August 13, 2025 • 20 mins
Delve into the unsettling tale of Curtis Lind, an 82-year-old Vallejo landlord who survived a savage 2022 assault only to be silenced by death as he prepared to testify. Once a staunch advocate for creative, affordable housing—hosting a quirky collective of young "makers" on his property—Lind became the victim of a violent betrayal by tenants tied to a fringe ideology known as the Zizians.
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Music: Solve the Crime by FSL Music
Sources:
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/one-crime-at-a-time--4661577/support.
We thank you for your support! Become a member of our Patreon for just $1.99. Click HERE to join.
Disclaimer: The content in this podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only. This channel is not affiliated with any law enforcement entity nor any court system.
Music: Solve the Crime by FSL Music
Sources:
- San Francisco Chronicle – Vallejo landlord killed before testifying in Zizian-linked murder trial
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/landlord-killing-vallejo-20061190.php - San Francisco Chronicle – ‘He was bleeding like a stuck pig’: Vallejo man was key Zizian witness before he was killed
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/he-bleeding-stuck-pig-key-zizian-witness-20288483.php - Los Angeles Times – Vegan computer savant’s Zizians linked to deaths across U.S.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-02-23/vegan-computer-savant-zizians-linked-to-deaths-across-u-s - Open Vallejo – Man killed in Vallejo was main witness in upcoming murder trial
https://openvallejo.org/2025/01/27/man-killed-in-vallejo-was-main-witness-in-upcoming-murder-trial/ - SFGate – New details emerge in Bay Area ‘Zizians’ death cult
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/new-details-bay-area-zizians-death-cult-20165754.php - The Tab – 22-year-old University of Oxford grad charged with murder of elderly landlord
https://thetab.com/2025/03/07/22-year-old-university-of-oxford-grad-charged-with-murder-of-elderly-landlord
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kindness. It's something we're all taught to value. It's about
offering a hand to someone who's struggling, seeing the good
in people when the world tells you not to. But
what happens when that kindness gets twisted, when it's manipulated
and used against you? What happens when opening your door
to someone in need invites in a darkness so deep
(00:21):
it threatens to swallow you whole. In Valejo, California, an
eighty two year old landlord named Curtis Lynde was known
for being a good guy. He believed in giving people
a second chance, offering affordable places to live for those
who were down on their luck. He had no idea
he was giving a home to a violent, sword wielding cult.
(00:41):
He couldn't have known that his compassion would first cost
him his right eye and then ultimately his life, all
to keep him quiet. This is the story of how
a simple act of good will lead to a brutal
murder at the hands of a radical group known as
the Zyzians. It's a case that rips away the normal,
every day surface of society to show the terrifying things
(01:03):
that can grow from extremist ideology and manipulation. Hi, and
welcome to One Crime at a Time. I am Shannon,
and today we are covering the case of Curtis LND.
But before we get into it, I just want to
remind you that you can reach out to us at
(01:25):
One Crime Pod on all of the social platforms, and
if you like what we do here, you can join
our Patreon for just one dollar and ninety nine cents
per month. Your support is greatly appreciated. If you want
to help out the show for free, you can always
support us by giving us a like and review all
links we'll be in the description for this episode. Now
(01:47):
on with our story. A person's life is really just
a collection of stories, right, big moments and small ones
that add up to who they are. For Curtis Lend,
a lot of those stories were tied to his property
in Valeo, a big, dusty lot filled with trailers, trucks
and the sounds of people working. It was his business, sure,
(02:08):
but it was also how he connected with the world.
He was a landlord, yeah, but people who knew him
saw more than that. Friends said he was a kind
hearted and generous soul, a grandpa of four who loved
the ocean at eighty two. He'd lived a full life,
but he wasn't done. He was still working, still helping people,
and still believing in the good in them dot I
(02:30):
T was that belief that led him to rent out
a spot on his property to a group of young
people who seemed to be living on the fringes. They
were different, no doubt, but to Curtis, they were just
people who needed a hand, and that's what mattered. He
didn't know he was housing members of a violent cult.
He couldn't have known that this one act of trust
(02:51):
would kick off a chain of events so horrific it
would end with him being brutally murdered, just to stop
him from ever telling his side of the story. To
really get the tragedy that happened to Curtis Lynde, you
have to understand the man himself. He wasn't some corporate
landlord managing sterile apartment buildings from a fancy office. He
(03:12):
was a hands on guy, an old schoolman who lived
and worked right there in his community. His property on
Porter Street in Valeo wasn't some manicured suburb. It was
a working yard, a place where someone could park their
trailer or box struck and actually afford to live in
the crazy expensive San Francisco Bay Area. A place like
(03:33):
that was a lifeline. Curtis was known for taking a
chance on people. He got that life can be messy
and not everyone has a perfect credit score. He operated
on a level of human trust that you just don't
see much anymore. His friends and family all say his
generosity was just part of who he was. He saw people,
(03:53):
not profits. Sometime around twenty nineteen, a new group of
tenants showed up. They were young, smart, and lived an
odd lifestyle out of some retrofitted box trucks. One of
them was a charismatic figure named Jack La Soda, who
went bys Is to an outsider, they might have just
looked like your typical Bay Area counter culture types, rejecting
(04:17):
normal life for something more communal. A friend of Lyn's,
Patrick mac millan, who also lived on the property, later
testified about their bizarre habits, saying that members of the
group would often walk around the property completely naked. They were,
as he put it, different, but for a while it
all worked out. They were just another set of tenants
(04:39):
on Curtis Lynn's lot. But this group wasn't just a
bunch of harmless eccentrics. They were the Zyzians. They were
followers of ziz Jackla Soda, and their lives were run
by a complex and dangerous ideology that was a mix
of radical anarchism, extreme veganism, and bizarre theories about artificial
intelligence and consciousness. They were a cult born out of
(05:02):
strange online forums and fringe philosophical movements, and Curtis Lynde,
the kind hearted landlord, had just become their unwitting host.
For a bit, things were calm. The Zizians mostly kept
to themselves, working with power tools now and then and
living in their own little world. But over time the
(05:22):
landlord tenant relationship started to fall apart. The pandemic brought
eviction moratoriums, and like a lot of people, the Zizians
stopped paying rent. When those protections finally ended, Curtis did
what any landlord would. He asked for the rent he
was owed. The Zisians refused. The situation got worse, and
(05:42):
Curtis had to start the legal eviction process. He had
no clue that to the Zizians this wasn't just a
housing issue. It was an attack on their world, a
threat that in their minds justified pure violence. The eviction
notice was filed. The Sheriff's office said at a date
for their removal, a countdown had begun. November thirteenth, twenty
(06:05):
twenty two. It was a cool morning in Valejo, just
two days before the Zians were set to be officially evicted.
For Curtis Lynde, it was probably a day of relief.
The whole dispute had been stressful and he was just
ready for it to be over. Around seven o'clock a
m one of the tenants, a woman named Surrey Doo,
(06:26):
came up to him. She said there was a leak
on the property that he needed to look at, a simple,
boring request, the kind of thing a landlord deals with
all the time. Trusting and always hands on. Curtis went
to check it out. Dot As he bent down to
look at the supposed leak, his world went black. Someone
hit him from behind, a hard blow to his head.
(06:50):
When he came to, he was on the ground and
three of his tenants were standing over him, Surrey Dow,
Alexander Somny Letham, and another member, Emma Boorhena. They weren't
there to talk. They had knives. The water leak was
just a trick to lure him out. This was an ambush.
What happened next was just shockingly brutal. They attacked him
(07:12):
over and over. They shattered the right side of his skull.
At one point, Lethum allegedly impaled him with a Samurai sword,
the blade sinking deep into his body. They were trying
to kill him. Lying there on the dusty ground of
his own property, bleeding everywhere and in agony, Curtis Lynde
was fighting for his life against the very people he
(07:34):
had tried to help. But the Xyzeans underestimated the eighty
two year old. Despite his age and his horrific injuries,
Curtis had the will to survive. He was legally armed,
and he managed to pull out his handgun and fire
at his attackers. The chaos ended with Emma Borhanian dead
from a gunshot wound in Alexander Leatham injured, stumbling bleeding
(07:57):
with knives still sticking out of his Curtis somehow got
to his feet. He staggered to the mobile home of
his best friend, eighty one year old Patrick McMillan, and
banged on the door, yelling, they are killing me. There's
knives sticking out of me. McMillan opened the door to
a nightmare. He was bleeding like a stuck pig. McMillan
(08:19):
would later testify, I mean it was gushing. Panicked, macmillan
made a frantic nine hundred eleven call. This man has
been stabbed many times. He's bleeding to death. He told
the dispatcher, you better hurry, he can die. Miraculously, Curtis
Lynde survived, but the price was steep. He was rushed
(08:41):
to the hospital, where doctors fought to save him. He
would live, but he'd never be the same. The attack
was so savage that it left him partially blind. He
lost his right eye completely. The police arrived at the
bloody scene, Emma Borhenian was dead. Alexander Leatham and Surrey
Dow arrested. Investigators concluded that Curtis Lynde had acted in
(09:04):
self defense. Prosecutors charged Letham and Dow not only with
the attempted murder of lynd but also with Borhanian's murder
under the felony murder rule, a law that holds people
responsible for any deaths that happen while they're committing a
dangerous crime. The case was headed for trial, and there
was one person whose testimony was absolutely essential to getting
(09:26):
a conviction, Curtis Lynde. He was the only witness to
the ambush. His story was everything. As he started the long,
painful road to recovery, the wheels of justice began to turn.
He was now the star witness in a huge criminal case,
and for the Zyzians, that made him a problem that
they decided needed to be permanently solved. So how does
(09:50):
a fight over unpaid rent turn into a frenzied, sword
wielding ambush. To figure that out, you have to go
down the rabbit hole in two, the weird world of
the Zyzians and their leader, Jackla Soda. This wasn't just
a group of angry tenants. This was a radicalized cult
that believed violence was justified against anyone who got in
(10:11):
their way. The group's named the Zyzians, comes from their
leader's online names is jack La Soda, a thirty four
year old former computer engineer from Berkeley, is a transgender
woman who uses she or her pronouns. She came out
of the rationalist movement that's popular in Silicon Valley, which
focuses on logic and reason, often with a big emphasis
(10:34):
on the dangers of ais Is took those ideas and
twisted them into something way more personal and extreme. On
her blog, sincereously Is laid out a dark and complicated ideology.
It was a strange mix of anarchism, radical veganism, transhumanism,
and her own wild theories on human consciousness. One of
(10:55):
her weirdest ideas was that the two halves of the
brain have different genders and values, and that they often
desire to kill each other. That kind of thinking, which
frames your own inner thoughts as a literal battle for survival,
gives you a chilling look into a worldview where violence
is seen as natural, almost necessary. She gathered a following
(11:17):
of young, very smart people, many of them computer scientists
and mathematicians. They were drawn twos is intense if bizarre
thinking on things like ethics and veganism. But what might
have started as a philosophical discussion group quickly spiraled into
a classic cult. Former members and investigators describe a group
(11:38):
with all the warning signs of high control manipulation. There
were strict rules, intense loyalty tests, and strange rituals designed
to break down a person's identity and make them totally obedient.
Twos IS members were cut off from the outside world
until the cult was all they had left, and the
ideology got more and more violent. Around twenty twenty one,
(12:01):
Sis reportedly started advocating for killing people she decided were
non good, a category that could include anyone from non
vagans to her perceived enemies. The group's worldview was black
and white. You were either with them or you were
an obstacle that needed to be removed. This slide into
violence wasn't just talk. The Xyzians started getting into deception
(12:23):
and crime. In twenty twenty two, Sis faked her own
death in a boding accident to throw off police since
she was facing charges related to a protest. She resurfaced
months later, only to be arrested again for obstructing law enforcement.
This is the world Curtis Lynde stumbled into. To him,
evicting his tenants was a business matter. To them, he
(12:46):
was a hostile force trying to destroy their sanctuary. His
property wasn't just a place to park their trucks, it
was their base of operations. Losing it wasn't an option.
When their first attempt to kill he failed, Curtis Lynde
went from being a simple obstacle to something much more dangerous.
A witness his testimony could send two of their own
(13:08):
to prison for a very long time. In the paranoid,
black and white world of the Zizians, he had to
be silenced, and they allegedly gave that mission to one
of their most dedicated followers. For over two years, Curtis
Lynde lived with the fallout from that November morning. He
was a survivor, but a wounded one. The physical scars
(13:30):
were obvious. The loss of his eye was a constant
reminder of the attack. The emotional scars, you have to imagine,
ran just as deep. He was getting ready to face
his attackers in court and finally tell his story. Meanwhile,
the Zizian cult was busy. While Letham and Dow were
in a Solano County jail waiting for trial, other members
(13:52):
were allegedly involved in a string of violent crimes across
the country. Authorities would eventually link the group to at
least six deaths in California, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. This included
the unsolved double murder of the parents of a Zizian
member named Michel Zyko and the shooting death of a
US Border Patrol agent named David Mallan during a traffic stop.
(14:14):
The Zyzians were a mobile, tech savvy, and increasingly deadly group,
and the FBI was starting to put the pieces together.
The upcoming trial in Valeo was a huge deal. A
conviction would be a major blow, and Curtis Lynde's testimony
was the key. He had to be silenced. The group
allegedly gave this job to Maximilian Snyder, a twenty two
(14:38):
year old data scientist. Snyder was deep in the colts world.
That November. He had applied for a marriage license with
Teresa Junglund, the same Zizian member who would later be
charged in the shootout that killed Border Patrol agent malland
the connections were tight. The mission was clear. On January seventeenth,
(14:58):
twenty twenty five, the plan went into motion. Prosecutors alleged
that Maximilian Snyder was lying in wait for Curtis Lynde.
He ambushed the eighty two year old landlord outside his
own gated property on Porter Street, the exact same place
he'd been attacked two years before. This time, there was
no chance to fight back. This time, there would be
(15:20):
no survival. Maximilian Snyder stabbed Curtis Lynde to death and
slit his throat. The kind hearted landlord, who had opened
his property to a group of strangers, was left to
die at its entrance. The key witness was now silenced forever.
The discovery of Curtis's body sent shockwaves through the community.
For investigators, the motive was instantly chillingly obvious. This wasn't
(15:45):
a random robbery. This was a targeted assassination to stop
a criminal trial. The hunt for the killer was fast.
Seven days later, on January twenty fourth, Maximilian Snyder was
arrested in reading Kalo. When he appeared in court, his
behavior was just as bizarre. Dressed in a jail jumpsuit
(16:06):
with his long black hair and pigtails, he was reportedly calm,
at one point, even humming a tune as the hearings started.
He pleaded not guilty to murder with Special Circumstances, a
charge that could carry the death penalty. The murder of
Curtis Lynde was the bloody end of the Zaisian's war
against him. It showed just how convinced they were that
(16:26):
their beliefs were more important than any law, any morality,
any human decency. They tried to kill him once and failed,
so they sent someone else to finish the job. In
their twisted world, they weren't committing a murder. They were
just getting rid of a threat. The murder of Curtis
Lynde was a brutal, brazen prime, but it was also
(16:48):
a huge mistake. Instead of stopping one investigation, it blew
a much larger one wide open. The web connecting the
sysians to a cross country prime spree was now impossible
for law enforcement to ignore. Just a few weeks after
Lynn's murder, in February twenty twenty five, authorities got a
major break. A tip about suspicious people camping in box
(17:12):
trucks led Maryland State Police to arrest the cults leader,
Jackx's Lasoda, along with two key members, Michelle Zico and
Daniel Blank. They were found in a remote wooded area,
dressed in black, with gun belts, AMMO, multiple guns, and drugs.
A Maryland judge ordered Lasoda held without bail, calling her
(17:32):
a flight risk and a danger to the public, and
prosecutors explicitly stated she appears to be the leader of
an extremist group known as Isisian's link to multiple killings.
The arrests in Maryland, along with the cases in California
and Vermont, painted a grim picture of a network of
radicalized people willing to kill for their cause. The investigation
(17:55):
revealed a group of highly intelligent, tech savvy people who
used their skills to hide from the police and communicate
in secret. They weren't a traditional cult all living in
one place, but a modern Internet fueled movement that was
much harder to track back in California, The legal system
keeps moving. Maximilian Snyder is awaiting trial for the murder
(18:17):
of Curtis Lynde. Alexander Leatham and Surrey dow are still
facing their own trial for the twenty twenty two attack,
though the prosecution's case is now tragically complicated without their
star witness. The death of Curtis Lynde didn't stop the
wheels of justice, but it robbed the cord of his voice,
his first hand account of the terror he went through.
(18:38):
The story of Curtis Lynde is at its heart a
human tragedy. It's about a man whose best quality, his kindness,
was used against him by people capable of profound evil.
His friends remember him as a generous guy who just
wanted to help people. That simple impulse put him directly
in the path of a violent cult, and he paid
(18:59):
the ultimate price. His death is a stark warning that
dark ideologies born on the Internet can have devastating real
world consequences. The Zyzians thought they were fighting for some
higher purpose, but all they left behind was a trail
of broken lives and grieving families. Curtis Lynde deserved to
see his attackers face justice. He deserved to live out
(19:22):
his last years in peace. Instead, he was silenced, But
the story of his murder ensures he won't be forgotten,
and it stands as a chilling warning about the darkness
that can hide just beneath the surface of our world.
The case of Curtis Lynde and the Zizian Cult is
a complex and deeply disturbing look at how extremist beliefs
(19:42):
can lead to horrific violence. The group's mix of high
intelligence and pure brutality is a scary combination that law
enforcement is still working to untangle. What do you think
is the most frightening part of this case? Is it
the cult's ideology, their ability to recruit smart people, or
just how cold blooded their actions were. Let me know
(20:05):
what you think in the comments. If you found this
story compelling and want to see more deep dives into
complex true crime cases, please let us know. You can
reach out to us at One Crime at a Time
at gmail dot com. You can reach out at our
socials at one Crime Pod. You can also join our
community over on Patreon. Thank you so much for listening.
(20:27):
Until next time, I am Shannon and this is One
Crime at a Time.
Kindness. It's something we're all taught to value. It's about
offering a hand to someone who's struggling, seeing the good
in people when the world tells you not to. But
what happens when that kindness gets twisted, when it's manipulated
and used against you? What happens when opening your door
to someone in need invites in a darkness so deep
(00:21):
it threatens to swallow you whole. In Valejo, California, an
eighty two year old landlord named Curtis Lynde was known
for being a good guy. He believed in giving people
a second chance, offering affordable places to live for those
who were down on their luck. He had no idea
he was giving a home to a violent, sword wielding cult.
(00:41):
He couldn't have known that his compassion would first cost
him his right eye and then ultimately his life, all
to keep him quiet. This is the story of how
a simple act of good will lead to a brutal
murder at the hands of a radical group known as
the Zyzians. It's a case that rips away the normal,
every day surface of society to show the terrifying things
(01:03):
that can grow from extremist ideology and manipulation. Hi, and
welcome to One Crime at a Time. I am Shannon,
and today we are covering the case of Curtis LND.
But before we get into it, I just want to
remind you that you can reach out to us at
(01:25):
One Crime Pod on all of the social platforms, and
if you like what we do here, you can join
our Patreon for just one dollar and ninety nine cents
per month. Your support is greatly appreciated. If you want
to help out the show for free, you can always
support us by giving us a like and review all
links we'll be in the description for this episode. Now
(01:47):
on with our story. A person's life is really just
a collection of stories, right, big moments and small ones
that add up to who they are. For Curtis Lend,
a lot of those stories were tied to his property
in Valeo, a big, dusty lot filled with trailers, trucks
and the sounds of people working. It was his business, sure,
(02:08):
but it was also how he connected with the world.
He was a landlord, yeah, but people who knew him
saw more than that. Friends said he was a kind
hearted and generous soul, a grandpa of four who loved
the ocean at eighty two. He'd lived a full life,
but he wasn't done. He was still working, still helping people,
and still believing in the good in them dot I
(02:30):
T was that belief that led him to rent out
a spot on his property to a group of young
people who seemed to be living on the fringes. They
were different, no doubt, but to Curtis, they were just
people who needed a hand, and that's what mattered. He
didn't know he was housing members of a violent cult.
He couldn't have known that this one act of trust
(02:51):
would kick off a chain of events so horrific it
would end with him being brutally murdered, just to stop
him from ever telling his side of the story. To
really get the tragedy that happened to Curtis Lynde, you
have to understand the man himself. He wasn't some corporate
landlord managing sterile apartment buildings from a fancy office. He
(03:12):
was a hands on guy, an old schoolman who lived
and worked right there in his community. His property on
Porter Street in Valeo wasn't some manicured suburb. It was
a working yard, a place where someone could park their
trailer or box struck and actually afford to live in
the crazy expensive San Francisco Bay Area. A place like
(03:33):
that was a lifeline. Curtis was known for taking a
chance on people. He got that life can be messy
and not everyone has a perfect credit score. He operated
on a level of human trust that you just don't
see much anymore. His friends and family all say his
generosity was just part of who he was. He saw people,
(03:53):
not profits. Sometime around twenty nineteen, a new group of
tenants showed up. They were young, smart, and lived an
odd lifestyle out of some retrofitted box trucks. One of
them was a charismatic figure named Jack La Soda, who
went bys Is to an outsider, they might have just
looked like your typical Bay Area counter culture types, rejecting
(04:17):
normal life for something more communal. A friend of Lyn's,
Patrick mac millan, who also lived on the property, later
testified about their bizarre habits, saying that members of the
group would often walk around the property completely naked. They were,
as he put it, different, but for a while it
all worked out. They were just another set of tenants
(04:39):
on Curtis Lynn's lot. But this group wasn't just a
bunch of harmless eccentrics. They were the Zyzians. They were
followers of ziz Jackla Soda, and their lives were run
by a complex and dangerous ideology that was a mix
of radical anarchism, extreme veganism, and bizarre theories about artificial
intelligence and consciousness. They were a cult born out of
(05:02):
strange online forums and fringe philosophical movements, and Curtis Lynde,
the kind hearted landlord, had just become their unwitting host.
For a bit, things were calm. The Zizians mostly kept
to themselves, working with power tools now and then and
living in their own little world. But over time the
(05:22):
landlord tenant relationship started to fall apart. The pandemic brought
eviction moratoriums, and like a lot of people, the Zizians
stopped paying rent. When those protections finally ended, Curtis did
what any landlord would. He asked for the rent he
was owed. The Zisians refused. The situation got worse, and
(05:42):
Curtis had to start the legal eviction process. He had
no clue that to the Zizians this wasn't just a
housing issue. It was an attack on their world, a
threat that in their minds justified pure violence. The eviction
notice was filed. The Sheriff's office said at a date
for their removal, a countdown had begun. November thirteenth, twenty
(06:05):
twenty two. It was a cool morning in Valejo, just
two days before the Zians were set to be officially evicted.
For Curtis Lynde, it was probably a day of relief.
The whole dispute had been stressful and he was just
ready for it to be over. Around seven o'clock a
m one of the tenants, a woman named Surrey Doo,
(06:26):
came up to him. She said there was a leak
on the property that he needed to look at, a simple,
boring request, the kind of thing a landlord deals with
all the time. Trusting and always hands on. Curtis went
to check it out. Dot As he bent down to
look at the supposed leak, his world went black. Someone
hit him from behind, a hard blow to his head.
(06:50):
When he came to, he was on the ground and
three of his tenants were standing over him, Surrey Dow,
Alexander Somny Letham, and another member, Emma Boorhena. They weren't
there to talk. They had knives. The water leak was
just a trick to lure him out. This was an ambush.
What happened next was just shockingly brutal. They attacked him
(07:12):
over and over. They shattered the right side of his skull.
At one point, Lethum allegedly impaled him with a Samurai sword,
the blade sinking deep into his body. They were trying
to kill him. Lying there on the dusty ground of
his own property, bleeding everywhere and in agony, Curtis Lynde
was fighting for his life against the very people he
(07:34):
had tried to help. But the Xyzeans underestimated the eighty
two year old. Despite his age and his horrific injuries,
Curtis had the will to survive. He was legally armed,
and he managed to pull out his handgun and fire
at his attackers. The chaos ended with Emma Borhanian dead
from a gunshot wound in Alexander Leatham injured, stumbling bleeding
(07:57):
with knives still sticking out of his Curtis somehow got
to his feet. He staggered to the mobile home of
his best friend, eighty one year old Patrick McMillan, and
banged on the door, yelling, they are killing me. There's
knives sticking out of me. McMillan opened the door to
a nightmare. He was bleeding like a stuck pig. McMillan
(08:19):
would later testify, I mean it was gushing. Panicked, macmillan
made a frantic nine hundred eleven call. This man has
been stabbed many times. He's bleeding to death. He told
the dispatcher, you better hurry, he can die. Miraculously, Curtis
Lynde survived, but the price was steep. He was rushed
(08:41):
to the hospital, where doctors fought to save him. He
would live, but he'd never be the same. The attack
was so savage that it left him partially blind. He
lost his right eye completely. The police arrived at the
bloody scene, Emma Borhenian was dead. Alexander Leatham and Surrey
Dow arrested. Investigators concluded that Curtis Lynde had acted in
(09:04):
self defense. Prosecutors charged Letham and Dow not only with
the attempted murder of lynd but also with Borhanian's murder
under the felony murder rule, a law that holds people
responsible for any deaths that happen while they're committing a
dangerous crime. The case was headed for trial, and there
was one person whose testimony was absolutely essential to getting
(09:26):
a conviction, Curtis Lynde. He was the only witness to
the ambush. His story was everything. As he started the long,
painful road to recovery, the wheels of justice began to turn.
He was now the star witness in a huge criminal case,
and for the Zyzians, that made him a problem that
they decided needed to be permanently solved. So how does
(09:50):
a fight over unpaid rent turn into a frenzied, sword
wielding ambush. To figure that out, you have to go
down the rabbit hole in two, the weird world of
the Zyzians and their leader, Jackla Soda. This wasn't just
a group of angry tenants. This was a radicalized cult
that believed violence was justified against anyone who got in
(10:11):
their way. The group's named the Zyzians, comes from their
leader's online names is jack La Soda, a thirty four
year old former computer engineer from Berkeley, is a transgender
woman who uses she or her pronouns. She came out
of the rationalist movement that's popular in Silicon Valley, which
focuses on logic and reason, often with a big emphasis
(10:34):
on the dangers of ais Is took those ideas and
twisted them into something way more personal and extreme. On
her blog, sincereously Is laid out a dark and complicated ideology.
It was a strange mix of anarchism, radical veganism, transhumanism,
and her own wild theories on human consciousness. One of
(10:55):
her weirdest ideas was that the two halves of the
brain have different genders and values, and that they often
desire to kill each other. That kind of thinking, which
frames your own inner thoughts as a literal battle for survival,
gives you a chilling look into a worldview where violence
is seen as natural, almost necessary. She gathered a following
(11:17):
of young, very smart people, many of them computer scientists
and mathematicians. They were drawn twos is intense if bizarre
thinking on things like ethics and veganism. But what might
have started as a philosophical discussion group quickly spiraled into
a classic cult. Former members and investigators describe a group
(11:38):
with all the warning signs of high control manipulation. There
were strict rules, intense loyalty tests, and strange rituals designed
to break down a person's identity and make them totally obedient.
Twos IS members were cut off from the outside world
until the cult was all they had left, and the
ideology got more and more violent. Around twenty twenty one,
(12:01):
Sis reportedly started advocating for killing people she decided were
non good, a category that could include anyone from non
vagans to her perceived enemies. The group's worldview was black
and white. You were either with them or you were
an obstacle that needed to be removed. This slide into
violence wasn't just talk. The Xyzians started getting into deception
(12:23):
and crime. In twenty twenty two, Sis faked her own
death in a boding accident to throw off police since
she was facing charges related to a protest. She resurfaced
months later, only to be arrested again for obstructing law enforcement.
This is the world Curtis Lynde stumbled into. To him,
evicting his tenants was a business matter. To them, he
(12:46):
was a hostile force trying to destroy their sanctuary. His
property wasn't just a place to park their trucks, it
was their base of operations. Losing it wasn't an option.
When their first attempt to kill he failed, Curtis Lynde
went from being a simple obstacle to something much more dangerous.
A witness his testimony could send two of their own
(13:08):
to prison for a very long time. In the paranoid,
black and white world of the Zizians, he had to
be silenced, and they allegedly gave that mission to one
of their most dedicated followers. For over two years, Curtis
Lynde lived with the fallout from that November morning. He
was a survivor, but a wounded one. The physical scars
(13:30):
were obvious. The loss of his eye was a constant
reminder of the attack. The emotional scars, you have to imagine,
ran just as deep. He was getting ready to face
his attackers in court and finally tell his story. Meanwhile,
the Zizian cult was busy. While Letham and Dow were
in a Solano County jail waiting for trial, other members
(13:52):
were allegedly involved in a string of violent crimes across
the country. Authorities would eventually link the group to at
least six deaths in California, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. This included
the unsolved double murder of the parents of a Zizian
member named Michel Zyko and the shooting death of a
US Border Patrol agent named David Mallan during a traffic stop.
(14:14):
The Zyzians were a mobile, tech savvy, and increasingly deadly group,
and the FBI was starting to put the pieces together.
The upcoming trial in Valeo was a huge deal. A
conviction would be a major blow, and Curtis Lynde's testimony
was the key. He had to be silenced. The group
allegedly gave this job to Maximilian Snyder, a twenty two
(14:38):
year old data scientist. Snyder was deep in the colts world.
That November. He had applied for a marriage license with
Teresa Junglund, the same Zizian member who would later be
charged in the shootout that killed Border Patrol agent malland
the connections were tight. The mission was clear. On January seventeenth,
(14:58):
twenty twenty five, the plan went into motion. Prosecutors alleged
that Maximilian Snyder was lying in wait for Curtis Lynde.
He ambushed the eighty two year old landlord outside his
own gated property on Porter Street, the exact same place
he'd been attacked two years before. This time, there was
no chance to fight back. This time, there would be
(15:20):
no survival. Maximilian Snyder stabbed Curtis Lynde to death and
slit his throat. The kind hearted landlord, who had opened
his property to a group of strangers, was left to
die at its entrance. The key witness was now silenced forever.
The discovery of Curtis's body sent shockwaves through the community.
For investigators, the motive was instantly chillingly obvious. This wasn't
(15:45):
a random robbery. This was a targeted assassination to stop
a criminal trial. The hunt for the killer was fast.
Seven days later, on January twenty fourth, Maximilian Snyder was
arrested in reading Kalo. When he appeared in court, his
behavior was just as bizarre. Dressed in a jail jumpsuit
(16:06):
with his long black hair and pigtails, he was reportedly calm,
at one point, even humming a tune as the hearings started.
He pleaded not guilty to murder with Special Circumstances, a
charge that could carry the death penalty. The murder of
Curtis Lynde was the bloody end of the Zaisian's war
against him. It showed just how convinced they were that
(16:26):
their beliefs were more important than any law, any morality,
any human decency. They tried to kill him once and failed,
so they sent someone else to finish the job. In
their twisted world, they weren't committing a murder. They were
just getting rid of a threat. The murder of Curtis
Lynde was a brutal, brazen prime, but it was also
(16:48):
a huge mistake. Instead of stopping one investigation, it blew
a much larger one wide open. The web connecting the
sysians to a cross country prime spree was now impossible
for law enforcement to ignore. Just a few weeks after
Lynn's murder, in February twenty twenty five, authorities got a
major break. A tip about suspicious people camping in box
(17:12):
trucks led Maryland State Police to arrest the cults leader,
Jackx's Lasoda, along with two key members, Michelle Zico and
Daniel Blank. They were found in a remote wooded area,
dressed in black, with gun belts, AMMO, multiple guns, and drugs.
A Maryland judge ordered Lasoda held without bail, calling her
(17:32):
a flight risk and a danger to the public, and
prosecutors explicitly stated she appears to be the leader of
an extremist group known as Isisian's link to multiple killings.
The arrests in Maryland, along with the cases in California
and Vermont, painted a grim picture of a network of
radicalized people willing to kill for their cause. The investigation
(17:55):
revealed a group of highly intelligent, tech savvy people who
used their skills to hide from the police and communicate
in secret. They weren't a traditional cult all living in
one place, but a modern Internet fueled movement that was
much harder to track back in California, The legal system
keeps moving. Maximilian Snyder is awaiting trial for the murder
(18:17):
of Curtis Lynde. Alexander Leatham and Surrey dow are still
facing their own trial for the twenty twenty two attack,
though the prosecution's case is now tragically complicated without their
star witness. The death of Curtis Lynde didn't stop the
wheels of justice, but it robbed the cord of his voice,
his first hand account of the terror he went through.
(18:38):
The story of Curtis Lynde is at its heart a
human tragedy. It's about a man whose best quality, his kindness,
was used against him by people capable of profound evil.
His friends remember him as a generous guy who just
wanted to help people. That simple impulse put him directly
in the path of a violent cult, and he paid
(18:59):
the ultimate price. His death is a stark warning that
dark ideologies born on the Internet can have devastating real
world consequences. The Zyzians thought they were fighting for some
higher purpose, but all they left behind was a trail
of broken lives and grieving families. Curtis Lynde deserved to
see his attackers face justice. He deserved to live out
(19:22):
his last years in peace. Instead, he was silenced, But
the story of his murder ensures he won't be forgotten,
and it stands as a chilling warning about the darkness
that can hide just beneath the surface of our world.
The case of Curtis Lynde and the Zizian Cult is
a complex and deeply disturbing look at how extremist beliefs
(19:42):
can lead to horrific violence. The group's mix of high
intelligence and pure brutality is a scary combination that law
enforcement is still working to untangle. What do you think
is the most frightening part of this case? Is it
the cult's ideology, their ability to recruit smart people, or
just how cold blooded their actions were. Let me know
(20:05):
what you think in the comments. If you found this
story compelling and want to see more deep dives into
complex true crime cases, please let us know. You can
reach out to us at One Crime at a Time
at gmail dot com. You can reach out at our
socials at one Crime Pod. You can also join our
community over on Patreon. Thank you so much for listening.
(20:27):
Until next time, I am Shannon and this is One
Crime at a Time.
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