Around 9 p.m. on Jan. 12, 2023, a pair of Pennsylvania state troopers showed up at a hotel near the Philadelphia airport.
Ten days earlier, a married couple, Richard and Rita Zajko, had been found shot dead inside their home in Chester Heights, a well-to-do Philly suburb. The troopers arrived at the hotel in search of the murder weapon. They had a search warrant targeting a person close to the Zajkos: their daughter, Michelle.
The troopers found Michelle Zajko, then 30, and brought her to their barracks for questioning. But she refused to cooperate and was allowed to leave, according to a law enforcement affidavit.
Then something strange happened.
Troopers told Zajko to wait in the lobby so they could return her car. She bolted instead, leaving behind her vehicle and $40,000 in cash that was found inside of it, according to the affidavit.
The murder case went cold for the next two years. But it gained renewed attention in January after prosecutors linked a person of interest in the killing, now known to be Zajko, to other suspects in violent crimes in California and Vermont — people who are members of a cultlike group of highly educated, AI-obsessed vegans known as the Zizians.
Zajko’s whereabouts had remained a mystery after she fled the state police barracks. But last month, she and two associates who had also been questioned in the killing of her parents were arrested in Maryland on trespassing and weapons charges.
The trio were ordered to remain behind bars after a prosecutor said in court that they were part of a group “believed to be involved in multiple homicides in the United States.”
Neither Zajko nor anyone else has been charged in her parents’ murder, but family and friends say they now have hope for the first time that there will be a break in the case.
“Hopefully, there will finally be justice for Rich and Rita,” said a family friend who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
A bright future
The Zajkos lived in a neighborhood of stately homes and well-landscaped lawns located about 30 miles west of Philadelphia.
Michelle was their only child. She was adopted as a baby and raised at the home in Chester Heights.
She went on to study biology at the now-defunct Cabrini University in Pennsylvania before earning a master’s degree in bioinformatics at Temple University, according to her LinkedIn page.
She was a high-achieving student with lofty goals. Michelle Zajko worked as a research intern at the esteemed Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She also interned at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, studying how spaceflight stresses the human body.
“I want to help save people for my career,” she told the Cabrini University student newspaper.
Her parents owned several rental units in a development in the nearby town of Aston. In the years before the killings, Richard Zajko spent much of his time checking in on their tenants and fixing whatever needed to be fixed, two of the tenants said in interviews.
“If there was an issue, he was Johnny on the spot,” said one who asked to remain anonymous.
But Richard Zajko wasn’t just a responsive landlord. He charged his tenants far less than other units went for and repeatedly encouraged them to save enough so that they could buy their own homes, according to the two former tenants.
“He genuinely cared about people,” said the other tenant, who also asked to remain anonymous.
When he found out a couple renting one of his apartments was having a baby, Zajko lit up. He talked about how thrilled he and his wife were when they adopted their daughter.
Michelle was in her late 20s by then and had left home long ago. But Zajko made an offer to the tenants that left them stunned: Would they like to have Michelle’s baby clothes?
A shocking crime
Investigators determined that the Zajkos were killed on Dec. 31, 2022 — the same day Michelle turned 30.
Rita, 69, had a gunshot wound to the back of her head, her autopsy found. Richard, 71, had taken a bullet to his right hand and another to his right temple, according to his autopsy.
Their bodies were discovered in an upstairs bedroom. No gun was found at the scene, according to court records, but there were two 9 mm shell casings — each bearing a stamped impression of “9mm Luger +P SIG.”
Three days later, investigators with the Vermont and Pennsylvania state police traveled to Michelle Zajko’s home in Coventry, Vermont, a remote town about 20 miles south of the Canadian border. Zajko confirmed to the investigators that she owned a firearm — a semiautomatic handgun that fires 9 mm-type ammunition, according to court records.
She allowed the investigators to hold the gun, but they didn’t have a warrant to seize it.
“In handling and observing said firearm, it was found to be free of dust, dirt or debris — appearing to be well kept and recently cleaned and/or serviced,” a Vermont State Police search warrant affidavit said.
Zajko told troopers that she was in Vermont in the days before and after New Year’s Eve, the affidavit says, and that she had not spoken to her parents since January 2022.
The investigators later learned that Zajko had purchased the gun at a local sporting goods store, along with a box of ammunition of the same manufacture and type as the spent casings found at the murder scene in Pennsylvania, the affidavit says.
They sought a search warrant for the gun and ammunition that they believed was still inside Zajko’s home. But on the same day it was filed, Jan. 12, 2023, Zajko was actually in Pennsylvania for her parents’ funeral. That’s when Pennsylvania state troopers, carrying a separate search warrant, went to the Candlewood Suites hotel in pursuit of Zajko and her gun.
There was no gun or ammunition inside Zajko’s hotel room. But after she allegedly bolted from the Pennsylvania State Police barracks, troopers returned to the hotel and found the gun in a room where two of her associates were staying, the Vermont state police affidavit says.
The investigators tried to reach Zajko again but had no luck. She was, at that point, in the wind.
Six deaths in three states
Two years passed with no developments in the case. Then on Jan. 20 of this year, a Border Patrol agent, David Maland, was killed in a gunbattle in northern Vermont. The shooting broke out after Maland and other agents pulled over a car that was occupied by two people — Ophelia Bauckholt and Teresa Youngblut.
Federal prosecutors say Youngblut opened fire after she got out of the car, prompting at least one agent to shoot back. Bauckholt was fatally shot as she drew a gun, prosecutors say, and Youngblut was also shot but survived.
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