Latest news with #TeresaYoungblut
Washington Post
16-05-2025
- Washington Post
Woman connected to the Zizians fired the bullet that killed a Vermont border agent, report says
A woman charged in the January killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent during a Vermont traffic stop fired the bullet that struck him in the neck, authorities say in a new report. Another agent fired back during the Jan. 20 stop, wounding Teresa Youngblut and killing her companion, Felix Bauckholt, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement Wednesday.
Associated Press
16-05-2025
- Associated Press
Woman connected to the Zizians fired the bullet that killed a Vermont border agent, report says
A woman charged in the January killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent during a Vermont traffic stop fired the bullet that struck him in the neck, authorities say in a new report. Another agent fired back during the Jan. 20 stop, wounding Teresa Youngblut and killing her companion, Felix Bauckholt, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement Wednesday. Youngblut and Bauckholt were affiliated with the Zizians, a cultlike group that has also been linked to killings in Pennsylvania and California, authorities allege. The shootout happened after an agent pulled them over on Interstate 91 a few miles (kilometers) from the Canadian border. About 30 minutes into the stop, the agents asked Youngblut and Bauckholt to get out of their car to be questioned, the border agency said in its report, which doesn't name anyone involved. They reported that Youngblut 'suddenly drew a firearm and opened fire,' killing the agent David Maland, it said. One of four agents on the scene returned fire, striking Youngblut once in the arm and once in the leg. The same agent reported that Bauckholt began drawing a firearm from his side and that he ordered him to stop. The agent said the man 'failed to comply' and that he fired twice on the man, striking Bauckholt twice in the chest. Two minutes after that exchange, an agent radioed in that another had suffered a critical gunshot wound to the neck, the report said. Agents and a Vermont state trooper rendered aid to him and he was driven to a hospital, where he died. Youngblut was arrested and police attempted to place a tourniquet on her leg while awaiting emergency responders, according to the report. In total, that agent fired about eight rounds and Youngblut fired four, according to the border agency. Two guns were later recovered from the scene that had been in Youngblut and Bauckholt's possession, authorities said. On Jan. 19, a border patrol agent assigned to a Homeland Security Investigations Task Force notified the border patrol Newport Station management of a report that the couple had checked into a hotel wearing black tactical gear on Jan. 13, according to the report. At least one of them was carrying a gun and both arrived in the Prius they were later in during the shootout. The agent advised the Newport station that state and federal law enforcement officials 'had previously identified the male as a German citizen, in possession of a H1B visa with unknown immigration status.' Youngblut is charged with intentionally using a deadly weapon towards federal law enforcement, and using and discharging a firearm during an assault with a deadly weapon. She pleaded not guilty. When asked to comment on the report, Fabienne Boisvert-DeFazio, a spokesperson for the U. S. Attorney's Office for the District of Vermont, said the office 'does not comment on ongoing cases beyond the public record.'
The Independent
30-01-2025
- The Independent
Woman, 21, accused of killing Border Patrol agent in shooting linked to California stabbing appears in court
A Washington state woman charged in the fatal shooting of a U.S. border patrol agent in Vermont last week was ordered to be held without bail. Teresa Youngblut, 21, was back in court on Thursday morning for a detention hearing, where she faces federal firearms charges in the death of Agent David Maland, 44, who was shot and killed on January 20 during a traffic stop in northern Vermont near the Canadian border. Youngblut had been traveling with Felix Bauckholt, a German citizen who also was killed in the shootout. The pair had been under surveillance for several days. Youngblut was treated for her injuries at a local hospital and placed under arrest. Prosecutors argued that Youngblut should not be allowed bail or release, and called her a flight risk due to several factors, which included her lack of ties to Vermont and a lack of information about her employment, the violent nature of the crime, the weight of evidence against her, and the danger she poses to the community. Youngblut, who wore a face mask and an arm sling, faced forward during the hearing on Thursday, NBC5 reported. The judge overseeing the hearing ordered that Youngblut be held without bail until her preliminary hearing on February 7. Earlier this week, a motion filed by the prosecution claimed Youngblut was in frequent contact with someone who is a person of interest in a homicide investigation in Vallejo, California. Court records show that Maximilian Snyder, 22, was arrested by Vallejo police on Friday and charged on Monday with the murder of 82-year-old Curtis Lind, who was stabbed to death on December 17. In November, Snyder applied for a marriage license with a person by the name of Teresa Youngblut in Kirkland, Washington, according to a records search in Washington state's King County. On Wednesday, Pennsylvania state police said that the gun used in the Vermont shooting was purchased by a person of interest in the killings of Richard and Rita Zajko, who were shot to death in their home on December 31, 2022. Authorities have not publicly identified the person who bought the gun used in Vermont; VTDigger news reported that federal authorities issued an alert to firearms dealers seeking information about purchases made by Michelle Jacqueline Zajko and describing her as a person of interest in the Vermont shooting. A search of a public records database revealed that a person named Michelle Zajko was registered to vote in 2016 at the same home address in Pennsylvania as Richard and Rita Zajko. And in 2021, a Michelle Zajko bought a half-acre piece of property in Derby, Vermont, a few miles from the Canadian border. Both Youngblut and the buyer of the gun were in frequent contact with someone who was detained as part of the Pennsylvania investigation and is a person of interest in another killing in California, a federal prosecutor said in a court filing this week. Meanwhile, Jack LaSota is currently facing charges of obstructing law enforcement and disorderly conduct in Pennsylvania. Authorities won't say whether those charges are related to the Zajko deaths, but court records show that police were searching for a gun used in two murders when they arrested LaSota 12 days later at a hotel about 10 miles from the scene of the killings. LaSota also has connections to some of the key players in the California case, the Associated Press reported. In 2019, LaSota and three others were arrested while protesting an event hosted by the Center for Applied Rationality at a camping retreat in Occidental, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. In 2022, two of the others, Emma Borhanian and Jeffrey Leatham, were accused of attacking their landlord with a sword in Vallejo, California. Borhanian died in the attack. The landlord, Curtis Lind, survived the November 2022 attack but was stabbed to death on January 17, weeks before he was set to testify against his surviving assailants in the 2022 attack. Maximilian Snyder now faces charges in his death. Both Youngblut and Snyder appeared to follow the 'vegan Sith' ideology of a fringe Bay Area group that has been described as a 'murder gang,' Open Vallejo reported, citing an interview with a person familiar with the group. Jessica Taylor said she was a friend of Bauckholt, who she knew by the name Ophelia. She recalled warning Bauckholt about Zizians, a group she described as a 'murder gang.' Several online posters attributed the attack to the 'Zizians,' which was referred to as a 'cult' on various online forums. The group is a radical offshoot of the Rationalist movement, an ideology centered on using scientific techniques to enhance human decision making, Open Vallejo reported.
New York Times
30-01-2025
- New York Times
Judge Orders Border Patrol Shooting Suspect Held Without Bail
In court filings and arguments before a judge on Thursday, a federal prosecutor in Vermont laid out a web of connections between Teresa Youngblut, who faces charges related to the fatal shooting of a Border Patrol agent last week, and two people linked to murder investigations in other states. The allegations of ties between Ms. Youngblut, 21, and people suspected of violent crimes in California and Pennsylvania shed little new light on the highway traffic stop in Coventry, Vt., on Jan. 20 that ended with the deaths of the border agent, David Maland, and Ms. Youngblut's companion, Felix Bauckholt. But during a detention hearing in federal court in Burlington, Vt., on Thursday, Matthew Lasher, an assistant U.S. attorney, cited those connections, and Ms. Youngblut's 'violent escalation of an otherwise peaceful law enforcement encounter,' as evidence that she should remain in federal custody while her case proceeds. 'That kind of unprovoked violence could not more clearly demonstrate the danger to the community that the defendant represents,' he said. During the traffic stop last week, Border Patrol agents reported, Ms. Youngblut drew a handgun and fired it at them without warning. She has been charged with assaulting federal law enforcement officers with a deadly weapon. Steven Barth, a federal public defender representing Ms. Youngblut, said that she was contesting her detention, but he declined to offer arguments supporting her release. Ms. Youngblut appeared in court wearing an orange prison uniform and a medical mask, with her right arm in a sling. She did not speak and showed no emotion as Magistrate Judge Kevin J. Doyle ruled that she must be detained. Seattle police records, first reported by The Seattle Times, suggested that there were sudden changes in Ms. Youngblut's life last year that alarmed her parents, prompting them to contact the police last May. They told the police that their daughter had recently emptied her bedroom and moved out of their home, broken off old friendships, changed her phone number, and sent an email to her mother saying goodbye. The behavior was 'very unlike' her, the parents told the police, making them fearful that she was in 'a controlling relationship.' It remains unclear who killed Mr. Maland. Ms. Youngblut faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years if convicted, according to the office of Michael P. Drescher, the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Vermont. The case has created confusion and concern across rural northern Vermont, where the shooting took place on Interstate 91, a few miles south of the Canadian border. Law enforcement officials had been tracking the movements of Ms. Youngblut and Mr. Bauckholt for nearly a week before the incident, after an employee at a hotel in Lyndonville, Vt., where the pair had been staying, reported suspicions about their 'tactical style' clothing and gear, according to an F.B.I. affidavit. Searches of their Toyota Prius after the shooting turned up a stash of tactical equipment including a ballistic helmet; a pair of monocular night-vision goggles; a tactical belt with a holster; a magazine loaded with cartridges; two full-face respirators; and two hand-held, two-way radios, according to an affidavit. Investigators also recovered laptop computers and cellphones from the car. According to a motion for detention that prosecutors filed, the firearms carried by Ms. Youngblut and Mr. Bauckholt on the day of the shooting had been purchased by a third person, 'an individual purporting to be a resident of Orleans, Vt.,' from a dealer in central Vermont last February. That individual is a 'person of interest' in a dual homicide investigation in Delaware County, Pa., according to the motion. Ms. Youngblut and the person who purchased the firearms are also connected to another individual who was detained during the Pennsylvania murder investigation, and again during a murder investigation in Vallejo, Calif., according to the motion. News outlets, including The Associated Press and Open Vallejo, have identified the person detained in the two other murder investigations as Maximilian Snyder, 22, who was arrested last week in connection with the stabbing death on Jan. 17 of an 82-year-old man in Vallejo. The victim, a landlord in Vallejo, had been scheduled to testify in court against a group of tenants who had stabbed him with a sword during a dispute in 2022. Mr. Snyder and Ms. Youngblut had applied for a marriage license in November, according to public records in King County, Wash. Mr. Snyder had studied computer science at the University of Oxford, according to his LinkedIn profile, and in high school, he was named a 2019 National Merit Scholarship semifinalist at the Lakeside School in Seattle, a highly ranked private school that counts Microsoft's founders, Paul Allen and Bill Gates, among its alumni. Ms. Youngblut also attended the school, according to The Seattle Times. Mr. Bauckholt, who was killed when Ms. Youngblut exchanged gunfire with Border Patrol agents, was a German citizen and a former student at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, where he won medals in math competitions and received a scholarship for international graduate students with 'outstanding promise' in quantum information science, according to online records. An Instagram profile that appears to belong to Ms. Youngblut describes her as a computer science student and a member of the class of 2026 at the University of Washington. 'Talk to me about being vegan and AI alignment,' the profile's bio says.
