Woman Charged in Border Patrol Shooting Held Without Bail

The 21-year-old woman accused of starting a shoot-out that killed a U.S. Border Patrol agent earlier this month will be held without bail after a federal judge deemed her to be a flight risk.

Teresa Youngblut, a Washington native, has been in custody since prosecutors say she pulled a handgun and fired at border patrol agents during a traffic stop earlier this month on Interstate 91 in northern Vermont.

The subsequent shoot-out claimed the lives of agent David “Chris” Maland and Youngblut’s companion, Felix Bauckholt, a German in the U.S. on a visa who authorities say was shot as he attempted to draw his own gun.

Youngblut has been charged with two weapons offenses, but she has not been accused of firing the bullet that killed Maland. In her second court appearance this week, she wore a red jumpsuit and a sling. She remained silent during the brief hearing.

Youngblut and Bauckholt had been under surveillance in the week leading up to the shooting after an employee at a hotel where they were staying contacted authorities. The employee said the two were wearing all-black, tactical-style clothing and that Youngblut was wearing a holstered firearm.

Youngblut violently escalated an “otherwise peaceful encounter” with border patrol agents during the January 20 traffic stop, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Lasher said Thursday. He argued releasing Youngblut would be too risky given the severity of her crime and her lack of ties to the area.

Youngblut and Bauckholt were living in separate apartments in the same North Carolina neighborhood last fall, the Associated Press reported. Their only confirmed connection to Vermont are the guns they possessed, which prosecutors say were purchased in southern Vermont last year by a third party.

Prosecutors also said that Youngblut is connected to people who have been linked to separate homicides in Pennsylvania and California.

The hearing marks the latest development in a story that has grown increasingly bizarre and complicated as authorities search for clues involving a tangled web of suspects associated with violent acts on both coasts. Prosecutors have hinted at some of the connections, and journalists and online sleuths have picked up the trail.

Youngblut and Bauckholt have ties to a group of gifted young adults interested in a fringe group known as the Zizians. It’s been described as a radical offshoot of the philosophical movement known as Rationalism. Adherents appear to have a shared affinity in veganism, animal rights and artificial intelligence, among other beliefs.

Youngblut’s parents had grown increasingly worried about her welfare in the early part of 2024. In May,  they contacted Seattle police to report her missing, according to a police report obtained by the Seattle Times.

The couple reportedly told police that their daughter had been acting differently for months, lying to them about her whereabouts and breaking off long-term friendships. She eventually packed up her belongings, including her passport, and left, writing in an email that she had moved in with a friend and changed her number — and that they would no longer be able to contact her.

The parents said they feared Youngblut may be in an abusive relationship and was being told to act that way.

Police responded that their daughter was “well within her rights to go where she wants” as an adult, according to the Seattle Times, and that there wasn’t enough evidence suggesting abuse or coercion to file a missing-person report.

Six months later, in November 2024, Youngblut filed for a Washington marriage license with Maximilian Snyder, a 22-year-old data scientist who studied computer science at the University of Oxford. The two both attended Lakeside School, a prestigious private high school in Seattle, and their social media accounts displayed beliefs consistent with the Zizian ideology.

Snyder was arrested in California last week in connection to the January 17 stabbing of an 82-year-old landlord, Curtis Lind, according to the California news outlet Open Vallejo. Prosecutors have accused Synder of killing Lind to prevent him from testifying in an attempted murder case against former tenants who allegedly attacked him with knives and a samurai sword in late 2022.

The three tenants involved in that stabbing were allegedly associated with Jack LaSota, who goes by Ziz and who Open Vallejo identified as the inspiration of the Zizian ideology. Documents obtained by Open Vallejo showed that LaSota lived on Lind’s property.

Youngblut’s other worrisome connection highlighted by prosecutors appears to be with Michelle Zajko.

Zajko, 32, is suspected of buying the guns involved in the Vermont shooting, according to an alert from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. She has also been identified in the Albany Times-Union as a person of interest in a 2023 double homicide in Pennsylvania. In January 2023, her parents, Richard and Rita Zajko, 71 and 68, were fatally shot inside of their home in Delaware County, Pa., and the case remains unsolved.

Zajko’s current location is unknown. But records show the 32-year-old owns vacant land in the town of Derby and lived for some time in a remote Orleans house not far from where the border patrol shooting occurred. The house, located on Webster Road, was purchased in 2020 through a managed trust, and Michelle Zajko lived at the address after the sale.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives last week issued an alert — first reported by VTDigger — that asked licensed firearms dealers for help in identifying any firearms purchased by Zajko.

Federal authorities also asked local and state police to be on the lookout for Zajko. A multi-state bulletin obtained by the Times Union describes  Zajko as adhering to an “anti-law enforcement ideology” and says she may be driving a green 2013 Subaru Outback with an expired Vermont registration.

Youngblut is due back in court February 7.

On Thursday, President Trump’s recently-confirmed secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, flew to northern Vermont for a surprise visit, VTDigger reported. Gov. Phil Scott’s office said Noem, who oversees Border Patrol, planned to visit in response to last week’s shooting.