(KRON) -- A data scientist who reportedly followed an extremist group known as the "Zizians" pleaded not guilty to murdering an 82-year-old Vallejo landlord.
According to police and prosecutors, Maximilian Bentley Snyder stabbed Curtis Lind to death on the landlord’s property on January 17. Despite facing a first-degree murder charge, Snyder hummed songs during his arraignment on Wednesday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Snyder is scheduled to return to a Solano County courtroom on June 16 to set a date for a preliminary hearing.
Snyder is one of several followers or members of the extremist rationalist group who are facing criminal charges. Crimes connected to the Zizians include two killings in Vallejo, a Pennsylvania couple’s slaying, and a deadly a highway shootout in Vermont.
Maximilian Snyder appears in court for arraignment in February 2025. (Chris Riley/Times-Herald)/The Times-Herald via AP)Prosecutors said Jack "Ziz" Amadeus LaSota is the leader of the Zizians.
Zizians killings investigation: Who’s whoLaSota, a computer programmer and transgender woman, resided in Berkeley and on a boat, named The Caleb, anchored near Half Moon Bay between 2016-2021. LaSota faked her own death in 2022, when her sister told the U.S. Coast Guard that "Ziz" fell overboard into the San Francisco Bay. She was declared legally deceased in San Mateo County. Her whereabouts were unknown until February, when 33-year-old LaSota was arrested in Maryland.
In early 2022, LaSota and her boat crew befriended Lind, according to reports. They moved from their sunken boat in Pillar Point Harbor to Lind's Vallejo property on Lemon Street.
An abandoned boat, The Caleb, is seen near Half Moon Bay on Feb. 6, 2025. (Photo by Ryan Mense / KRON4)The homicide victim’s loved ones wrote on a GoFundMe page, "Curt found joy in interesting conversations with anyone he came across. He was the type of man who could easily engage in a conversation with a complete stranger and leave with a new friend. Curt had a deep love of the ocean and lived many years on boats and ships he refurbished himself."
An abandoned boat, The Caleb, is seen near Half Moon Bay on Feb. 6, 2025. (Photo by Ryan Mense / KRON4)Lind later sought to evict LaSota, Alexander Leatham, Emma Borhanian, and others for failing to pay rent while living in vans and box trucks on his property. In November of 2022, two days before the eviction deadline, Lind was impaled with a sword and partially blinded in an attack. Lind killed Borhanian in self defense during the sword attack, investigators said.
Concluding that Lind acted in self-defense, officials charged Leatham with murder.
Curtis Lind (Photo via GoFundMe)After surviving the sword attack, Lind was attacked again in 2025 by a knife-wielding assailant. Prosecutors allege that Snyder murdered the landlord on January 17 to prevent Lind from testifying in court against his earlier attackers.
"The victim, C.L., was a witness to a crime. (Lind) was intentionally killed for the purpose of preventing his testimony in a criminal proceeding," the Solano County District Attorney's Office wrote in a criminal complaint.
Maximilian Snyder walks into court on Feb 6, 2025 in Fairfield, Calf. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)On January 24, Redding Police Department officers found Snyder in Redding, Calif. and arrested him. Snyder was transported to Solano County Jail, where he currently remains in custody.
The Vallejo Police Department said Snyder's last known permanent address was in Kirkland, Washington.
Last year, Snyder sought a marriage license with a 21-year-old woman, Teresa Youngblut. She is now also behind bars and charged in connection to the death of a U.S. Border Patrol Agent. The agent was killed in a highway shootout on January 20 in Vermont near the Canadian border.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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