A widespread search for three Zizians, members of a cultlike group connected to at least six deaths across the country, came to an end Sunday in Western Maryland.

Ziz, also known as Jack LaSota, is the Zizians’ mysterious leader and was arrested by the Maryland State Police Sunday evening alongside Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank, authorities said. They were arrested in the 10000 block of Piney Mountain Road in Frostburg.

LaSota and Zajko are charged with firearm and trespassing offenses; Blank faces a trespassing charge. All three are charged with obstructing authorities and are being held in the Allegany County jail.

Further details about the Maryland charges against LaSota, who uses she/her pronouns, Zajko and Blank were not readily available Monday. The Maryland State Police said only that the agency was working with federal authorities and the local prosecutor’s office. Neither the Allegany County State’s Attorney’s Office, the FBI or U.S. Border Patrol returned a request for comment; courts and many government agencies were closed in observance of Presidents’ Day.

An offshoot of a Berkeley, California-area rationalist movement, the Zizians have a fairly complex set of beliefs. They seek to understand human cognition, are anarchists and radical vegans. LaSota, a former computer programmer, believes that the two hemispheres of the human brain can operate separately from one another, with one side holding different beliefs and existing as a different gender than the other, according to The Associated Press.

As leader of the Zizians, LaSota tended to target “smart, mostly autistic-ish transwomen who were extremely vulnerable and isolated” for recruitment, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The Zizian group has been linked to killings across the country and LaSota and Zajko appear to be at the center of the cases, though the exact role of LaSota, who faked her death in 2022, is unclear. She’s been seen at crime scenes, questioned by authorities and, in one earlier instance, arrested on charges of obstructing police in Pennsylvania.

Zajko is considered a person of interest in her parents’ killings in Pennsylvania, the same case LaSota was arrested in connection to. Blank, who was Zajko’s roommate in Vermont, was also involved in that case, according to court records and reporting from VTDigger and The San Francisco Chronicle.

Zajko is also a person of interest in a shootout last month in Vermont that killed a Border Patrol agent, court records show. By connecting Zajko to that shootout, prosecutors and news outlets began to reveal the extent of the Zizians alleged crimes.

The violent, cross-country story begins in 2019 when a group of them, including LaSota, were arrested in California where they were protesting another rationalist philosophy group.

LaSota resurfaced in the news in August 2022 when she apparently faked her own death after reportedly falling off a boat in the San Francisco Bay. The Coast Guard searched for her body but nothing was found. An obituary was published.

But then, months later, she reappeared.

In the fall of 2022, LaSota and other Zizians were said to be living on a plot of land in Vallejo, California, north of San Francisco. When their landlord, Curtis Lind, tried to evict them for not paying rent, a group of the Zizians attacked him. He was impaled by a sword, but managed to fatally shoot one of them in self-defense, authorities said. Two of the Zizians were charged with murder and attempted murder in that case.

LaSota was believed to be at the scene when it happened, but was not arrested, police said.

Across the country, a seemingly unrelated killing took place in Chester Heights, Pennsylvania. On New Year’s Eve of 2022, Richard and Rita Zajko, Michelle Zajko’s parents, were shot and killed in their home, according to The Associated Press.

Days later, authorities went to Michelle Zajko’s house in Vermont and questioned her about her parents’ death. She had an alibi, the VTDigger reported. Zajko had been at her home in Vermont with her roommate, Daniel Blank.

Then, on Jan. 12, 2023, authorities went to a hotel near the Philadelphia airport where they found Michelle Zajko, Blank and LaSota. LaSota was uncooperative with police, according to Open Vallejo, a news organization in California.

Authorities arrested LaSota but she eventually posted bond. She then failed to show up for court hearings and has a warrant out for her arrest there. A lawyer for LaSota wrote in an email to The Banner that LaSota is innocent of the charges in Philadelphia and would be proven so in court.

Neither LaSota, Zajko or Blank had been seen since mid-2023, according to various media accounts.

Last month, two more killings ultimately linked everything to the Zizians, more specifically, LaSota and Zajko.

In California, Lind, the landlord who tried to evict the Zizians, was found dead on Jan. 17 with his throat cut near the site of the original incident. Authorities arrested Maximillian Snyder on charges of murder.

In Vermont, two people who were later linked to the Zizians got involved in a shootout with Border Patrol agents near the Canadian border on Jan. 20. One of the agents, David Maland, was killed. One of the Zizians, a German resident named Ophelia Bauckholt, was also killed. The second Zizian, Teresa Youngblut, was arrested and faces federal firearms charges.

In investigating Youngblut and Bauckholt, authorities searched a home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where they were said to be living with LaSota, according to The Associated Press. Youngblut had previously applied for a marriage license with Snyder, the suspect in California, according to records from King County, Washington.

What’s more, authorities in Vermont suspected Zajko as having purchased at least one of the guns used in the Border Patrol shootout, according to court records.

LaSota, Zajko and Blank are all expected to make their first appearances in Maryland court Tuesday morning.

Banner reporter Tim Prudente and The Associated Press contributed to this article.