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That fear was evident among some rationalists as news of the violent incidents surrounding LaSota had spread. “I don’t want Ziz to ever think about me, ever,” a person involved in the Bay Area rationalist community said in an interview in 2023. “I think I know enough to be correctly scared of Ziz.”
That June, Judge Cappelli ruled against quashing the charges but reduced LaSota’s bail to $10,000, unsecured—meaning LaSota could sign a payment pledge and walk out. McGarrigle informed the court that LaSota’s mother had flown in from Alaska, “and she will take him home and make sure he comes back for all the court dates.” The prosecutor seemed skeptical. “The Commonwealth’s concern is the flight,” he told the judge. “There is literally zero ties to the community.” What were the odds LaSota would show up for the next court date, in late August?
Around the same time, Michelle Zajko called her aunt Rosanne. They hadn’t spoken since the graveside service for Michelle’s parents that January. She hadn’t shown up at the memorial mass where Rosanne had eulogized Rita and Rick. But now Michelle was calling with a message: “She told me she wasn’t responsible” for the murders, Rosanne said. “But she said that she knew who was.” She told her aunt that “LessWrong did it” and that she was “being targeted.”
Not long after, the trust that owned the house in Coventry, Vermont, where Michelle had lived with Alice Monday, sold it off. Michelle and Blank were both gone, having left the previous winter. When realtors came to inspect the property, they found the house had not been winterized, causing the pipes to burst. One of Blank’s family members, meanwhile, filed a national missing persons report, noting that he had last been seen in Pennsylvania, wore thick glasses, and had one eye that didn’t follow the other.
When LaSota’s court appearance came, on the morning of August 21, 2023, the courtroom gallery was full of defendants waiting to be called for the day’s pleas. Shortly after court was gaveled into session, an older woman with gray-blond hair pushed a wheelchair into the back of the courtroom. In it, slumped to one side and dressed in flowing black, was LaSota. Now her hair too was black and appeared even more disheveled than when she’d been in jail. She was wearing what appeared to be an industrial N95 respirator mask, with valves on either side. McGarrigle, approaching his client in the back of the courtroom, seemed surprised. “What’s going on?” he said, leaning in. “I mean, what’s going on with your health?”
When LaSota’s case was called, the woman I later learned was LaSota’s mother wheeled her to the front, where she sat impassively in the chair, gazing blankly at the floor.
A new prosecutor had replaced the old one, and requested a continuance to get on top of all the facts. The judge assented, pushing the trial to December. “I just want the record to reflect that the defendant is here, and we’re ready,” McGarrigle said, before LaSota’s mother wheeled her back out through the doors.
XII.
Two months later, I traveled to Sonoma County, the home of Westminster Woods and the scene of the protest that had seemingly begun this great unraveling. I met Sergeant Brian Parks at the local Starbucks. After hearing his account of the original arrests, I asked him why—given the open felony warrant—his department hadn’t come after LaSota once she was arrested in Pennsylvania. “Right now, if I were to look at the system, there are probably 75 felony bench warrants,” Parks said. “We don’t have the luxury of trying to serve” them all, he said. “We’re understaffed right now.”
I told him what I’d heard in Pennsylvania from a source close to the case, that the authorities there had contacted Sonoma County about taking their prisoner. “I heard there was some communication between us and the agency in Pennsylvania,” Parks said. “I don’t know to what extent, so I really don’t want to comment on that.”
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