Another detail has emerged in the complicated, sordid, and violent saga of the Zizians, and it is the first to draw a direct link between Jack "Ziz" LaSota and an order compelling someone to murder.

If you have not heard the story yet of the Zizians, their formation in the Bay Area, the residency of several of them in Vallejo until late 2022, the attempted murder of their Vallejo landlord, the murders of two people in their 60s in Pennsylvania, and the killings of that Vallejo landlord and a border patrol agent in Vermont last month, then you can start here.

The Chronicle also did a deep dive on formative period of the group, in the summer of 2017, when Ziz and at least one acolyte sailed from Alaska to Half Moon Bay in a rusty tugboat that they briefly turned into their "anchor-out" home. This was meant to be the first in a "rationalist fleet" of boats, where like-minded thinkers, many of whom were deeply concerned with the rise of artificial intelligence, and most of whom were also trans women.

SFGate now picks up and attempts to summarize the full tale in the framework of cults and how they work, typically using mind-control techniques, sleep deprivation, loyalty tests, prescriptive diets (veganism in this case), financial control, and isolation from friends and family to wield control over subjects. A chronicler of the Zizian group who goes by Apollo Mojave compiled this summation and warning of what the local rationalist community knew about them as of several years ago, and noted that it was "far from coincidence" that "Ziz seems to go out of her way to target transgender people" because they are typically financially vulnerable, and have identities that are in flux.

Now, we know that at least two followers of Ziz, Michelle Zajko and Ophelia Bauckholt, were financially quite comfortable, and were perhaps even providing financial support to the group.

Bauckholt, a 28-year-old quantitative analyst, was reportedly earning a salary around $1 million per year, and may have been paying for two expensive Airbnb units in Chapel Hill, North Carolina up until last month. She was killed in the shootout with border patrol agents in northern Vermont on January 20, accompanied by 21-year-old Teresa Youngblut, who is now in custody on gun charges. She has not yet been charged with the murders of the border patrol agent, David Maland, or Bauckholt.*

And Zajko is the daughter of apparently well off parents who were living in Chester Heights, Pennsylvania. Property that Zajko owned in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, in the town of Coventry, was not far from where the January shooting took place. And SFGate notes, voting records and a police charging document indicate that Zajko was living with a romantic partner at the Coventry address, one Alice Monday — and this is the first I'm hearing of this name in the tale.

Monday appears to have gone off the grid and was living in Chile around 2022, which coincides with a blog post from Zajko that discusses how Ziz ordered her by phone to kill her partner. (2022 is also the year that Ziz faked  her own death by drowning in the Bay, and the year that three members of the group attacked 80-year-old Curtis Lind in Vallejo with knives and a sword.)

"During our last phone call, Ziz informed me that the only way I could gain her trust and make up for what I did to her was to murder Alice, preferably sometime soon,” Zajko writes. The blog post continues, “... then told me that after I should video call Ziz and show her the body before I destroy it so she could get proof positive that I’d really done it. And if I didn’t do it, Ziz planned to drive across the entire continental United States to murder me."

Not long after, on December 31, 2022, Zajko's parents were murdered in Pennsylvania, and Ziz, Zajko, and then-24-year-old Daniel Blank were located in a nearby airport hotel and taken into police custody. All three are still considered persons of interest in the double-murder. A gun used in the Vermont shooting was also registered to Zajko, and she is wanted on a gun charge there.

All three were arrested last week in a rural part of Maryland, where they had been living in box trucks on someone's private land, much like the group had been in Vallejo. They are being held without bail in Allegany County. Ziz made a court appearance last week at a bail hearing pleading to be given vegan meals in jail.

Her vegan diet, she said, was "more important than whatever this hearing is."

Previously: Leader of Zizians Group Speaks Out In Court Pleading for Vegan Food, Says 'I've Done Nothing Wrong'

*This post has been corrected to show that Youngblut has not yet been charged with murder.