More bizarre details uncovered about leader of alleged Bay Area ‘death cult’
Published By admin with Comments 0
A string of killings across America — including the stabbing death of a landlord in Vallejo, a deadly shootout in Vermont and the massacre of a married couple in Pennsylvania — are seemingly connected by a fringe group led by an elusive leader in the Bay Area.
In Vermont and California, two suspects appeared in court this week facing criminal charges. Oxford-educated data scientist Maximilian Snyder, 22, was charged in Solano County with the murder of Vallejo landlord Curtis Lind. In Vermont, 21-year-old data scientist Teresa Youngblut was charged in connection with the killing of a Border Patrol agent in a shootout near the Canadian border.
It has now been revealed that Snyder and Youngblut recently applied for a marriage license. The connection, though, appears to run deeper than a marriage proposal: The couple has ties to a fringe online group named the Zizians. The namesake of the group, Ziz, has been accused of making death threats on forums promoting a radical form of Rationalism, which discusses the ethics of veganism, artificial intelligence destroying humanity and using scientific techniques to enhance human decision-making.
A recent Open Vallejo investigation identified Ziz as Jack LaSota, a former tenant at a property on Third Street in Vallejo, where a samurai sword attack in 2022 left tenant Emma Borhanian, 31, dead and landlord Curtis Lind without an eye. Lind was stabbed to death at the property earlier this month before he could testify in the trial related to the 2022 attack.
In November 2019, LaSota, Borhanian, Gwen Danielson and Alexander Leatham went to Westminster Woods, a children’s outdoor camp in Occidental, wearing Guy Fawkes-style masks. According to their attorney at the time, they were protesting the “coverup of child molestation by one or more people”; it is not clear who this refers to, or if there are credible allegations of child molestation related to the location. During the protest, the four were arrested by deputies from the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, and as a result of those arrests, they later filed a lawsuit alleging they were tortured and sexually assaulted while in custody.
On Feb. 17, 2023, the group’s attorney, Jerold Friedman, was granted a remarkable motion by the court. He had asked to withdraw from the case due to the fact that three of the four clients were definitely or possibly deceased.
Content retrieved from: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/leader-alleged-bay-area-death-cult-faked-death-sf-20066610.php.
