SERIALously - 344: New Cult in California?! Vegan Hipsters Start Their Own Murdering Cult?! | The Zizian Group

Starting point is 00:00:00 What if this was someone in your family that had a chronic illness that they could not get away from? Millions of Americans live with a disease that has no cure. I was diagnosed with a rare form of sarcoma. The most immediate findings indicated that I should lose my leg. It ended up taking four clinical trials in 25 years to get me to this point. Cures are within reach. if we invest in funding for life-saving medical research that's needed to find them. Even if they're unsuccessful in my treatment that they will have learned from my treatment

Starting point is 00:00:39 that will be able to allow others to stand on my shoulders to be able to be helped. Join the Fight for Cures. Tell your elected representatives to support American medical research. Visit UnitedforCures.org slash action to send a letter today. paid for by United for Cure's action When officers arrived at the scene they found three members of what police believe is a West Coast cult. What happens you get this paranoia

Starting point is 00:01:07 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. They showed up there in all black robes and five fox masks with a school bus.

Starting point is 00:01:25 The questions, how did the group start, and how did they get here? Who's behind this latest trail of terror? Hey, true crime besties, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistly. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialessly 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

Starting point is 00:02:25 you're at, I hope that you're just mentally ready. 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 fanfiction for a little added sprinkle into it. I mean, it's really wild, but to really understand how

Starting point is 00:03:16 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, 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. And they really started bonding together over these blog posts. And they believed in this way of thinking that basically rejected human emotion and it relied on logic for everything. And it was like these very, like, techy, techy type of people, kind of like, you know, a little bit of nerd alert stuff, if I'm being totally honest

Starting point is 00:04:02 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 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

Starting point is 00:04:38 as the only ones who could truly 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 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 Zizzians.

Starting point is 00:05:11 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 Lesota, a transgender woman who now goes by Ziz, 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.

Starting point is 00:05:55 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 fan fiction 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 don't know if I'm a Gryffindorf or I think that's the name or a whatever the heck,

Starting point is 00:06:35 whatever house you're in. 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 fan fiction 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 Ziz 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

Starting point is 00:07:17 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 findings his 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 very, very vegan. So much so that

Starting point is 00:08:00 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 vegan. So let me just explain.

Starting point is 00:08:36 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, 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 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

Starting point is 00:09:45 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 caution, 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 unihemispheric 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

Starting point is 00:10:30 could, they developed this sense of being the chosen ones, the ones who had all the answers. And it started to seep in 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'm going to throw it out there and say it with my chest. Be careful. Now, as these blog posts that Ziz wrote about continued to grow in popularity, so did her following, as many cult leaders do. And so did this whole, like, way of a 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

Starting point is 00:11:17 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.

Starting point is 00:11:41 There was no real hierarchy. I mean, yes, Ziz was basically the founder, but it's not like she was worshipped like these other cult leaders or that there was some sort of religion aspect to it. The Zizians pretty much all communicate, 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

Starting point is 00:12:06 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

Starting point is 00:12:50 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 get zeroed in on it? I really don't. 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?

Starting point is 00:13:36 And it's not a cut-and-dry answer, it's really not, because on the surface, the Zizians didn't fit to 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 a 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

Starting point is 00:14:15 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 posts would often talk about people who, quote, didn't contribute value and suggested that, logically, death could it 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

Starting point is 00:15:01 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, Ziz 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.

Starting point is 00:15:44 Now, according to Ziz 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 Zizz'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.

Starting point is 00:16:19 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.

Starting point is 00:17:06 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 Zizz'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 Ziz had died, the group that she founded continued on. And whether it was a cult or not, the results were the same. Because even more people ended up dead, people that did not deserve at all what happened to them.

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Starting point is 00:21:12 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 Lynde, an 80-year-old guy who owned a few properties around the Greater Vallejo area. Now, he was definitely not a slum lord or a real estate mogul by any means. He was just kind of like

Starting point is 00:22:03 this older man who rented out a few pieces of land here and there, and he was known for being fair but firm. 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 that. That big tugboat was being anchored by someone

Starting point is 00:22:30 who didn't know what they were doing. So I went to Kurt, who has a big marine yard, 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. And he brought it out here. We went out to their boat, and we said, look, we have a president. for you. So in 2022, Curtis was renting some land to a few tenants living in converted box trucks

Starting point is 00:22:54 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 Surrey Dow and 27-year-old Alexander Leitham, 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 groups more extreme, you know, logic over emotion type of ideas, while Surrey, 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

Starting point is 00:23:38 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, especially here in California. But then one morning, things took a very violent turn. On November 13th, 2022, Curtis was asked it 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

Starting point is 00:24:23 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

Starting point is 00:25:09 also a 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.

Starting point is 00:25:47 Basically, what led to it was the idea, I think, that these transgender homicidal, computer scientist, vegans, 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 dissolved them in a tank of lie. Was there intent? 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,

Starting point is 00:26:30 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

Starting point is 00:27:17 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 Surrey 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 Surrey 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,

Starting point is 00:27:57 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,

Starting point is 00:28:39 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 or cleaning the leaves or, you know, 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.

Starting point is 00:29:12 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

Starting point is 00:29:53 regulate back to the Michelle that they knew they loved. 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. 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 11.30 p.m., a neighbor's ring camera caught a car pulling into Richard and Rita's driveway.

Starting point is 00:30:34 Then, a few minutes later, someone inside the house shouted, Mom, then, oh my God, oh God, oh God. 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 2nd, 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.

Starting point is 00:31:06 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.

Starting point is 00:31:43 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 & 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,

Starting point is 00:32:25 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

Starting point is 00:33:11 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. I'm going to set the scene for you really quick, okay? Most of the first. of us are juggling a hundred different things at once. Work, family, errands, routines, recording like me, and somewhere in all of that mix. We're also supposed to have the time and the

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Starting point is 00:35:24 it's like way too late. The crime has already happened. But SimpleSafe is different. It's proactive with a double layer of defense designed to stop crimes before they start. First, their AI-powered cameras spot potential threats when they're outside. Then live agents actually talk to the person through the camera, letting them know that they're on video and that the police will be dispatched if they don't leave, if they don't get the heck out of there. They can even trigger a really loud siren or spotlight right directly on them. So that's how you stop a crime before it even starts. And here's what makes it even better. There are no long-term contracts and no hidden fees. You can cancel any time, which that flexibility is part of the reason that simply

Starting point is 00:36:04 safe has been named Best Home Security System by U.S. News and World Report for five years running. there's a 60-day money-back guarantee, so you can try it out and see the difference for yourself. And this month only, you can take 50% off any new system. This is one of the best prices that you will ever see for SimplySafe, so don't miss it. Just go to SimplySafe.com slash Annie. Again, that's simplysafe.com slash Annie and lock in your discount. There's no safe like SimplySafe. 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

Starting point is 00:36:50 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 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 Zizian 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

Starting point is 00:37:32 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 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

Starting point is 00:38:12 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. Zizz, 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.

Starting point is 00:38:46 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 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

Starting point is 00:39:18 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,

Starting point is 00:39:53 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, worry 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 Siri, Alexander, and Emma tried to kill their landlord Curtis with the Samaride Sword, but Curtis ended up surviving and then shooting and killing Emma and 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

Starting point is 00:40:37 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. 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

Starting point is 00:41:23 to sell it and offload it. He didn't want any attachment to that area anymore. And any time 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 17th, 2025, at around 2.30 p.m., 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

Starting point is 00:42:09 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, 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 Zizzians have been behind this second

Starting point is 00:42:55 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 20th, 2025 started out like any other day for David Christopher Miland, 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.

Starting point is 00:43:45 His friends and coworkers 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.

Starting point is 00:44:15 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 Bauld, a German citizen who now identified

Starting point is 00:44:50 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

Starting point is 00:45:35 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 20th, 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.

Starting point is 00:46:21 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.

Starting point is 00:46:50 He died from his injuries shortly after, and Chris's family had this to say about his death. 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. 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, because remember it all went down super fast and sometimes, you know, that can happen in the crossfire.

Starting point is 00:47:31 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.

Starting point is 00:47:54 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

Starting point is 00:48:14 the Zizians, this weird online cult. Then, on Friday, January 4th, 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 Reading, 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

Starting point is 00:49:01 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. The holidays come with a lot of amazing food traditions, like rolls, brunch spreads, sandwiches with

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Starting point is 00:50:34 And what makes this so useful and so great is that it fits into real meals that people already eat. Think breakfast sandwiches with protein, French toast on a Sunday morning, or just replacing the one item on your plate that sends everything sideways. Same comfort food, different macros. And hero bread is offering 10% off your order. Go to hero.co and use code A-E at checkout. That's A-E at h-e-r-o.co. Now, 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.

Starting point is 00:51:22 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

Starting point is 00:52:07 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 U.S. 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,

Starting point is 00:52:50 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 Surrey, 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,

Starting point is 00:53:33 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 Ziz 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.

Starting point is 00:53:57 But then finally, on February 16th, 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 at trespassing on private land in a remote area

Starting point is 00:54:14 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 house at your house for a month?

Starting point is 00:54:39 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 inside one of them, Zizz 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 Zizz was in possession of a 50-caliber sniper rifle, also a handgun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, which that is serious firepower.

Starting point is 00:55:18 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, Ziz 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.

Starting point is 00:56:00 There are even more twists and turns. Because get this. In June of 2025, a judge finally set a trial date for Surrey and Alexander, the two surviving Zizians who were involved in that sort 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 pretrial hearings have been, we're in for a very wild ride. Alexander has been very outspoken in the courtroom any time that there's an appearance, and all of the delays in 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.

Starting point is 00:56:40 And another time, after the judge approved a motion to combine her and Ceres cases, Alexander started yelling, Someone please help me. I am surrounded by trans-misogynist. They are torturing me for being transgender. all while the judge was attempting to just read her the charges. Now, Surrey, on the other hand, has been much more quiet, appearing at hearings on Zoom instead of in court.

Starting point is 00:57:01 And get this, ever since her photo has been sort of like out there in the media and in the news, people have come forward saying, she's not Surrey at all. Some people believe that Siri was once someone named Tessa Burns, and some investigators think she just made up the name Surrey on the spot when she was arrested. Her lawyers claim that they have ever known her as Surrey, though, but some people, 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 cut off

Starting point is 00:57:36 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 Surrey'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

Starting point is 00:58:17 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. 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 the bad batch of tenants who made him suffer the ultimate price. Now the next Zizian still facing justice is Teresa, the 21-year-old.

Starting point is 00:58:52 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

Starting point is 00:59:31 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 had 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

Starting point is 01:00:13 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 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

Starting point is 01:01:23 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 real world violence. and how easy it seemed to convince these young, 20-year-olds 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,

Starting point is 01:02:05 then get arrested on weapons and trespassing charges. So now he's likely going to spend some time in prison. Same with Michelle, Alexander, Surrey, 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

Starting point is 01:03:07 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 Serialistly 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 10 to Life podcast out there with all new episodes every single Tuesday. So you can go listen to that right after this one. All right, guys, thank you so much. And until the next one, be nice, don't kill people, don't join any cults, and maybe stay away from anybody with the name Ziz.

Starting point is 01:03:48 If they contact you, if they DM you, if they IM you, stay away. Block them, block them, block them. All right, guys, bye.

SERIALously - 344: New Cult in California?! Vegan Hipsters Start Their Own Murdering Cult?! | The Zizian Group

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