This story, by Alan J. Keays and Peter D’Auria, was first published by VTDigger, a nonprofit news outlet based in Vermont.
Federal authorities in Vermont have charged a former Coventry resident with making false statements to buy firearms that were later used in a fatal shootout in the northeast corner of the state last month.
Michelle Zajko, 32, allegedly provided a false address when buying three firearms from the Last Frontier gun store in Mount Tabor, Vermont in February 2024, according to charging documents filed Tuesday in federal court in Burlington.
According to the filings, two of those guns were later traced back to Teresa Youngblut, of Washington state, and Felix Bauckholt, a German national, who were allegedly involved in the Jan. 20 shootout on Interstate 91 in Coventry. Bauckholt and David Maland, a U.S. Border Patrol agent, were killed in that incident.
That afternoon, after Maland pulled over a Toyota Prius with North Carolina license plates, according to court documents, Youngblut came out of the vehicle and opened fire. Bauckholt, a passenger in the car, also tried to draw a gun, court records allege, but was killed before firing a shot.
Youngblut has since pleaded not guilty to federal firearms offenses in connection with the shootout and is being held in custody without bail. Youngblut has not been charged directly in Maland’s killing and the FBI has declined to answer questions about who fired the shot that killed the border patrol agent.
Following the incident, the court records allege, Youngblut was found in “direct possession” of a Glock .40-caliber pistol and Bauckholt had a Smith and Wesson M&P Shield .380-caliber pistol in a holster on his waistband — both guns that Zajko had purchased in February 2024.
Zajko allegedly also bought a third gun, a Ruger pistol, from the Mount Tabor firearms store that same day. In an affidavit, James Loomis, a task force agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, wrote that, “to my knowledge, law enforcement has not recovered that firearm to date.”
When buying the guns, Zajko allegedly signed a statement affirming that she was not buying them on behalf of anyone else, according to court records.
Loomis also wrote that the Vermont address Zajko provided to the Mount Tabor gun shop when she purchased the three firearms was false, since she had moved out of that residence prior to buying the guns.
Although court records describe the property as a house in Orleans, Vermont, it is actually located in Coventry, Coventry’s town administrator confirmed. According to Loomis’ affidavit, the house was owned by a trust “bearing the name of Zajko’s former romantic partner, with whom law enforcement was familiar as part of this investigation.”
By early 2023, however, Zajko had left the property, according to charging documents.
Staff at a real estate firm that worked with the residence told Loomis that the trust had hired a plumber in February 2023 because the place had been vacated “without having been winterized, and water pipes had subsequently burst.”
The property was ultimately sold in July 2023, seven months before Zajko bought the guns in Mount Tabor, according to the court documents.
The charging documents do not describe how the guns got from Zajko to Youngblut and Bauckholt.
But according to data from license plate readers in New York state, a car registered to Bauckholt — the same one that Maland pulled over in the fatal traffic stop last month — was recorded driving north on Interstate 87 on Feb. 13, 2024 and south on the same highway three days later.
That data “would be consistent with Bauckholt’s vehicle being driven towards southwestern Vermont” the day before Zajko bought the Glock and the Smith & Wesson pistols, and “being driven away from Vermont two days” after the purchase, according to the court documents.
“Michelle Zajko may have returned to Vermont specifically to purchase the firearms using her still-valid Vermont Driver’s License that bore the address of her previous residence,” the court records read.
A day after the shooting, the ATF sent an alert to federally licensed firearms dealers asking them to contact ATF if they had “any information about transfers or attempted transfers” of firearms to Zajko.
Zajko — who has no prior criminal arrests or convictions, according to charging documents — was one of three people linked to a series of violent acts across the country who were arrested over the weekend in Maryland.
Zajko, Daniel Arthur Blank, 26, and Jack Amadeus LaSota, who has been described as 33 and 34 in different court documents, had separate bail hearings late Tuesday morning in the District Court of Maryland for Allegany County. Zajko, Blank and LaSota, who is also known as “Ziz,” appeared remotely for their court hearings Tuesday from the jail where they have been held since their arrests Sunday.
Judge Erich Bean, who presided in each of the bail hearings, ordered all three individuals held without bail as the cases against them proceed, according to court documents. Their next hearings are set for March 24, the filings stated.
Allegany County State’s Attorney James Elliott, whose office is prosecuting the cases, did not immediately return phone and email messages Tuesday seeking comment.
The Baltimore Banner, a Maryland news outlet, reported that a public defender spoke in court on behalf of the three individuals Tuesday. The identity of that attorney and who exactly they are representing was not clear, and the state public defender’s office did not respond to inquiries Tuesday afternoon.
Links to violence
The three individuals have been linked by court records, acquaintances and media reports to multiple killings across the U.S., including the 2022 double homicide in Pennsylvania of Zajko’s parents, the January murder of a Vallejo, California landlord, and the shooting in Coventry, Vermont.
Loomis, the ATF agent, wrote in the charging documents filed Tuesday in Vermont that Zajko is a “person of interest” in her parents’ deaths.
According to Pennsylvania State Police, late on the night of Dec. 31, 2022, 72-year-old Richard Zajko and 69-year-old Rita Zajko, were found shot to death inside their home in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.
Roughly a week after their deaths, Pennsylvania State Police visited Zajko’s Coventry house and conducted a “voluntary interview” with her, according to court records. About a week later, the same law enforcement agency detained Zajko at a hotel outside of Philadelphia where she was then staying while executing a search warrant related to the homicide probe, according to records.
“After being processed,” Loomis wrote in Tuesday’s filing, “Zajko was released, and she left the State Police Barracks despite being asked to wait in the lobby so her vehicle could be returned to her.”
Zajko also abandoned about $40,000 in cash that was inside the car, Loomis wrote.
“She did not respond to further attempts by PSP (Pennsylvania State Police) and VSP (Vermont State Police) to contact her, and law enforcement is not aware of any evidence of her having returned to the Webster Road address” in Coventry after she left the Pennsylvania state police barracks, Loomis wrote.
Zajkos whereabouts remained a mystery until Sunday, when she was taken into custody along with LaSota and Blank. The three were arrested in Frostburg, Maryland, after a landowner there
contacted Maryland State Police to report three “suspicious” people on his property with two white box trucks, according to charging documents.
Responding officers found Zajko, Blank and LaSota in the box trucks parked on the resident’s land, the filings stated. All three were uncooperative and refused to provide their names, according to the charging documents, and were eventually taken into custody.
Both Zajko and LaSota were wearing gun belts with ammunition and a handgun was seized from Zajko’s front waistband, the filings added.
“All of the subjects involved are to be questioned regarding other crimes that have occurred across the country,” charging documents say.
