Zajko is a person of interest in the 2023 killing of her parents
Federal authorities say Michelle Zajko, 32, of Orleans/Derby may be driving a 2013 Subaru Outback. At left, Zajko in a Linked In profile photo, date uncertain.
by Daniel Duric, Newport Dispatch with information contributed by VDC
Federal authorities searching for the source of weapons used in a Border Patrol agent’s killing have identified a suspect who owns land in Derby.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is currently seeking information about firearms purchases by Michelle J. Zajko, 32, who they believe supplied the weapons used in the January 20 shooting death of Agent David “Chris” Maland in Coventry.
Zajko purchased a half-acre plot on Bates Hill Road in Derby in 2021, according to town records. Zajko has a listed address in Orleans, according to documents obtained by the Albany Times-Union and town records reviewed by The Associated Press.
Law enforcement officials say Zajko may be driving a green 2013 Subaru Outback with an expired Vermont registration.
Zajko, considered armed and dangerous by authorities, is also a person of interest in the 2023 murder of her parents in Pennsylvania and has ties to Boston, according to police records.
“ATF is asking for your assistance in identifying any firearms purchases made by Michelle Jacqueline Zajko, a person of interest in the shooting of a Customs and Border Protection Officer,” the agency said in a bulletin to gun dealers.
The Albany Times-Union reported that Zajko purchased two handguns — a .40-caliber and a .380-caliber semiautomatic — at a Mount Tabor gun shop in February.
These weapons were recovered at the scene where Maland was shot. Teresa Youngblut of Seattle, Washington has been charged in connection with the shooting. Felix Bauckholt, a legal German immigrant, was shot dead at the scene while trying to shoot one of the guns at the Border Patrol agent.
The Albany Times-Union also stated that Zajko is considered armed and dangerous and adheres to an “anti-law enforcement ideology.” Richard and Rita Zajko were 71 and 68 respectively when they were shot to death at home in Delaware County, PA.
The Times-Union story notes that the killing of a California landlord allegedly by Maximilian Snyder, 22, Youngblut’s boyfriend, “is being examined as part of a series of incidents related to a small group of individuals who may be united by a set of fringe ideological beliefs. There is also an apparent connection between Snyder and the killing of Richard and Rita Zajko.”
Zajko is listed as one of the lower-ranked co-authors of a 2015 scientific study entitled “Comparative genomics of Cluster O mycobacteriophages.” At the time she was an intern with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and had just graduated with honors from Cabrini University in Radnor, PA and was enrolled as a graduate student in Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. Her Linked In page states she is a bioinformatician.
A 2013 paper also showed Zajko’s undergraduate interest in Decision Theory. “Debugging the Brain: Heuristics, Biases, and Decision Theory Debugging the Brain: Heuristics, Biases, and Decision Theory, presented in 2013 to the Seventh Annual Art Research and Scholarship Symposium states that “Beliefs are the brain’s representation of objects, not the objects themselves. People’s assumptions about the world around them color their decisions. Those decisions have long term consequences, both advantageous and deleterious. Because people maintain consistency in their beliefs, they often continue to make the same decisions, even if those decisions are not optimal.”
As noted in other media coverage, the Zis cult to which Youngblut has been tied has an interest in behavior adaptation through sleep deprivation. On her Linked In page, Zajko says that during the 2015 study she “Analyzed blood samples and physiological data to determine how predictive miRNAs are of neurobehavioral susceptibility in sleep deprived individuals on the NASA Human Research Analog Environment.
VDC added some background information on Zajko in its edition of this news story.