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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
On a typical day, some of the 20 stealth fighter jets based in South Burlington, Vt., take off from tiny Burlington International Airport for training runs near the northern border. In recent months, they’ve flown much farther afield.
The Vermont Air National Guard’s 158th Fighter Wing was deployed in December to the Caribbean, where it took part in the US campaign to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Shortly thereafter, the squadron joined a military buildup in and around the Middle East to prepare for US and Israeli airstrikes against Iran.
Though both deployments had been widely reported, the military remained mum about the whereabouts of Vermont’s F-35A Lightning II jets. Even Governor Phil Scott, technically the commander of the Vermont Guard, said he only knew what he’d read in the news, given that US military leaderswere directing the missions.
On Monday, General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed the deployments at a Pentagon press conference about the war on Iran. Caine praised National Guard members from Vermont, Wisconsin, and elsewhere.
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“In the case of the Vermont Air National Guard and the 158th Fighter Wing, they were mobilized for Operation Absolute Resolve,” Caine said, referring to the Venezuela campaign. “And then were tasked to take their F-35As across the Atlantic instead of going home, to be prepared to support this operation” in the Middle East.
Much remains unknown about the Vermont Guard’s recent missions, including the precise role they played in Venezuela and Iran, where the jets are currently based, and how long they’ll remain.
The Guard did not immediately respond to requests for comment., Its recently elected leader, General Henry “Hank” Harder, said in a statement that the force was “proud of the dedicated and professional service of our Airmen” and pledged to support their families in the meantime.
“We will continue to carry out our commitment to these Vermont Service Members until, and long after, they return from this mission,” Harder said.
Vermont’s three-member congressional delegation, meanwhile, has praised Vermont Guard members for their service in Venezuela but has criticized President Trump’s campaigns there and in Iran, particularly absent congressional authorization.
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“The people of our country, no matter what their political persuasion, do not want endless war,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent, echoing similar remarks from Senator Peter Welch and Representative Becca Balint, both Democrats. “We must not allow Trump to force us into another senseless war. No war with Iran.”
Paul Heintz can be reached at paul.heintz@globe.com. Follow him on X @paulheintz.
Tuesday is town meeting day in Vermont.Municipalities in New England and elsewhere are increasingly grappling with major national and international issues at the local level.
JOSEPH PREZIOSO/Getty Images
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JOSEPH PREZIOSO/Getty Images
If you haven’t lived in certain New England towns, it can be hard to fathom their centuries-old direct democracy-style Town Meetings, where everyday residents vote on mundane town business such as funding for schools, snow plows and road repairs.
These days, voters are also being asked to weigh in on national and international issues, for example, demanding the de-funding of ICE, and condemning “the unprovoked attack and start of an illegal and immoral war against Iran.” It’s all fueling a separate – and fierce– debate on what towns ought to be debating.
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“When you have people sleepwalking into an authoritarian regime, it’s up to us to sound the alarm,” insists Dan Dewalt, an activist in Newfane, Vermont, one of several communities where residents scrambled to draft a resolution against the Iran war in time for their annual Town Meeting on Tuesday.
Local resolutions are a uniquely effective tactic, activists and experts say, and they’re being used increasingly around New England and beyond, especially as national politics have become so polarized.
“People feel isolated, helpless and hopeless. And when you hear about other people who are just like you taking a stand and representing something that you believe, that gives you not only hope, but it gives you power,” said Dewalt.
Several other Vermont towns will be considering resolutions Tuesday calling for the removal of the president and vice president “for crimes against the U.S. Constitution,” while many others will vote on a pledge to ” to end all support of Israel’s apartheid policies, settler colonialism, and military occupation and aggression.”
A similar divestment resolution passed 46 -15 in Newfane last year, following hours of heated argument over the plight of Palestinians, the security of Israelis, the “inflammatory” language of the resolution – and whether such problems half-a-world away even belong on the agenda of the tiny town of just about 1,650.
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“It’s a Town Meeting for town issues,” Newfane resident Walter Hagadorn declared at a recent Select Board meeting, where residents pressed board members to block any future resolutions not directly related to town business.
“You shouldn’t be subject to hours and hours of people virtue signaling” and trying to “hijack Town Meeting,” Hagadorn said.
Others agreed, suggesting activists host a debate on their issues at another time and place, or stage a rally or protest instead.
But Select Board member Katy Johnson-Aplin pushed back, saying that would not have the same impact.
“It doesn’t work the same way,” Johnson-Aplin said. It’s only when the issue is formally taken up at aTown Meeting that “it goes in the newspaper and it’s recorded that the town of Newfane has agreed to have this conversation.”
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University of Pennsylvania political science professor Daniel Hopkins has been watching the growing movement of local communities taking a stand on issues far beyond town lines.
“This is a trend we’re seeing increasingly across the 50 states and in a variety of ways but I think it has taken on a new and potentially more concerning edge,” Hopkins said.“I worry that we are in an attention-grabbing, sensation-rewarding media environment in which the kinds of issues that engage us at a national level may further polarize states and localities and make it harder for them to build meaningful coalitions on other issues.”
Indeed, in Newfane, the resolutionregarding Israelbecame so divisive that some residents decided not to even come to last year’s Town Meeting, according to Select Board vice-chair Marion Dowling.
In Burlington, where a similar resolution was proposed, City Council President Ben Traverse says things got so heated, he and his family were getting harassing phone calls and even death threats. Burlington city councilors voted in January to block the question from going to a popular vote.Vermont has a history of “big issue” resolutions, from the push for a NuclearArms Freeze in the 1980’s, to calls to ban genetically modified foods in 2003. Dewalt, the Newfane activist, was behind several of them, including calls to impeach then-president George W. Bush in 2006, which got him invited to talk about it on network TV shows, and quoted in The New York Times.
“I can guarantee you if I stood up on my soap box and made a declaration of the exact same wording, I wouldn’t have had anybody asking me questions about it, he said. “We’re not pie-in-the-sky here about the power of our Newfane Town Meetings, but our actions have consistently had an impact.”
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But opponents say activists overstate the impact of their resolutions, and their victory. They say it’s disingenuous, for example, to claim the town of Newfane supported the resolution against Israel, when the winning majority of 46 people was less than 3% of town residents.
“I feel like they’re using the town as a vehicle for their personal messages and that bothers me,” says Newfane resident Cris White. “It’s so junior high.”
Traverse, the Burlington City Council president, also takes issue with what he calls the “inflammatory” language of that resolution.
“The question, as presented, approaches this issue in a one-sided and leading way,” Traverse says.
In Vermont, any registered voter can get a resolution on the Town Meeting agenda by collecting signatures from 5% of their town’s voters. While elected city or town officials have the authority to allow or block the resolution, there is no process in place to vet or edit language.
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Traverse says it would behoove city leaders and voters to require an official review to ensure that language is fair and neutral, just as many states do with ballot questions.Traverse says he’s not opposed to contentious, big issue resolutions being put to local voters, but the language must be clear and even-handed.
The 2025-2026 Vermont high school winter season has begun. See below for scores, schedules and game details (statistical leaders, game notes) from basketball, hockey, gymnastics, wrestling, Nordic/Alpine skiing and other winter sports.
TO REPORT SCORES
Coaches or team representatives are asked to report results ASAP after games by emailing sports@burlingtonfreepress.com. Please submit with a name/contact number.
▶ Contact Alex Abrami at aabrami@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter: @aabrami5.
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▶ Contact Judith Altneu at JAltneu@usatodayco.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter: @Judith_Altneu.
MONDAY’S H.S. PLAYOFF GAMES
ALPINE SKIING
State championships (giant slalom) at Burke Mountain
D-I GIRLS BASKETBALL SEMIFINALS
At Patrick Gym
No. 2 Rutland (19-2) vs. No. 3 St. Johnsbury (16-5), 6 p.m.
No. 1 Mount Mansfield (20-1) vs. No. 4 North Country (19-3), 7:30 p.m.
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D-IV GIRLS BASKETBALL SEMIFINALS
At Barre Auditorium
No. 1 Richford (19-2) vs. No. 4 Mid Vermont Christian (6-2), 5:30 p.m.
No. 3 West Rutland (14-8) vs. No. 7 Rivendell (12-10), 7:30 p.m.
D-I BOYS BASKETBALL PLAYDOWNS
Games at 7 p.m. unless noted
No. 13 North Country (3-17) at No. 4 Rutland (14-6)
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No. 12 Essex (4-16) at No. 5 Champlain Valley (12-8)
No. 10 St. Johnsbury (5-15) at No. 7 Burr and Burton (12-8)
No. 11 Colchester (5-15) at No. 6 BFA-St. Albans (12-8)
