The suspected leader of a transgender terror cult known as the “Zizians” and whose group is linked to at least five killings across the country, including last month’s fatal shooting of a Border Patrol agent, was arrested in Maryland, authorities reported Monday.

Maryland State Police said they took Jack LaSota, 34, into custody Sunday in the state’s rural western region on trespassing, obstructing and hindering and weapons possession charges.

His suspected accomplice, 33-year-old Michelle Zajko, was arrested on similar charges during the same incident.

Mr. LaSota, is a transgender woman who uses the name Andrea Phelps, and Ms. Zajko, who is also transgender, are both scheduled to have a bail hearing Tuesday morning in Allegany District County.

Mr. LaSota writes a blog under the name “Ziz” and is the cult’s alleged leader, though he is not charged in any of the group’s spate of killings since 2022 that put them on law enforcement’s radar.

Federal authorities accused cult follower Teresa “Milo” Consuelo Youngblut, who is transgender, of participating in the January shootout that killed Border Patrol agent David Maland in Vermont near the Canadian border.

Ms. Youngblut’s accomplice, Felix “Ophelia” Bauckholt, who was transgender was also killed in the shootout with Agent Maland. She pleaded not guilty to weapons assault charges and remains behind bars.

Ms. Zajko was wanted in connection to the shooting after federal authorities said she sold the guns that were used by her fellow cult members.

Ms. Zajko was also a person of interest in the 2022 slayings of her parents at their home in Media, Pennsylvania. Police said Richard Zajko, 72, and Rita Zajko, 69, were shot to death in their house late on New Year’s Eve.

Weeks later, Ms. Zajko was detained and questioned by police, according to the Delco Daily Times. Mr. LaSota was charged with obstruction of justice for refusing to cooperate with the investigation.

Mr. LaSota was jailed in Delaware County until May 2023, when he was released on unsecured bail. He skipped a December trial and had an active warrant for his arrest ever since.

Mr. LaSota had evaded law enforcement before, including going as far as to fake his own death to avoid prosecution in August 2022.

It wasn’t until law enforcement officials placed Mr. LaSota at the scene of a November 2022 stabbing in Vallejo, California, that he was presumed to be still on the loose.

The stabbing incident occurred when Curtis Lind, a then-80-year-old landowner, was attacked when he tried to evict a group of squatters who had been living in vans and box trucks on his property in Vallejo. 

On Nov. 15, two days before the eviction deadline, Lind was impaled with a sword and partially blinded in an attack during which he shots and killed an attacker named Emma Borhanian.

Lind managed to survive and recover from the ambush, and even agreed to testify at one of his attacker’s trials this coming April.

But Lind was instead killed last month in a stabbing that prosecutors said was done “for the purpose of preventing his testimony in a criminal proceeding.”

Police said the suspect in Lind’s killing is 22-year-old Maximillian Bentley Snyder. According to The Associated Press, Mr. Snyder previously applied for a marriage license in Washington state with Ms. Youngblut — the person charged in Agent Maland’s killing in Vermont.

An FBI search of Ms. Youngblut’s Toyota Prius uncovered guns, ammunition and tactical gear, including a ballistic helmet, night-vision equipment and full-face respirators, according to an affidavit.

Ms. Youngblut now faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted in Agent Maland’s killing. She returns to court in May.

Mr. Snyder describes himself on his LinkedIn profile as a “passionate scholar, data scientist, and creator” who attended Oxford University, sang in his high school choir and was a National Merit Scholarship finalist. He had a court hearing earlier this month and remains behind bars.

Suri Dao, 21, and Alexander Jeffrey Leatham, 27 — two of the attackers who allegedly came after Lind in 2022 — will have a trial confirmation hearing Wednesday in California state court. Both are facing charges of attempted murder in the attack on the landlord.

Mr. LaSota’s blog at the center of the cult discussed his idea that the two hemispheres of the brain could hold separate values and genders and “often desire to kill each other.”

He wrote about potential dangers of artificial intelligence and went on against his perceived enemies in rationalist groups, which talk about understanding human cognition through reason and knowledge.

Mr. LaSota was arrested in 2019 while protesting and barricading a workshop by the Berkeley-based Center for Applied Rationality. His mother and associates say he later died in a boating accident and produced an obituary.

The Coast Guard conducted a search, but no body was found. Police later made contact with Mr. LaSota at the scene of Lind’s first attack, but he was not arrested or charged.  

• Susan Ferrechio contributed to this report, which includes wire service reports.

• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.