Tech and drugs: Killings across three states shine spotlight on cultlike 'Zizian' group

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/15/zizian-group-killings

Killings across three states shine spotlight on cultlike ‘Zizian’ group

Police search for member currently on the run from charges linked to killings across the US

The Associated Press and Edward Helmore in New York
Sat 15 Feb 2025 09.28 EST

The killing of US border patrol agent David Maland near the Canadian border in January and five other homicides in Vermont, Pennsylvania and California have been tied to a cultlike group known as the Zizians.

The group, described as a fringe group of radical Berkeley pseudo-intellectuals, is believed to be behind the double homicide of a wealthy Pennsylvania couple, two knife attacks on a landlord in California and the shootout in Vermont that left one member dead.

Four alleged members of the group are already in custody on murder charges while three are on the run, including Jack Amadeus “Ziz” LaSota, 34, who goes by she/her pronouns and is the group’s apparent leader. Some of the members have worked at the tech giant Google, and many have advocated for veganism and identify as transgender.

Along the way, the group is believed to have bought a tugboat in Alaska under a plan to live on it to avoid high rents in northern California. The tugboat, part of the group’s “Rationalist Fleet”, now sits half-submerged near Pillar Point Harbor near San Jose.

Much of what is know about the Zizians’ philosophy is gleaned from online postings in which LaSota wondered what would happen to society if it were stripped of morality through “evil people ganging up to kill off good people” or if the group’s goals “ultimately required sociopathy”.

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(Friends of Elon? Only a matter of degree.)