A February 24 DOJ press release reveals that a Manchester, N.H., resident — “Blu Zeke Daly”, previously known as “Cullan Zeke Daly” — has been charged with attempting to assault and murder a Border Patrol agent near CBP’s Pittsburg (N.H.) port of entry. Is this incident tied to the killing of Border Patrol agent David “Chris” Maland during a highway shootout in upstate Vermont last January? Federal investigators aim to find out.
The Murder of Agent Chris Maland
Around 3:15 PM on January 20, 2025, Agent Maland was killed after he was involved in a traffic stop of a vehicle on Interstate 91 between the Vermont towns of Newport and Orleans, approximately 20 miles from the U.S.-Canada border.
According to the FBI at the time: “During the course of the traffic stop, an exchange of gunfire occurred, and Agent Maland was struck. Additionally, one subject was killed, and one subject was injured and is currently being treated at an area hospital.”
The deceased driver was Ophelia Bauckholt, identified in initial reports as “Felix Bauckholt”, a German national who had overstayed an H-1B nonimmigrant visa. As NBC News later reported, Bauckholt “transitioned to female after college”.
The passenger in Bauckholt’s vehicle, Teresa Youngblut of Seattle, Wash., was indicted last August in Vermont with Maland’s murder.
Youngblut has pled not guilty and is entitled to a presumption of innocence, but the DOJ press release in her case claims both she and Bauckholt “were armed”, and that “Youngblut exited the vehicle and, without warning, opened fire”, killing Maland.
The Zizians
As disturbing (and tragic) as Agent Maland’s death in the line of duty was, his was just one of a rash of killings purportedly linked to a cult known as the “Zizians”.
The name derives from Jack LaSota, reportedly “a computer programmer and transgender woman” who was living in the San Francisco Bay area in 2016 and using an online identity of “Ziz”.
According to AP, Ziz’s blog was replete with “complex and sometimes rambling theories about technology, gender identity and human cognition”, apparently stemming from LaSota’s involvement with the “rationalist movement, a community that seeks to understand human cognition and is concerned with the potential dangers of artificial intelligence”.
In November 2019, LaSota and three others (Emma Borhanian, Gwen Danielson, and Alexander Leatham) were arrested during “a protest against sexual misconduct within rationalist organizations”, though it’s not clear whether they faced any charges in connection with that incident.
Although LaSota allegedly died after falling off a boat in the San Francisco Bay (no body was recovered), three years later a “Curtis Lind” went to court to evict Ziz, Borhanian, Leatham, and others from property he owned in Vallejo, Calif.
As per AP, on November 15, 2022, “two days before the eviction deadline”, Lind was “impaled with a sword and partially blinded in an attack during which he” shot and killed Borhanian.
“Concluding that Lind acted in self-defense”, Leatham and one “Suri Dao” were charged with attempted murder.
A December update on that case from the Courthouse News Service states Dao has been “moved to a medical facility after repeated refusals to take medication" and is now "confined to a wheelchair”. It identifies Leatham “as a transgender woman”, while stating that each is a Zizian.
LaSota wasn’t charged in that incident, “but police report having contact with [LaSota] at the scene”, suggesting Ziz didn’t perish in the waters inside the Golden Gate.
Thereafter, on New Year’s Eve 2022, Richard Zajko and his wife, Rita Zajko, were shot in the head and killed in their home in Chester Heights, Pa.
As the local ABC affiliate in Philadelphia reported 10 days after Maland’s death, Pennsylvania State Troopers claimed the gun used in the agent’s killing “was purchased by a person of interest” in the Zajkos’ murder.
That report continues:
Jack LaSota is currently facing charges of obstructing law enforcement and disorderly conduct in Pennsylvania. Authorities won't say whether those charges are related to the Zajko deaths, but court records show that police were searching for a gun used in two killings when they arrested LaSota 12 days later at a hotel about 10 miles from the scene of the killings.
In yet another twist, three days before Agent Maland was killed, on January 17, 2025, Lind — who had survived the November 2022 attack — was stabbed to death in Vallejo.
Charged in the murder was a “Maximilian Snyder”, who had purportedly applied for a license to marry Youngblut (who had just moved into a condominium near Bauckholt in Chapel Hill, N.C.) two months earlier in Washington state.
Then in February 2025, LaSota, the Zajkos’ daughter Michelle, and a “Daniel Blank” were arrested in Maryland, after a property owner complained to the authorities that he had found them living in two white box trucks on his land in rural Frostburg.
According to AP: “Zajko was charged in Vermont with lying on her application to buy the gun used to kill agent David Maland in January 2025, while LaSota faces separate federal charges of being an armed fugitive”.
Curiously, Blank was cut loose from Maryland state custody on a $15,000 bond last week, and as the local Cumberland News-Times reports, his “release includes conditions that he must live alone and submit to GPS tracking”.
The February 22 Shooting
Included in the court records in Daly’s criminal case is an affidavit from Paul Mullen, an FBI agent who investigated the shooting.
According to Mullen, Daly was driving alone in a 2012 Honda Civic when stopped by a Border Patrol agent at 11:30 PM on February 21 in Stewartstown, N.H., not far from CBP’s Beecher Falls (Vt.) port of entry.
Daly gave the agent a New Hampshire driver’s license bearing an address in Manchester, N.H. (three hours’ south of Stewartstown), but after the agent asked Daly whether Daly “had used any other names”, Daly drove off, with the agent following.
Just after midnight, Daly arrived at the Pittsburg port of entry, which is only open from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM and was consequently, at the time, closed and locked. At that point, the agent activated his lights, and Daly attempted to turn around and drive away.
While turning, Daly allegedly opened fire at the agent, causing the agent to return fire. Daly was struck, lost control of his vehicle, and drove into a snowbank. At last report, Daly was still in the hospital.
A subsequent search of Daly’s Civic uncovered a handgun and “assorted ammunition”, while “a round of expended ammunition that appears to have been fired by Daly” was found in the agent’s vehicle .
“Investigators Examining Ideological Ties of Border Patrol Shooting Suspect”
On February 25, the local Manchester ABC affiliate quoted Erin Creegan, the U.S. Attorney for New Hampshire, who stated the government is "investigating everything" about Daly. Here is the most interesting excerpt from that report:
When asked about potential ideological motivations, Creegan said all aspects of the case remain under investigation but pointed to the killing of a Border Patrol agent in Vermont just over a year ago. That shooting was linked to members of a group known as the Zizians, whose members are mostly transgender or nonbinary and who advocate an ideology that includes anarchism, veganism and fringe rationalist beliefs.
"When you have something happen which targets a Border Patrol agent in that area, it would be a reasonable line of investigative inquiry to determine whether there is any connection to a broader network or group, because that does appear to exist, the allegations that did exist in the murder investigation involving the Border Patrol agent," Creegan said. [Emphasis added.]
Coincidence — or Something More Sinister?
Like the suspect in Border Patrol Agent Chris Maland’s January 20 death, the person who who allegedly shot at an agent near the border just after midnight on February 22 is presumed innocent. The parallels between the two shootings may be coincidental, or there may be something more sinister afoot. Don’t be surprised to hear updates on the Zizians, the least rational “rationalist” cult around.