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The evidence will speak loudly and decisively for us as it will for Rita and Rick. And now is the time for the facts and the truth to be known. For three long years, Rosann Zayka waited for answers in the gruesome murders of her brother Richard and sister-in-law Rita. 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. Authorities charged the couple's own daughter, Michelle Zayka, in one of the most notable cold cases in Pennsylvania, adding they don't believe the 33-year-old acted alone.
It's a horrible crime, but it's also one that goes beyond comprehension in certain respects. This is a child who killed her parents, who walked into her childhood home, took her mother to her childhood playroom, and executed her. Michelle charged with numerous crimes, including criminal homicide, first-degree murder, third-degree murder, and conspiracy. District Attorney Tanner Rouse, citing an allegedly incriminating list found on Michelle's phone. A list of things that, quote, they This included not getting rid of the shell casings that were found at the scene. This included not getting rid of the ammunition that was later recovered from her Vermont home that matched the
ammunition found at the scene, the shell casings found at the scene. Multiple sources familiar with the investigation telling ABC News that they are examining several possible motives, including an estate worth several million dollars. There was an inheritance that she would get if her parents had died, and that may have been the motive. Sources also saying Michelle may have murdered her mother in a rage and accidentally killed her father. The horrific crime is only the tip of the iceberg. Investigators say Michelle is affiliated with a dangerous and convoluted group that some have called the Zizzions. This is a group of highly intelligent people focused on AI, vegan, many of them transgender, and according to the
authorities increasingly violent. Witnesses say the group sometimes walk around naked, other times wrapped in black robes wearing a gas mask, wielding samurai swords. The group tied to violent crimes spanning coast to coast. This is a bizarre case with tentacles in different states and people getting killed in different places. From a stabbing death in Northern California. Stabbing, single victim. I will send a photo of her. To a fatal shootout in Vermont. The FBI investigating the deadly shooting of a border patrol agent in Coventry, Vermont. engaged police in a hail of gunfire along Interstate 91
To weapons and drug charges in Maryland. And they're violating our speedy trial rights. Michelle now linked to three of four murders. Michelle seems to pop up in a lot of these cases. And now the challenge for authorities is trying to tie it together as best they can. We are clearly talking about someone that has gone down an unimaginably dark road and has led to a tragedy that just defies any sort of description.
It was just before midnight on New Year's Eve 2022. Quiet neighborhood in Delaware County has been turned upside down tonight. Richard and Rita were killed in Michelle's childhood room with toys and dolls and other items around. There was no forced entry. There was no murder weapon found. The house was huge. There were Christmas lights still up and this is the kind of community where the neighbors really know each other and it's very rare to have crime.
Rita and Richard Zeigler were a well-liked couple in the area. He was always outside cutting his grass or cleaning the leaves or you know, they always had impeccable Christmas lights every single year. Their only child Michelle was bright seen here in her LinkedIn profile. She got her masters at Temple University, interned at NASA, worked in research at Children's Hospital in Philly. In a student newspaper she's quoted as saying, "I want to help save people for my career." But authorities say by 2022 Michelle was estranged from her parents. The criminal complaint showing texts in January from Michelle to her father writing that her mother quote "spends the time insulting
a life she knows nothing about and continually assumes the worst about me." On New Year's Eve of 2022, that happens to be Michelle Zeigler's birthday. Her mother, Rita Zeigler, reached out and explained that she was sorry for the rift that had grown between them. That text went unanswered. Several hours later authorities say Rita and Richard were killed. They started an investigation. They came across a ring camera from across the street and what the ring camera showed, it showed a car pulling up, two figures getting out of
the car and walking towards the front door of the house. Someone comes to the door of the house and you hear screams. More details now revealed. That audio was able to be cleaned up. With that audio enhanced you are very clearly able to hear someone yell mom as they stand at the front door of Richard and Rita Zeigler's home. They have only one child. That's Michelle Zeigler. Authorities say that around the time of her parents murders Michelle was living in Vermont with a person named Jack Lasota who they identify as Zeigler, a transgender woman believed to be the leader of the so-called Zizians. So, Jack Lassota is from Alaska, went to college, studied computer science, seems to have been a really promising young person. She interned at NASA.
One of the ideas that Ziz promulgated and which some of the other so-called Zizians share is this idea that humanity or the world can only be saved by people who are naturally good but have learned to act evil, to act like sociopaths in order to do good. In a blog which appears to be written by Lassota, she writes that she struggled with her identity. I thought I was the only one who knew puberty was evil, puberty was death. The funny thing about Ziz's influence is that she attract a lot of the people who became affiliated with the Zizians seem to have come to the group through her writing. She's apparently a very intense but charismatic kind of person.
To me, it's sort of a classic story of vulnerable people being taken advantage of or being persuaded to believe in fringy ideas because of their need for a community. Jack Ziz Lassota was actually in Pennsylvania in January of 2023 with Michelle Zeico who came down for her parents' funeral. In Pennsylvania, law enforcement gets a search warrant to search Michelle's hotel room. State police took Michelle into custody for questioning. They let her go. They asked her to stay in the lobby while they got her car. She just disappeared and she left the car behind. Inside the car, police discovered $40,000.
After that point, police could no longer get in touch with her. But, they did end up getting alerted that there was someone else in one of the nearby rooms. So, they went and knocked on the door, and that's where they found Daniel Blank and Zyzzyx Soda. And that's when they discovered a gun. Police said Jack Lisota was not cooperative whatsoever in the homicide investigation. Jack was actually on the ground. Police tried to take a mug shot. Jack wouldn't even open her eyes. So, you see police holding Jack's head up as Jack keeps her eyes closed. At the time, Michelle was named a person of interest in her parents' deaths, but the three of them disappeared until last year when they were arrested
in Maryland. So, in 2025, a guy in Maryland sees a bunch of trucks parked on his property. Then, he calls police. And they find Michelle and Zyzzyx and Daniel Blank there with ammo and dressed in black. According to the authorities, they also found weapons, handguns at the scene as well. All three remain behind bars and plead not guilty. Michelle and Zyzzyx are facing misdemeanor trespassing and obstruction charges and felony weapons charges. Michelle had already been charged for supplying a weapon that was used to kill a border patrol agent. In an open letter last year, Michelle wrote that the group are just friends, adding, "I doubt the FBI care that my friends and I aren't a murder cult."
Michelle also added, "I didn't murder my parents." Requests for comment have not yet been answered. I think it's fair to say that there is no smoking gun here, so to speak. The authorities are going to hope that they can piece this together like a puzzle and convince jurors that's proved beyond a reasonable doubt. No one else has been arrested in the Zygo's deaths, but authorities say Michelle did not act alone. At this time, we do not know who her co-conspirators were, but we are very certain that Michelle Zygo was in the home and arranged for the death of her parents. Jack Lisota and Daniel Blank are repeatedly named in the court documents.
The authorities are convinced that this was a group and that they were working together. But, they haven't been charged because you got to be able to prove it. The authorities would love to get one of them to turn on the rest to help them piece this all together. They haven't gotten that yet. And for much more on this story, watch Impact by Nightline: Control Alt Kill, now streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
