June 25, 2026

Daughter In Cultlike Group Charged With Parents’ Murder

Daughter In Cultlike Group Charged With Parents’ Murder

33-year-old Michelle Zajko has been charged with murdering her parents on her 30th birthday: New Year’s Eve 2022. Zajko is a member of the cult like group, the Zizians, who have ties to at least six homicides according to police. Prosecutors announced that doorbell camera footage, along with ballistics and cell phone data show Zajko participated in shooting both of her parents in the head shortly after her mom reached out via text to reconcile and wish her a happy birthday. While no one else has been charged in the murders of Rita and Richard Zajko, police say she did not act alone.

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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, that folks. It is Thursday, June twenty fifth, and what a story. Robes. Before we started, you said, this is just weird.

00:00:11
Speaker 2: And the weird story has to do with a woman who's sitting in jail right now, accused of murdering her parents on her birthday after her mom sent her a message trying to make amends. And all of the weirdness comes because she's a member of a secretive cult in Pennsylvania. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ.

00:00:34
Speaker 1: Roobes. I tried to get in as much and stack this thing up, but this is complex and very tragic story, and we are still short on answers in this one.

00:00:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's a long time in the making because this double murder took place on New Year's Eve twenty twenty two, and that was Michelle Zycho's thirtieth birthday, so she had become estranged from her parents and most likely because yes, she had joined this. They describe it as a cult like group called the Zizians.

00:01:07
Speaker 1: I wasn't ever heard of them.

00:01:09
Speaker 3: Look locally, this this group is organized or had been organized, in the state of Vermont, and so there was a lot of reporting in that area about this group, because that group is now tied to as many as six murders right now. So this is a bizarre story, but yes, you have sixty eight year old Rita seventy one year old Richard Zycho. Rita reaches out to her daughter on her birthday, which is New Year's Eve, December thirty first, twenty twenty two, and says, I'm sorry that we've basically grown apart and happy birthday. And that text went unanswered via text, but prosecutors announced yesterday that it was answered with violence.

00:01:56
Speaker 2: A couple of hours later, they say the part of this I guess Roades the story would get attention anytime you hear about a kid murdering parent, asay a kid, she's an adult, but you hear about murdering parents, that will get attention. This other stuff having to do with this secret of cult again, they keep calling a cult like. But let's okay, I want to use the right phrase here about what we're talking about and who these folks are. Who are I guess Robes characterized by a lot of law enforcement and people keep an eye on this stuff as a cult, So calling them cult like versus a cult, I don't know what the distinction is.

00:02:33
Speaker 3: I don't either. I feel like that's standards and practices with news organizations. I remember it was always a big deal to actually use the word cult for whatever reason, maybe from legal purposes. You could be sued if you call someone or say they're in a cult when it technically isn't. But I looked a cult like just to actually understand why everyone's using that term. It refers to behaviors, groups, or environments that resemble a cult. Okay, so yes, it's okay. Are we going to get sued if we call it a cult because that absolutely is what it appears to be.

00:03:03
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know if we've been indemnified by ihearts.

00:03:07
Speaker 3: Cult like. Okay, so this is Zizzian group. Here's what we know. This is a group of young, highly intelligent computer scientists. They share radical beliefs about veganism, animal rights, gender identity, and artificial intelligence. They're against artificial intelligence, they're pro trans and it's been described that Michelle is trans and went by the name Jamie, but in most of the articles she is still referred to as Michelle. So anyway, this is a group that had similar beliefs and all were described as highly intelligent. So here's what we know about this crime. And I'm just puzzled why it took this long actually for them to make this arrest. Because they have a neighbor's doorbell cam with a vehicle pulling up to the home of Rita and Richard's house in an affluent area just outside of Philly. So it's like a really nice house, a really nice suburb, a place where crimes like this don't occur. So the car pulls up and they can hear on the doorbell cam through the video a voice shouting mom, and then you hear another voice that screams, oh my god, oh god God.

00:04:27
Speaker 1: So to.

00:04:30
Speaker 2: Your point about what took so long, obviously they have to collect evidence, and that's that's not enough, I suppose. But there's nobody else on planet Earth that would have been yelling mom to this woman.

00:04:41
Speaker 3: She is their only child. So a car pulls up to the home of a couple who has one child and someone yells mom. So when the couple was finally discovered they didn't show up. They were taking care of a friend or a family member, and when they didn't show up to provide that care, it was several days later that police found their bodies. The two were shot. Listen to this. They were shot in Michelle's childhood playroom, surrounded by her old dolls and toys with bullets to the head.

00:05:16
Speaker 2: That, like we said at the top here, the story's weird. Who knows what in God's name was going on there and why that took place? Robes, But that's just what were they aged six to seventy one?

00:05:27
Speaker 1: And what again?

00:05:28
Speaker 3: Sixty eight and seventy one.

00:05:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's thirty, correct, she was. It was her thirtieth birthday, her thirtieth birthday.

00:05:34
Speaker 2: I just yeah, the scene and what they described there, and they weren't I say they, Oh, yeah, we haven't mentioned that yet, I say they because she's right.

00:05:43
Speaker 1: Been arrested in charge. They made the announcement. Robes.

00:05:46
Speaker 3: They don't know who she was with, correct, So they do say this. They know that she did not act alone. They say, at least two people got out of that vehicle in that doorbell camera, and so they know at least one other person assisted in this. And they actually don't know right now who pulled the trigger because they don't have the weapon. That is a problem. So they even said this is why it took so long. They don't have the smoking gun literally and figuratively, they have this doorbell camera. They also have ballistics. What they were able to do is they were able to match the shell casings from the scene to shellcasings or that she had in her home in Vermont in a firing range behind her home, So they were able to ballistically link that, in addition to cell phone records that they say left them certain that Michelle is partly responsible for her parents' deaths. Again, they don't know who pulled the trigger, and they say she did not act alone, but they don't know who was with her specifically. They have their list of characters, but they haven't been able to identify who that second person was. And look, they questioned her right after they died, but they released her, let her go. But yeah, she was arrested again because she's behind bars for allegedly supplying guns to kill a Border Patrol agent in Vermont. So this is a complicated story where this group apparently was on a killing rampage. However, she has said that she did not murder her parents, so we only know that she wrote an open letter to the world. Her attorney sent it to the AP last year. I'll read what she wrote. She said, my friends and I are being described as Satan's lap dogs, the devil and the Manson family all rolled into one. These papers are flagrantly lying. For instance, there was no truck full of guns, no machine gun, and I didn't kill or murder my parents. So she's made it very clear that she claims she's innocent.

00:07:45
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, Bobby, obviously she needs to make that argument. But she's again sitting in she's sitting in jail right now with other chargers, like you said, Rhodes, including tied to other violence and other deaths. Not accused of being the shooter or the killer in another case, but accused of providing possibly the weapon for this other case. And there's no smoking gun. They have the shell casings from both places that match up. That's fine, they don't know what the actual gun is. But Robes those text messages are smoking gun material. Absolutely, the stuff they're talking about in the text messages where they're just whoever she's talking to discussing the murders and discussing what could.

00:08:21
Speaker 1: Have been done better?

00:08:22
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, why are you discussing that? I mean, that's that's smoking gun stuff.

00:08:27
Speaker 3: To me, that is a big smoking yeah. She actually sent a text you're right, with a list of the mistakes that were made as she was describing the killings, and the big one was yes, that she left the shell casings behind. She was not going to like just going why did I do that? Damn it? Yeah. To me, that's a pretty big, damn smoking gun.

00:08:46
Speaker 2: That text message alone makes me want to watch the trial. I would love to hear a defense attorney and they always come up with something. Would love to hear them explain why she was texting that.

00:08:58
Speaker 3: That's gonna be a tough one. But when we we'll tell you what we do know about the Zizian group and these other six deaths that are now attributed to this cult like group. And welcome back everyone to this episode of Amy and TG where we are discussing a bizarre and tragic story. This happened just outside of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, but it's linked to a cult like group called the Zizians that operated out of Vermont, and I say operated in the past. Tense because it appears pretty much everyone's behind bars at this point because members of this group have all been charged in varying degrees to at least six deaths over the past couple of years, including Michelle Zycho's own parents, who police say she murdered along with the help of one other person to shoot her parents in the head on her thirtieth birthday. On New Year's Eve, hours after her mom reaches out to reconcile with her daughter.

00:10:10
Speaker 1: Heik crazy. She they said they had been estranged.

00:10:13
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, I didn't see any indication of when the last time they had actually been in communication, but maybe it had been a while. And to think the last interaction with her daughter was that was being possibly killed by her daughter.

00:10:25
Speaker 1: Right. She sent her a text message.

00:10:28
Speaker 3: Saying, I'm sorry, sorry for the rift.

00:10:30
Speaker 1: Why did that ceter all?

00:10:31
Speaker 2: Why would that have set off potentially the daughter. It's just for that woman, for that family, for that, I mean, who knows what was going on behind the scenes. But robes as parents, if you hear your daughter has run off and gotten attached to some cult like secretive group that's been tied to several you're not happy as a parent to hear that. So she reaches out Rhodes and just the idea that the last interaction on the day that she tried at least her daughter was on her mind and on her heart.

00:11:02
Speaker 1: It's ee, that was the response.

00:11:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's incredibly sad. You feel for that mother trying to reach out to a daughter that maybe she didn't understand that she was trying to throw a lifeline to. And there even reports that she earlier in the weeks leading up to this had texted her father and even was complaining about her mother that her mother basically never took the time to understand her, always criticized her decisions in her way of life, and so clearly there was just some anger, some deep rooted, deep seated anger that this woman had towards her mother and her She claimed lack of willingness to understand her way of life. But look now that these charges have been filed. Family members of Rita and Richard, so the sister in law actually released a statement on behalf of the Zycho family saying, in the three plus years since the murders of our beloved Rick and Rita, we have lived with unspeakable grief and sorrow. There were countless days of darkness and despair, days when it was difficult, almost impossible, to hold on to the belief and hope and expectation that this day would eventually arrive. They say they're deeply and forever grateful to the public servants who carried us through these dark days to await the day when charges would have been or would be filed. And so yes, those charges have been filed against their own daughter, but she is a part of this larger group, the Zizians tied to six deaths.

00:12:33
Speaker 2: But why what are they doing? I never understood what the motive was in any of it. I don't what they're going after, what they're trying to accomplish it.

00:12:39
Speaker 3: I don't understand. They're obviously upset. They want trans rights, animal rights, vegan rights, and they're very vehemently against artificial intelligence. You know, it's interesting this the kid who ended up in Kyoto, who ended up dying in the woods, had an argument with his mother, and he was a vegan and he was all about connecting with the universe in the land, but he also was upset with his mom over her use of artificial intelligence. It's it's interesting how this new technology and certain and real concerns and fears about where it could lead have also created this whole subculture of folks who are vehemently opposed to anyone using it.

00:13:19
Speaker 2: You can mean, I guess in anything we have an opinion about, you can be an extremist about it, which is the suggestion for this group, not that kid you're talking about in Tokyo. It's still it's I just still, you have your belief and you want.

00:13:33
Speaker 1: To kill people, kill people love for you to try to make a point. We've seen groups do this historically.

00:13:39
Speaker 2: I mean, this is not necessarily anything new, but it's just still shocking that that's the thing they're They're killing words.

00:13:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, it just it feels ironic for people who seem to love animals, love the earth, love like to kill people in the name of all of that. But look, she earned her master's degree in bio informatics. I don't even know what that is, interned for NASA. This is a super smart woman. But the deaths that they've been tied to this Zizian group. One of their own, so one of their own members were killed during an attack on a California landlord. Then that California lord was also murdered. You have the Zycho murders, so that's two. And then there was a highway shootout in Vermont where a Border agent was killed that we mentioned earlier, and another Zizian member. So two of their own members have died in these shootings, a California landlord, a Border agent, and then Michelle Zico's own parents. So those are the six people who have died in the midst of all of this, and we don't really understand in the name of what none of it really makes a lot of sense. But look, as you pointed out, this trial is going to be fascinating because we will almost certainly learn more about this group, what their intentions were, why they formed, and what the goal was in the end with all of this carnage left behind.

00:15:01
Speaker 2: But again, the connection to her parents, right, how does how does killing her parents go anywhere in line with their beliefs or what they're trying to accomplish. I don't know, it's just ah, they just hate. It's another tragedy and it's worth talking about and learning from brogues because this is a group I wasn't even aware of that's out there doing his thing and according to prosecutors, out there killing folks.

00:15:22
Speaker 3: Absolutely well, we will keep our eye on this situation, but we always appreciate you listening to us. Everyone, I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ. Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.