Michelle Zajko Charged in 2022 Parents' Double Murder as Prosecutor Says at Least 2 Entered Home
Updated
Updated · CNN · Jun 24
Michelle Zajko Charged in 2022 Parents' Double Murder as Prosecutor Says at Least 2 Entered Home
3 articles · Updated · CNN · Jun 24
Summary
Delaware County prosecutors charged Michelle Zajko with murder, burglary and conspiracy in the 2022 shooting deaths of her parents, saying she was among those responsible even if she did not pull the trigger.
At least 2 people entered the Chester Heights home on New Year's Eve 2022, the prosecutor said, hours after Rita Zajko texted her estranged daughter seeking reconciliation and got no reply.
Doorbell-camera footage captured a car arriving, someone shouting "Mom!" and another voice crying out before Rita and Richard Zajko were killed inside the house.
Zajko, 30, has denied involvement and suggested in court filings that her father killed her mother and then himself; she has been jailed in Maryland since February 2025 on other charges.
The killings are among 6 deaths tied to the cultlike Zizians network, whose members have also been linked to a California landlord killing and a Vermont shootout that killed a Border Patrol agent.