One member of a transgender death-obsessed cult called the “Zizians” will represent herself at trial, while other associates of the cohort have derailed criminal proceedings in a separate murder case across the country.
Zizian member Michelle Zajko, whose elderly parents were shot to death in their Pennsylvanian home on New Year’s Eve 2022, declared at a Wednesday motion hearing that she wants to fire her attorney, George McKinley, a panel public defender. Zajko was not charged with the murder of her parents.
Zajko, who is facing state-level trespassing, illegal gun possession, and felony drug charges in Cumberland, Maryland, was indicted alongside co-defendants Jack “Ziz” LaSota, the cult’s alleged ringleader, and Daniel Blank, another suspected “Zizian.”
The trio complained at past court appearances that their respective attorneys are incompetent.
“A lawyer is supposed to defend one’s integrity,” Zajko told Allegany County Circuit Court Judge Michael Twigg, according to the Cumberland Times-News. “My attorney did not do so.”
Zajko claimed that McKinley was referred by someone she now believes is a confidential informant for the state’s attorney and the FBI.
In response, Twigg said McKinley has served as a criminal defense lawyer for more than three decades, adding that there was “no weight” to Zajko’s collusion claim.
“I find no credibility in that assertion,” Twigg ruled.
With the judge refusing to reappoint counsel, Zajko subsequently waived her right to legal representation for next month’s joint trial. Twigg accordingly excused McKinley.
Blank and LaSota will retain their attorneys, for now.
LaSota’s lawyer, David Schram, raised several discovery issues as grounds for the case’s dismissal. Among them, Schram said that the three, who are permitted to work together at the jail when counsel is present, have not been given enough time or the proper tools to review the evidence.
“They’ve been prohibited to meet together,” Schram said.
Twigg said dismissing a case entirely requires a drastic violation of the discovery process. “I don’t find that this is extreme,” Twigg told Scram in ruling against the dismissal motion.
According to Schram, the state added roughly 180 files to a laptop late last month that the co-defendants can sometimes use; however, the device is not equipped with a program to open some of the documents, spanning thousands of text, audio, and video records.
Allegany County State’s Attorney James Elliott said prosecutors will work to download the appropriate software. Elliott noted that his office has passed on evidence to the defense that prosecutors received from the FBI, which continues to investigate the “Zizians” as an organized crime cell and their connections to cases elsewhere.
Named after LaSota’s alias, the “Zizians” are tied to a string of slayings, including the fatal shooting of a Border Patrol agent in Vermont, the stabbing death of an 82-year-old landlord in California, and the double murder of Zajko’s parents in Pennsylvania.
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Zajko was named as a person of interest in the double homicide of her parents, Richard and Rita Zajko, but was never charged. Their murders, which coincided with Zajko’s 30th birthday, remain unsolved. Both bodies were discovered in Zajko’s childhood bedroom.
Suri Dao and Alexander Leatham, two additional Zizian suspects, have repeatedly postponed their California trial in the 2022 murder of another cult member, Amir “Emma” Borhanian, who was killed while they tried to surprise-attack Curtis Lind, a senior citizen in charge of the property that all three were squatting on.
Lind, left impaled through the torso by a samurai sword, fatally shot Borhanian in self-defense.
In addition to Lind’s attempted murder, Dao and Leatham face charges for Borhanian’s murder under California’s felony murder rule. The state statute says defendants are chargeable if a death occurs, regardless of intent to kill, during the commission of a felony-level crime.
Lind, who was set to testify as a star witness in their trial, was stabbed to death in January 2025, allegedly by another Zizian named Maximilian Snyder.
Attorneys for Dao have successfully paused criminal proceedings, saying Dao lacks housing conditions that accommodate her “nonbinary” identity.
Dao, who was seated in a wheelchair again for a status conference on Friday, delayed the prosecution further by securing a March hearing to determine mental competency and whether Dao is fit to stand trial.
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Dao’s attorney, Brian Ford, claims that she has schizoaffective disorder. Last week, Solano County Superior Court Judge John Ellis cited a recent medical report finding that Dao does have mental health issues. That report, however, is “sort of a waffley opinion,” Ellis said, per the Reporter, noting the doctor reported that Dao did not cooperate for the entire examination.
An independent doctor was appointed to examine the defendant and return with a report after Ellis questioned whether Dao’s vegetative state was an act. “I can’t tell if it is on purpose,” Ellis said in early December. “It looks like it might be.”
Leatham, meanwhile, was granted new counsel, holding up the trial until at least August. Leatham’s public defender was switched out in favor of two privately retained attorneys — Allison Margolin, a criminal justice reform advocate, and Emily Chrim, who were hired following a monthslong GoFundMe campaign.
As pending co-counsel, Margolin and Chrim asked for another postponement of the trial date in May, saying that they need more preparation time.
Deputy District Attorney Ilana Shapiro argued against any delay and suggested that the attorney substitution was a strategic tactic to postpone the trial. The fundraising campaign began circa September 2025, but the new attorneys were not retained until January.
“The timing is suspicious,” Shapiro told Ellis.
Shapiro, citing Dao’s unresolved competency claim, said the prosecution is deciding on severing the co-defendants and trying them separately. She warned that if Dao is found competent to stand trial, delaying matters could risk her “decompensating” beforehand.
Ellis eventually granted the substitution of counsel, ruling that the defendant’s right to counsel of choice outweighed concerns about the implications of a delay.
The judge set a new trial date for August and ordered Leatham back to court on Feb. 2 to be arraigned for a third attempted escape from pretrial detention.
Dao had also allegedly feigned a seizure in a failed escape attempt from jail. There are also documented doubts about “Suri Dao” being her actual name. Per prosecutors, Dao provided fictitious names upon apprehension, including “Joshua of Nazareth.”
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Amid oral arguments, Leatham was removed from the courtroom after shouting unprompted, “Curtis Lind murdered Emma Borhanian!” Leatham, a biological male who identifies as a woman, is prone to loud outbursts that disrupt court proceedings and routinely launches into tirades accusing government attorneys of transphobia.
In one incident, Leatham claimed that the prosecution is putting on “a show trial to coordinate the genocide of transgender people.” When their charges were read into the record, Leatham reportedly exclaimed, “I am surrounded by trans misogynists! Someone, please help me! They are torturing me for being transgender!”