The New York Times has attempted to explain one of the still unexplained pieces of the bizarre web of Zizian "murder cult" deaths, just as a Solano County trial for two of the cult's suspects gets delayed until next year.
The full picture of what the Zizians were up to during their years either self-sequestered in solar-powered box trucks in Vallejo, or in the case of others, sequestered in Vermont or in a pair of condos in North Carolina, remains murky. And that may be because there were a fair amount of drugs involved, and blogging on esoteric subjects, and bizarre, spurious experiments aimed at controlling individual hemispheres of one's brain.
A few clues have emerged, which mostly just translate into theories of their thinking and motivations. The strict veganism, for instance: Leader Ziz (born Jack LaSota) and other members of the group were likely compelled by the idea that, if we are facing a future in which AI entities gain control over us, we have to set an example for how we treat lesser creatures, and not kill them for food. It is an extension, albeit extreme, of Rationalist and effective altruist principals, believing that sentient life of all kinds must be preserved to avoid an AI apocalypse.
One mysterious figure who is now dead because of her involvement with Ziz and the others, Ophelia (born Felix, and still known as Felix to her family) Bauckholt, a German national math prodigy who was in the US on an HI-B visa, and was making something like a $500,000 income working as a quant trader and analyst for a Manhattan firm.
While motivations and links between the six deaths that the Zizians are linked to have not been confirmed by investigators or court documents, it seems clear that money, and the resources to continue living off the grid to do what Ziz considered their important, experimental work, was a key factor.
Were it not for a pending eviction, for non-payment of rent, from property that four of them were living on in Vallejo in November 2022, the first violent attack attributed to the group may not have occurred. Alexander "Somni" Leatham, Suri Dao, and Emma Borhanian allegedly attacked landlord Curtis Lind as he was taking steps to evict them after over two years on his property not paying rent. 25 months later, in January 2025, as Leatham and Dao were headed to trial for both Lind's and Borhanian's deaths, Lind was allegedly fatally stabbed by another assailant, Maximilian Snyder.
Days later, a 21-year-old woman who had attended the University of Washington and who had been in long romantic relationship with Snyder, Teresa Youngblut, was in a shootout with US Border Patrol agents in Vermont in which she was injured, and both an agent and Bauckholt, who was the passenger in the car she was driving, ended up dead. Youngblut has now been charged with murder in federal court, and faces state charges as well.
The New York Times picks up the story again this week, noting a few details we had not heard before' including the fact that Youngblut's family had reported her missing eight months prior to the Vermont shootout.
Bauckholt, the Times reports, had ghosted her closest friends and her roommate, a fellow trans woman and Rationalist, Astra Kolomatskaia, over a year earlier, leaving New York City without explanation and apparently becoming one of Ziz's devotees -- though members of the group continue to reject the term "Zizian," and obviously don't think they are/were in a cult.
It seems clear from the Times's reporting that Bauckholt was impressionable, generous, and more than a touch naive, and was lured into Zizian inner circle for a pragmatic reason, from Ziz'z perspective: she had money.
Following the arrests of Suri Dao and Somni Leatham in California, and despite the seriousness of the charges against them, Bauckholt offered up money to fund Dao's defense, believing that the criminal justice system was fundamentally corrupt and unjust. It's unclear if Dao's defense attorney may still be profiting from those funds, nine months after Bauckholt's death.
Dao and Bauckholt had reportedly been friends online, corresponding in various forums where Dao was known as Silver and Ivory -- a blogger known to write about ethics and trans rights. Bauckholt reportedly offered a bounty to a friend in California to find Dao, saying, "$500 + an extra $1000 for Silver if Silver is alive?" Adding, "Or double those numbers I guess."
Bauckholt reportedly attempted to live on only 10% of her pretax income, and had been known to give generously to charities, under the auspices of effective altruism. The Times piece suggests that Bauckholt was attracted both to the Zizians' philosophy, but also maybe moreso to the idea that they were people in need of financial help, and she had the funds to give them.
Bauckholt's friends report her becoming increasingly distant around June 2023 -- a time that coincides with Ziz's release from jail in Pennsylvania, in connection with an obstruction charge relating to the deaths of the parents of Michelle Zajko in the suburbs of Philadelphia, on December 31, 2022.
Bauckholt reportedly began taking frequent, unexplained weekend trips during the summer and fall of 2023 -- possibly to Vermont, where the group had holed up for a time on property Zajko purchased, or elsewhere. We know that Bauckholt likely funded the rental of a pair of Airbnbs in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where Ziz was likely staying with Youngblut and Bauckholt and possibly others, during the fall of 2024.
The Times also notes the timeline of a February 2024 trip Bauckholt took to Vermont to visit Zajko which coincides with Zajko purchasing four handguns from a store in Mount Tabor, Vermont. Those guns may have been purchased with Bauckholt's money, and two of those guns would end up in the car with Youngblut and Bauckholt almost a year later, when they were pulled over by Border Patrol.
Another new detail: Bauckholt and Youngblut were reportedly in Vermont to look at a piece of "off the grid" property that was for sale, which Bauckholt's money would also have been used to purchase.
What they thought they were accomplishing by that last act of violence -- or why they felt threatened by the traffic stop -- remains unclear. According to the agent who survived the shootout, Youngblut shot first, getting out of the car and opening fire without warning. Bauckholt, too, was seen reaching for a gun, was told to stop, and refused to comply. She was then shot twice in the chest.
Her friend, Dr. Kolomatskaia, who had been her roommate in New York before she disappeared, told NBC News earlier this year that Bauckholt was "the glue of our friend group," and she was "living a very good life" before this Zizian stuff came into her life. Though she didn't talk much about where she was going or who she was helping, Kolomatskaia suggests to the Times that it was part and parcel of her generous spirit.
Kolomastkaia adds, hauntingly, to the Times, "You can give people the benefit of the doubt and you can have it not bite you for the longest time. Until it does."
In related news this week, the Vacaville Reporter has word from the courtroom in Solano County where Leatham and Dao are set to be tried for Lind's attempted murder, and Borhanian's murder. It was already looking unrealistic that a trial date set for later this month would be stuck too, and, indeed, the judge granted a continuance that was requested by both defendants' attorneys.
The reason for the extra time, they say, is that they need time to collect and review more information from experts. The trial date is now set for March 3, 2026.