Mom's Birthday Text Came Hours Before Daughter Killed Her

By Jordan Reyes. Jun 30, 2026

A Pennsylvania woman has been charged with arranging the murder of her own parents, killed hours after her mother sent her a text trying to mend their broken relationship.

Michelle Zajko, 33, was charged June 24 with first-degree murder and conspiracy in the December 31, 2022, shooting deaths of her parents, Richard and Rita Zajko, at their home in Chester Heights, Pennsylvania.

A Birthday Text Goes Unanswered

The killings happened on Zajko’s 30th birthday, which fell on New Year’s Eve. Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse said Rita Zajko texted her daughter that morning, apologizing for the rift between them. The message went unanswered.

What the Doorbell Camera Caught

Hours later, a neighbor’s doorbell camera captured a car pulling up outside the Zajko home and two people getting out. Investigators later enhanced the audio and heard one voice say “Mom” before the lights inside the house came on. “Richard and Rita Zajko are executed,” Rouse said, describing what happened next. Rita was found with a gunshot wound to the back of her head.

Years of Painstaking Evidence

Rouse said the case took years to build, relying on ballistics that matched shell casings found in the backyard of a Vermont home Zajko shared with another suspect, cellphone records, and the enhanced doorbell audio. “It’s piece after piece after piece of evidence,” Rouse said. Zajko has denied involvement, writing in an April 2025 letter that she didn’t kill her parents and suggesting her father may have killed her mother and himself.

A Cult Connection

Zajko has been linked to a group known as the Zizians, a small circle of young computer scientists tied to six deaths across multiple states since 2022, including the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Vermont last year. She has been jailed in Maryland since February 2025 on unrelated charges.