Vermont

Troopers searched Vermont home in connection with Delco murders: Court docs

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1 year ago

on

February 8, 2025

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Press Room

Troopers searched Vermont home in connection with Delco murders: Court docs

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — Court documents are revealing new details about the killing of a Delaware County, Pennsylvania, couple and the growing ties to the shooting death of a Border Patrol agent in Vermont.

Richard and Rita Zajko were both shot in the head inside their Chester Heights home back on December 31, 2022.

Pennsylvania State troopers found the couple dead in an upstairs bedroom days later on Jan. 2, 2023.

Richard Zajko and Rita Zajko

Neighbor captures movement

According to court documents obtained by Action News, a nearby neighbor’s Ring camera reportedly captured activity at the family’s home on the night of the murders. At 11:29 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2022, video appears to show an unknown vehicle arriving at the victims’ home, and then the lights go off.

Minutes later, court documents say “a higher pitched voice is heard shouting what sounds like, ‘Mom!” Then, authorities say a higher-pitched voice is heard exclaiming, “Oh my God! Oh, God, God.”

“Movement can be seen at the front door, which appears to be opened then shut, indicating the subjects entered the house. The interior upstairs lights can be seen turning on and approximately nine 9 minutes pass until two subjects can be seen leaving the residence via the front door”, the court filing states.

The people seen in the video have not yet been identified.

‘Voluntary interview’ with victims’ child

Court documents reveal troopers found a Pennsylvania driver’s license in the home with the name Michelle Zajko. Troopers identified Michelle as the victims’ daughter, and it was learned she could be living in Vermont.

Nearly a week after the killings, police executed a search warrant at a residence in Orleans, Vermont, and spoke with Michelle during a “voluntary interview.” She allegedly told police she was in Vermont with her roommate in the days surrounding her parent’s death. She also stated that she hadn’t been in Pennsylvania since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Michelle told police that she hadn’t talked to her parents since January 2022, but “only after a direct question” did she admit to receiving a message from her mother, to which she didn’t respond, the court filings stated.

During the interview, authorities say Michelle admitted to owning a firearm — a Smith and Wesson “M&P” model.

“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,” the court filing states.

According to sale records, the gun was purchased on Feb. 3, 2022, at Green Mountain Sporting Goods in Vermont by Michelle Zajko. Authorities allege the ammo allegedly purchased by Michelle is the same manufacture and type as the spent casings that were recovered at the scene of the Delaware County murders.

The search warrant was for the Smith and Wesson handgun and ammunition, but the court filings only state three cartridges of 9mm ammo were recovered.

Ties to shooting in Vermont

As authorities remain tightlipped about the murders of Richard and Rita Zajko, the case has gained national attention after police revealed connections to the January 20, 2025, shooting death of United States Customs and Border Patrol Agent David Maland.

Teresa Youngblut, 21, is accused of opening fire on agents during a traffic stop in Vermont, sparking a shootout that also left her companion, Felix Bauckholt, dead

Pennsylvania State Police confirm the gun used to kill Agent Maland was purchased by a person of interest in the murders of Richard and Rita Zajko.

In this undated and unknown location photo released by the Department of Homeland Security shows Border Patrol Agent David Maland posing with a service dog.
Department of Homeland Security via AP
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How California could be connected

Both shootings seem to have growing connections to California.

U.S. Attorney Michael Drescher said in a court filing that both Youngblut and the gun buyer in the Border Patrol shooting are linked to someone who is of interest in another killing in California. Further details have not been provided.

But police and court records have shed some light on the connections.

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.

LaSota also has connections to some of the key players in the California case.

In 2019, LaSota and three others were arrested while protesting an event hosted by the Center for Applied Rationality at a camping retreat in Occidental, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. In 2022, two of the others, Emma Borhanian and Alexander Jeffrey Leatham, were accused of attacking their landlord with a sword in Vallejo. The landlord, Curtis Lind, survived the November 2022 attack but was stabbed to death Jan. 17.

Maximilian Snyder was charged last week with that killing. In November, someone with the same name applied for a marriage license with a Teresa Youngblut in Kirkland, Washington. Snyder’s attorney declined to comment on the charges.

LaSota may have been present during the 2022 landlord attack, according to court documents that also suggest LaSota had been falsely reported dead three months earlier.

On Aug. 19, 2022, the U.S. Coast Guard responded to a report that LaSota had fallen out of a boat in San Francisco Bay and conducted a search but didn’t find a body, according to documents included in a civil rights lawsuit LaSota and others had filed after their 2019 arrest. An obituary was published, and LaSota’s mother confirmed the death to LaSota’s criminal defense attorney. But months later, a prosecutor emailed the attorney and said LaSota was contacted by police in Vallejo and was “alive and well” at the site of a crime on or about Nov. 13, the date Lind was attacked.

According to the Associated Press, Jerold Friedman, who represented LaSota in the civil case, said last week that he verified the Coast Guard report at the time and that he doesn’t recall the last time he was in contact with LaSota. The attorney who represented LaSota in the 2019 criminal case did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. A phone message was left at the office of the lawyer listed as representing him in the current Pennsylvania case.

Though authorities have not publicly identified the person who bought the gun used in Vermont, the VTDigger news investigative online site reported that federal authorities issued an alert to firearms dealers seeking information about purchases made by Michelle Zajko and describing her as a person of interest in the Vermont shooting.

According to a public records database, a Michelle Zajko was registered to vote in 2016 at the same home address in Pennsylvania as Richard and Rita Zajko. In 2021, a Michelle Zajko bought a half-acre piece of property in Derby, Vermont, a few miles from the Canadian border. According to town records, the land is undeveloped.

Zajko has not been charged with either of the shooting incidents. Her whereabouts are still unknown.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Vermont

Vermont seeks dynamic pricing for state park access

Published

37 minutes ago

on

June 3, 2026

By

Press Room

Vermont seeks dynamic pricing for state park access

MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) – The state of Vermont wants more flexibility in how it charges for access to state parks.

Right now, fees are determined by location, size, and type of camping.

However, leaders say parking at state parks and ponds is seeing more foot traffic, and costs of maintaining them have gone up.

The Department of Forest Parks and Recreation wants to be able to price campsites and day-use parks more dynamically.

There’s no proposal to raise fees now, but if approved, some state parks could see increased fees depending on their popularity, the date, and location.

“It is trying to find that balance of covering costs, providing the service parkgoers have come to expect and making sure we aren’t creating unintentional barriers for people who want to enjoy our fabulous state lakes,” said Julie Moore, Vermont Natural Resources Secretary.

She adds that last year’s Vermont ‘Parks Forever’ initiative, which allows for people who receive three squares benefits free entry to parks, meant an additional 30,000 visits last year.

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Vermont

Hundreds of housing units in the works at closely-watched project in Burlington’s South End – VTDigger

Published

11 hours ago

on

June 3, 2026

By

Press Room

Hundreds of housing units in the works at closely-watched project in Burlington’s South End – VTDigger

A rendering of the South End Coordinated Redevelopment Project, courtesy of Andrew Foley, development director at Jonathan Rose Companies. Credit: GOA Architecture.

This story, by Report for America corps member Carly Berlin, was produced through a partnership between VTDigger and Vermont Public.

A long-awaited housing development that could bring hundreds of new apartments to a series of empty lots in Burlington’s South End neighborhood is beginning to come together.

The first phase of the major public-private deal, called the South End Coordinated Redevelopment Project, got official sign-off from the Burlington City Council last month. The project’s backers have also scored key funding commitments from Treasurer Mike Pieciak’s office and state housing funding agencies.

The project on Lakeside Avenue is the beginning of “a neighborhood being born out of a big parking lot,” Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak told city councilors in May.

City officials and developers hope the project could eventually include over a thousand homes, making it one of the largest developments in Vermont – and putting a considerable dent in the Queen City’s housing shortage. Regional planners estimate that Burlington needs to add between 3,500 and 10,500 homes by 2050 to get the housing market to a healthy state.

The development is possible, in part, because of a 2023 zoning change in the formerly industrial area that allows for some of the densest housing development in the state, according to local planners.

The South End project’s backers include Champlain College, Champlain Housing Trust and Ride Your Bike LLC, the investors behind the nearby Hula coworking campus. They have brought on Jonathan Rose Companies, an affordable housing developer with projects from New York to California, as the lead developer. The South End project is the company’s first in Vermont.

The development agreement signed by city councilors in May greenlights the South End project’s first 204 units, estimated to cost roughly $100 million.

Per Burlington’s inclusionary zoning policy and state rules, at least 20% of the first round of apartments will be set aside as affordable. But the developers hope to secure enough funding to allow them to earmark a third of the 204 apartments with income restrictions, said Andrew Foley, director of development at Jonathan Rose Companies, in an interview. The development agreement offers the developers reduced city fees if the affordable units are priced even more modestly than required.

The lion’s share of the new apartments will be studios and one-bedrooms, Foley said. The building would include common social spaces for neighbors to gather, he added.

Like any large-scale housing project, the developers of the South End apartments are piecing together financing from a wide array of sources. They recently scored an $8 million low-interest loan from Pieciak’s 10% for Vermont program, along with a $6.7 million award from the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board to support 67 affordable apartments – including 10 reserved for people experiencing homelessness.

To build out new roads – along with wastewater connections and stormwater infrastructure meant to cut down on sewer overflows into nearby Lake Champlain – city officials are going after funding from a new state program. The Community and Housing Infrastructure Program, a tax-increment financing tool created by the Legislature last year, would allow the city and the developers to borrow the funds needed to build out the infrastructure against the development’s future property tax revenue.