Woman with links with a cult group to appear in court after the murder of the border agent

A woman charged in the death of an American border patrol agent in Vermont is due to the Federal Court on Tuesday in one of the multiple criminal cases linked to a cult group called Zizian.

The authorities said Teresa Youngblut had drawn the ball that had killed Agent David Maland when the traffic of January was stopped. Another agent retaliated, injuring Youngblut and killing his companion, Felix Bauckholt, said officials.

The Ziziens are a group of Jack Lasota followers, a computer scientist who blogged like “Ziz” on subjects such as veganism, gender identity and artificial intelligence. The group consists mainly of computer scientists who met online, have shared anarchist beliefs and have become more and more violent.

Youngblut and Bauckholt were both affiliated to the group, which the authorities also linked to murders in Pennsylvania and California. Youngblut pleaded not guilty to accusations of having intentionally used a deadly weapon towards the police, and to use and unload a firearm during an assault with a deadly weapon.

The appearance of the Tuesday Federal Court is a discovery audience in Burlington. The discovery is a procedure before the trial in which the two sides of an exchange of evidence and information.

The two parties refused to comment before the date of the court. Steven Barth’s office, who represented Youngblut, said he was making no comments on the case. Fabienne Boisvert-Defazio, spokesperson for the American prosecutor’s office for the Vermont district, said the office “does not comment on the current cases beyond the public file”.

In Vermont, the authorities watched Youngblut for several days after she and Bauckholt registered in a hotel bearing black tactical equipment and wearing firearms. Local border patrol agents were also informed that Bauckholt was a German citizen with an unknown immigration status. Authorities said Youngblut had shot Maland after being arrested.

The shooting was one of the many violent incidents that have been linked to the Ziziens. The members of the group were linked to the death of one of theirs during an attack on the owner of California Curtis Lind in 2022, the subsequent murder of Lind and the death of a couple from Pennsylvania.