federal authorities for providing false information related to the purchase of multiple guns. Remember the guns that were used in that shootout with the patrol agent? Those were apparently bought by Michelle. And even though she's not an official suspect in the murder of her parents. She does remain a person of interest in the case. So it all begs the question, right? Where do things go from here? Since there are a few trials that are going to be happening in the next months and years, I'm going to definitely be keeping tabs on the case and tabs on everybody involved. But it is with genuinely one of the more disturbing and senseless stories that I have come across lately. Because the violence, it didn't come from money or jealousy or revenge. It kind of came from just like this warped, rooted belief system that was fueled by Internet rabbit holes and this one singular person's delusion that they were on some sort of righteous mission. The Zizians weren't robbing anyone, they weren't targeting their enemies. They were just kind of out for blood, out for vengeance, believing that they were cleansing the world because of some sort of hierarchy or some sort of like higher vegan ideology. And now six people are dead for it, which I just feel horrible for the victims and their families because these are people who had absolutely nothing to do with any of this. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And it's really terrifying to think about when you break it down and think how quickly this group moved from just like radical ideas to, to real world violence and how easy it seemed to convince these young 20 year olds that who were idolistic people that murder was justified. I also keep thinking about the younger followers too, because every single life that the Zizians took, there's another life that is ruined by falling into this cult. Daniel, for instance, he hadn't seen his family in up to two years. He then sent them that horrific graphic video about killing animals and just vanished, only to turn up in that hotel room with Ziz, then get arrested on weapons and trespassing charges. So now he's likely going to spend some time in prison. Same with Michelle, Alexander, Suri and Ziz herself. But it's like, for what, what is the greater purpose here? So I don't know. This case is just a really scary reminder of how far ideology can go when it's like unregulated and unchecked. And when people start isolating themselves online in these message boards, these forms, and stop living in reality and stop living in the real world. These people did not start out as hardened criminals. They were educated, they were smart. They had their whole lives ahead of them. They were just a group who lost touch with reality. And now the damage that they've caused and the murders that they've committed that cannot be undone. So I don't know. Let me know what you think about this. I know it was a little bit different from our like tried and true true crime cases, but it had the murder elements, it had some cult elements and I just felt like it's wild and I want to get your thoughts on it. Like what are the motives here? What's going on? Have you ever heard of the Zizian Group? Are there more out there? I would imagine there probably are and they just haven't been caught. Like, where does this end? What's happening here? It's kind of freaky. So thank you guys so much for tuning in to another episode of Serialist Lee with me. I will be back with you on Thursday with headline highlights. And don't forget, if you feel like you need more true crime content to binge before Thursday, we also now have the Tend to Life podcast out there with all new episodes every single Tuesday. So you can go listen to that right after this one. Alright guys, thank you so much. And until the next one, be nice, don't kill people, don't join any cult. And maybe stay away from anybody with the name Ziz. If they contact you, if they DM you, if they IM you, stay away. Block them, block them, block them. All right guys, bye.
- [64:07]
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- [65:06]
Commercial Narrator 3
At Hinge, we love a good conversation, but lately those conversations are stopping short. So we asked 30, 30,000 daters to tell us what's really going on. What we found is that 84% of Gen Z daters do want deeper emotional connections, but they're 36% more hesitant than millennials to start a deep conversation. And that's what we call the communication gap, the space between wanting connection and making a move. You can ask one better question and start closing the gap today. Learn more In Hinge's 2025 Gen Z date Report, now live at Hinge Co.