Vegan computer savants with Bay Area ties linked to deaths across U.S., authorities say
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wrote 18 days ago last edited by
Vegan computer savants with Bay Area ties linked to deaths across U.S., authorities say
As he prepared to give up the beloved pre-WWII-era ship he lived on in Half Moon Bay and move into a trailer on a lot he owned in this scrappy city on San Pablo Bay,
Curt Lind made a fateful decision.Lind, then in his late 70s, invited an eccentric group of folks living on a neighboring vintage tugboat to come along and become his tenants.
The neighbors — a group of computer savants and vegan activists committed to the study of human cognition,
most of them trans women — moved box trucks on his land.It seemed like a win-win for the free-spirited Lind:
They needed a place to stay, and he had a dream of making a little money by transforming his ramshackle lot into cheap housing for artists, woodworkers and other “makers” who were being squeezed by Bay Area prices.“We talked a lot, and I thought we were good friends,”
Lind said in a 2024 interview with The Times.“They were going to stay at my yard for four months.”
That’s not what happened.
The pandemic hit.
The tenants, according to Lind, stopped paying rent.
And in 2022, when Lind, then 80, tried to evict them,
some of those same tenants staged a brutal attack,
slashing his body and stabbing out an eye,
according to a criminal complaint filed by Solano County prosecutors.With a samurai sword still lodged in his body,
Lind whipped out a gun and shot back,
wounding one tenant and killing another.And then it got interesting.
Because as horror-movie Gothic as a samurai sword attack on an octogenarian in a desolate corner of the San Francisco Bay might sound,
it was only the first in a series of alleged violent crimes that law enforcement authorities have linked to members of the strange group Lind had welcomed into his motley community.Over the past few years, several members of the group have been investigated,
criminally charged or deemed persons of interest
in incidents that resulted in six deaths across the U.S.The parents of one of the vegan associates,
Michelle Zajko,
were slain in the dark of night in their stately home in suburban Pennsylvania
in late December 2022.Zajko, who authorities allege had a pistol similar to the one used in the crime,
has been named a person of interest in their deaths.She has not been charged.
Last month, a Border Patrol agent was shot to death on a snowy Vermont highway
during a shootout with two other associates of the group,
Felix “Ophelia” Bauckholt,
a German national,
and computer science student Teresa Youngblut, 21.Bauckholt was also killed in the shootout,
and Youngblut arrested.And then there was Lind:
He had survived the samurai attack and loss of an eye,
and was preparing to testify against the tenants charged in his assault.But three days before the Vermont shootout,
Lind was knifed to death in broad daylight outside his Vallejo lot.Another person with links to the group,
Maximilian Snyder,
a graduate of an elite Seattle prep school,
was charged with Lind’s murder
and trying to silence a witness.Snyder has not yet entered a plea.
Authorities in jurisdictions across the country have said little about the group
or what evidence they have gathered in the far-flung cases.But court records, blog posts and interviews with family members and acquaintances paint a picture of a group
whose members splintered from the Bay Area’s rationalist community
— an intellectual movement exploring the underpinnings of human reasoning
— and allegedly turned violent. -
Vegan computer savants with Bay Area ties linked to deaths across U.S., authorities say
As he prepared to give up the beloved pre-WWII-era ship he lived on in Half Moon Bay and move into a trailer on a lot he owned in this scrappy city on San Pablo Bay,
Curt Lind made a fateful decision.Lind, then in his late 70s, invited an eccentric group of folks living on a neighboring vintage tugboat to come along and become his tenants.
The neighbors — a group of computer savants and vegan activists committed to the study of human cognition,
most of them trans women — moved box trucks on his land.It seemed like a win-win for the free-spirited Lind:
They needed a place to stay, and he had a dream of making a little money by transforming his ramshackle lot into cheap housing for artists, woodworkers and other “makers” who were being squeezed by Bay Area prices.“We talked a lot, and I thought we were good friends,”
Lind said in a 2024 interview with The Times.“They were going to stay at my yard for four months.”
That’s not what happened.
The pandemic hit.
The tenants, according to Lind, stopped paying rent.
And in 2022, when Lind, then 80, tried to evict them,
some of those same tenants staged a brutal attack,
slashing his body and stabbing out an eye,
according to a criminal complaint filed by Solano County prosecutors.With a samurai sword still lodged in his body,
Lind whipped out a gun and shot back,
wounding one tenant and killing another.And then it got interesting.
Because as horror-movie Gothic as a samurai sword attack on an octogenarian in a desolate corner of the San Francisco Bay might sound,
it was only the first in a series of alleged violent crimes that law enforcement authorities have linked to members of the strange group Lind had welcomed into his motley community.Over the past few years, several members of the group have been investigated,
criminally charged or deemed persons of interest
in incidents that resulted in six deaths across the U.S.The parents of one of the vegan associates,
Michelle Zajko,
were slain in the dark of night in their stately home in suburban Pennsylvania
in late December 2022.Zajko, who authorities allege had a pistol similar to the one used in the crime,
has been named a person of interest in their deaths.She has not been charged.
Last month, a Border Patrol agent was shot to death on a snowy Vermont highway
during a shootout with two other associates of the group,
Felix “Ophelia” Bauckholt,
a German national,
and computer science student Teresa Youngblut, 21.Bauckholt was also killed in the shootout,
and Youngblut arrested.And then there was Lind:
He had survived the samurai attack and loss of an eye,
and was preparing to testify against the tenants charged in his assault.But three days before the Vermont shootout,
Lind was knifed to death in broad daylight outside his Vallejo lot.Another person with links to the group,
Maximilian Snyder,
a graduate of an elite Seattle prep school,
was charged with Lind’s murder
and trying to silence a witness.Snyder has not yet entered a plea.
Authorities in jurisdictions across the country have said little about the group
or what evidence they have gathered in the far-flung cases.But court records, blog posts and interviews with family members and acquaintances paint a picture of a group
whose members splintered from the Bay Area’s rationalist community
— an intellectual movement exploring the underpinnings of human reasoning
— and allegedly turned violent.wrote 18 days ago last edited by futurebird@sauropods.winI dislike how they are being called "savants" ... maybe it's just to help people understand what the attraction to this gang is about, but come on.
What did they do to warrant this implied exceptionalism and awe that word carries?
(also dislike the pathologizing of criminals with autism-adjacent notions. )
It's a criminal gang and cult that did crimes and exploited people as gangs/cults will do. Just because they have some white guys with long hair on computers doesn't change that.
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I dislike how they are being called "savants" ... maybe it's just to help people understand what the attraction to this gang is about, but come on.
What did they do to warrant this implied exceptionalism and awe that word carries?
(also dislike the pathologizing of criminals with autism-adjacent notions. )
It's a criminal gang and cult that did crimes and exploited people as gangs/cults will do. Just because they have some white guys with long hair on computers doesn't change that.
wrote 18 days ago last edited byI searched up "computer savant" and the article was the first link. And it's only mentioned in the title and the first paragraph.
I don't even know what it's meant to mean.
It's just bad writing.
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I searched up "computer savant" and the article was the first link. And it's only mentioned in the title and the first paragraph.
I don't even know what it's meant to mean.
It's just bad writing.
wrote 18 days ago last edited by -
F myrmepropagandist shared this topic 18 days ago
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I dislike how they are being called "savants" ... maybe it's just to help people understand what the attraction to this gang is about, but come on.
What did they do to warrant this implied exceptionalism and awe that word carries?
(also dislike the pathologizing of criminals with autism-adjacent notions. )
It's a criminal gang and cult that did crimes and exploited people as gangs/cults will do. Just because they have some white guys with long hair on computers doesn't change that.
wrote 18 days ago last edited byI'm reflecting on exactly what the difference between a "gang" and a "cult" really is. They are both economic enterprises that exploit people. They both use indoctrination and trap people.
Cults are just gangs with more fancy "lore."
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wrote 18 days ago last edited by
@futurebird @pete @cdarwin especially when the only phrase I saw indicating technical savviness was ‘the drives were encrypted’… which isn’t savant grade. Encrypting drives is saying ‘yes’ for an install setting, backing up a recovery key, and teaching users password hygiene.
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@futurebird @pete @cdarwin especially when the only phrase I saw indicating technical savviness was ‘the drives were encrypted’… which isn’t savant grade. Encrypting drives is saying ‘yes’ for an install setting, backing up a recovery key, and teaching users password hygiene.
wrote 18 days ago last edited byBut computers! California! That coder hair!
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I dislike how they are being called "savants" ... maybe it's just to help people understand what the attraction to this gang is about, but come on.
What did they do to warrant this implied exceptionalism and awe that word carries?
(also dislike the pathologizing of criminals with autism-adjacent notions. )
It's a criminal gang and cult that did crimes and exploited people as gangs/cults will do. Just because they have some white guys with long hair on computers doesn't change that.
wrote 18 days ago last edited by@futurebird @cdarwin agree with you about questionable use of the word “savant,” but curious why you misgender the trans women to whom this term is being applied (calling them “white guys with long hair”)?
was it an intentional choice because you think they are inaccurately described as trans women by media in order to vilify trans people more broadly, or was it an oversight in your post, or something else?
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@futurebird @cdarwin agree with you about questionable use of the word “savant,” but curious why you misgender the trans women to whom this term is being applied (calling them “white guys with long hair”)?
was it an intentional choice because you think they are inaccurately described as trans women by media in order to vilify trans people more broadly, or was it an oversight in your post, or something else?
wrote 18 days ago last edited by -
I'm reflecting on exactly what the difference between a "gang" and a "cult" really is. They are both economic enterprises that exploit people. They both use indoctrination and trap people.
Cults are just gangs with more fancy "lore."
wrote 18 days ago last edited by@futurebird @cdarwin
The difference between a cult and a religion in my eyes is the ratio of size to intensity.The Catholic Church is a belief system that millions of people adhere to apathetically.
Scientology is a belief system that a very small number of people adhere to intensely.
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@futurebird @cdarwin
The difference between a cult and a religion in my eyes is the ratio of size to intensity.The Catholic Church is a belief system that millions of people adhere to apathetically.
Scientology is a belief system that a very small number of people adhere to intensely.
wrote 18 days ago last edited by@negative12dollarbill @cdarwin
Religions aren't driven by cult personalities though people with such "needs" may use religion to gather people to dominate and exploit.
I don't think a cult even needs to be a religion, it's that pattern of people getting others to surround and serve them and it could have many pretexts.
Though often when. you look at what the leaders are getting out of it, it's always the same mundane stuff. Money, control and sex mostly.
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wrote 18 days ago last edited by
@futurebird @cdarwin not just one of them, based on third paragraph:
“The neighbors — a group of computer savants and vegan activists committed to the study of human cognition, most of them trans women — moved box trucks on his land.”
It’s weird to consider the implications of cult behavior assimilation on gender, though. I’m inclined to presume that gender identity is entirely up to the individual, but if individuality is subverted, how do we make meaning of identity?
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@futurebird @cdarwin not just one of them, based on third paragraph:
“The neighbors — a group of computer savants and vegan activists committed to the study of human cognition, most of them trans women — moved box trucks on his land.”
It’s weird to consider the implications of cult behavior assimilation on gender, though. I’m inclined to presume that gender identity is entirely up to the individual, but if individuality is subverted, how do we make meaning of identity?
wrote 18 days ago last edited by@futurebird @cdarwin regardless of that question, referring to them by their expressed gender identity is probably the right thing to do, because the alternative view—that gender identity is subject to some kind of individuality/authenticity test—could be used to invalidate any trans person’s gender identity.
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@futurebird @cdarwin not just one of them, based on third paragraph:
“The neighbors — a group of computer savants and vegan activists committed to the study of human cognition, most of them trans women — moved box trucks on his land.”
It’s weird to consider the implications of cult behavior assimilation on gender, though. I’m inclined to presume that gender identity is entirely up to the individual, but if individuality is subverted, how do we make meaning of identity?
wrote 18 days ago last edited byYIKES.
I didn't know any of them were trans. And it's very tiresome how if a criminal happens to be trans it becomes a big focus or something. So, I'm not interested in weighing in on that.
In fact, if I'd known that I might have said less about this altogether. (Though, it makes the whole use of "savant" even more stereotypical and obnoxious.)
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YIKES.
I didn't know any of them were trans. And it's very tiresome how if a criminal happens to be trans it becomes a big focus or something. So, I'm not interested in weighing in on that.
In fact, if I'd known that I might have said less about this altogether. (Though, it makes the whole use of "savant" even more stereotypical and obnoxious.)
wrote 18 days ago last edited by@futurebird @cdarwin yeah, making the point that they’re ‘trans vegan savants’ really seems to be making a bogeyman of whole swaths of people who don’t fit hegemonic norms. the problem with these people is that they’re violent, and absent some kind of demonstrable causal link, their biographical details are irrelevant.
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@futurebird @cdarwin regardless of that question, referring to them by their expressed gender identity is probably the right thing to do, because the alternative view—that gender identity is subject to some kind of individuality/authenticity test—could be used to invalidate any trans person’s gender identity.
wrote 18 days ago last edited byI would think so. Are the articles misgendering any of them?
You know I'm glad you pointed this out. There was something *off* about the way this was being covered... something I couldn't put my finger on something "pathologizing" is the best word I can use to describe it. A kind of extra fuss without a clear reason. I'm suspecting it's coming from some desire to make the presence of trans women "significant" or use this stir up more hate. OK. Yeah. I see it NOW.
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@futurebird @cdarwin yeah, making the point that they’re ‘trans vegan savants’ really seems to be making a bogeyman of whole swaths of people who don’t fit hegemonic norms. the problem with these people is that they’re violent, and absent some kind of demonstrable causal link, their biographical details are irrelevant.
wrote 18 days ago last edited byCan we please just discuss the people who commit crimes normally and not try to make them into ... whatever this is?
As cults go, this one seemed pretty textbook and bad. People do this. Every kind of person you can imagine could end up in this kind of thing.
I think that's the other motivation to create fake distance when really this isn't anything new. It's just bad.