Zizian trial delayed again as the trans death cult case drags into fifth year.
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FAIRFIELD, Calif. — The murder trial of two members of the Zizian trans death cult—accused in the 2022 killing of one of their own and the attempted murder of their landlord—has been delayed again. The tentative trial date is now in January 2027.
Alexander "Jadzia" Leatham, 31, and Tessa Berns, 25, who is charged under the alias “Suri Dao,” have faced murder and attempted murder charges since 2022. Their case has been repeatedly delayed after defense attorneys successfully argued that neither defendant was competent to stand trial.
Leatham has also disrupted legal proceedings by repeatedly shouting about “trans genocide” and making unsubstantiated allegations that jail officers were sexually assaulting him and trying to murder him. He has also been charged with three separate escape attempts, most recently in December 2025.
Leatham’s prosecution was suspended for approximately eighteen months between 2023 and 2024 while he underwent treatment to legally restore his competency. Court records show that health professionals concluded he did not suffer from a psychiatric disorder that rendered him incompetent to stand trial, raising questions about whether his repeated courtroom outbursts were calculated to delay the proceedings.
Alexander ‘Jadzia’ Leatham was arrested in 2019 in a separate Zizian felony case related to false imprisonment and child endangerment and child cruelty. Photo: Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office
In December 2025, Solano County Superior Court Judge John Ellis also suspended Berns’ case after she developed life-threatening medical complications from refusing food and water.
Berns became anorexic and catatonic in jail.
One of the nurses who cared for her testified that Berns refused to move and spent hours each day lying in her own urine and feces.
On July 30, after more than seven months of delay, Judge Ellis ruled that Berns’ competency was formally restored. She was ordered transferred to the Napa State Hospital in Napa, Calif., after spending months in treatment at another state facility in Chino.
The court also tentatively set trial for Jan. 26, 2027. However, given the case’s repeated delays over the past four years, it remains unclear whether that date will hold. Berns’ retained private attorney has repeatedly tried to sever his client from the case with Leatham, arguing that she would not get a fair trial if they were tried together.
Leatham and Berns belong to the Zizians, a trans death cult led by Jack LaSota, a man who identifies as a woman and uses the name “Ziz.” Its members are left-wing transgender vegans, many with elite educational backgrounds in science and mathematics. The group has often been compared to the Charles Manson cult.
Jack ‘Ziz’ LaSota, pictured in 2019, after his felony arrest in Sonoma County, Calif.
The Zizians are linked to at least eight violent deaths.
Their esoteric ideology blends rationalism, AI research, radical transgender ideology, anarchist politics and veganism. Members carried out human experiments on one another involving sleep deprivation, while their writings placed heavy emphasis on vengeance and the necessity of killing parents and their enemies.
Leatham is a biological male from a well-to-do Canadian-American San Diego family. He studied at UCLA and UC Berkeley before joining the cult around 2019.
Berns is a biological female from Denver, Colo.
Prosecutors allege that on Nov. 13, 2022, Leatham, Berns and fellow Zizian Amir “Emma” Borhanian carried out a revenge plot to murder their then-79-year-old landlord, Curtis Lind, in Vallejo, Calif. after he moved to evict them in court.
The group had been living a secretive lifestyle in box trucks and trailers on Lind’s property and exploited California’s COVID-era tenant protections enacted by Gov. Gavin Newsom to avoid paying rent for years.
According to prosecutors and witness testimony, Berns lured Lind to her trailer, where he was ambushed. Lind testified that he was struck unconscious before being stabbed and slashed with bladed weapons more than fifty times by the group. He suffered severe injuries to one eye and was impaled through the chest with a long sword.
Lind managed to defend himself by drawing a firearm and shooting Leatham and Borhanian before running out of ammunition.
Borhanian, a 31-year-old transgender former Google engineer, died at the scene. Leatham survived a gunshot wound to the abdomen.
Zizian member Amir ‘Emma’ Borhanian was shot dead by the victim
California prosecutors charged Leatham and Berns with Borhanian’s murder as well as the attempted murder of Lind. Under California law, defendants can be charged with murder if their criminal conduct causes another participant to be killed.
LaSota, the cult’s leader, was found by police at the scene of the ambush but later escaped by faking a medical emergency. He was transported to a hospital without a police escort and disappeared shortly after.
Although Lind lost all vision in one eye, he made a remarkable recovery and became the prosecution’s key witness. But before he could testify at trial, he was assassinated in January 2025, allegedly by a Zizian from Seattle named Maximilian “Audere” Snyder.
According to witnesses, Lind was repeatedly stabbed and had his throat slit outside his property. He was 82.
Curtis Lind in hospital in 2022. He was assassinated in 2025 before the trial.
Seven alleged Zizians, including Leatham and Berns, are currently jailed across three states.
Among those killed in cases linked to the group are U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland, who was fatally shot during an ambush in Vermont, and Richard and Rita Zajko, the parents of Zizian member Michelle Zajko, who was recently charged with their execution-style murders in Pennsylvania.
To date, no Zizian suspect has yet gone to trial.
LaSota’s own federal firearms case was recently delayed again after his attorneys withdrew from representing him and asked the court to postpone ruling on his competency.
Andy Ngo is the author of the forthcoming investigative true-crime book, The Zizians: Inside a Trans Death Cult.
Alexander "Jadzia" Leatham, 31, and Tessa Berns, 25, who is charged under the alias “Suri Dao,” have faced murder and attempted murder charges since 2022. Their case has been repeatedly delayed after defense attorneys successfully argued that neither defendant was competent to stand trial.
Leatham has also disrupted legal proceedings by repeatedly shouting about “trans genocide” and making unsubstantiated allegations that jail officers were sexually assaulting him and trying to murder him. He has also been charged with three separate escape attempts, most recently in December 2025.
Leatham’s prosecution was suspended for approximately eighteen months between 2023 and 2024 while he underwent treatment to legally restore his competency. Court records show that health professionals concluded he did not suffer from a psychiatric disorder that rendered him incompetent to stand trial, raising questions about whether his repeated courtroom outbursts were calculated to delay the proceedings.
Alexander ‘Jadzia’ Leatham was arrested in 2019 in a separate Zizian felony case related to false imprisonment and child endangerment and child cruelty. Photo: Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office
In December 2025, Solano County Superior Court Judge John Ellis also suspended Berns’ case after she developed life-threatening medical complications from refusing food and water.
Berns became anorexic and catatonic in jail.
One of the nurses who cared for her testified that Berns refused to move and spent hours each day lying in her own urine and feces.
On July 30, after more than seven months of delay, Judge Ellis ruled that Berns’ competency was formally restored. She was ordered transferred to the Napa State Hospital in Napa, Calif., after spending months in treatment at another state facility in Chino.
The court also tentatively set trial for Jan. 26, 2027. However, given the case’s repeated delays over the past four years, it remains unclear whether that date will hold. Berns’ retained private attorney has repeatedly tried to sever his client from the case with Leatham, arguing that she would not get a fair trial if they were tried together.
Leatham and Berns belong to the Zizians, a trans death cult led by Jack LaSota, a man who identifies as a woman and uses the name “Ziz.” Its members are left-wing transgender vegans, many with elite educational backgrounds in science and mathematics. The group has often been compared to the Charles Manson cult.
Jack ‘Ziz’ LaSota, pictured in 2019, after his felony arrest in Sonoma County, Calif.
The Zizians are linked to at least eight violent deaths.
Their esoteric ideology blends rationalism, AI research, radical transgender ideology, anarchist politics and veganism. Members carried out human experiments on one another involving sleep deprivation, while their writings placed heavy emphasis on vengeance and the necessity of killing parents and their enemies.
Leatham is a biological male from a well-to-do Canadian-American San Diego family. He studied at UCLA and UC Berkeley before joining the cult around 2019.
Berns is a biological female from Denver, Colo.
Prosecutors allege that on Nov. 13, 2022, Leatham, Berns and fellow Zizian Amir “Emma” Borhanian carried out a revenge plot to murder their then-79-year-old landlord, Curtis Lind, in Vallejo, Calif. after he moved to evict them in court.
The group had been living a secretive lifestyle in box trucks and trailers on Lind’s property and exploited California’s COVID-era tenant protections enacted by Gov. Gavin Newsom to avoid paying rent for years.
According to prosecutors and witness testimony, Berns lured Lind to her trailer, where he was ambushed. Lind testified that he was struck unconscious before being stabbed and slashed with bladed weapons more than fifty times by the group. He suffered severe injuries to one eye and was impaled through the chest with a long sword.
Lind managed to defend himself by drawing a firearm and shooting Leatham and Borhanian before running out of ammunition.
Borhanian, a 31-year-old transgender former Google engineer, died at the scene. Leatham survived a gunshot wound to the abdomen.
Zizian member Amir ‘Emma’ Borhanian was shot dead by the victim
California prosecutors charged Leatham and Berns with Borhanian’s murder as well as the attempted murder of Lind. Under California law, defendants can be charged with murder if their criminal conduct causes another participant to be killed.
LaSota, the cult’s leader, was found by police at the scene of the ambush but later escaped by faking a medical emergency. He was transported to a hospital without a police escort and disappeared shortly after.
Although Lind lost all vision in one eye, he made a remarkable recovery and became the prosecution’s key witness. But before he could testify at trial, he was assassinated in January 2025, allegedly by a Zizian from Seattle named Maximilian “Audere” Snyder.
According to witnesses, Lind was repeatedly stabbed and had his throat slit outside his property. He was 82.
Curtis Lind in hospital in 2022. He was assassinated in 2025 before the trial.
Seven alleged Zizians, including Leatham and Berns, are currently jailed across three states.
Among those killed in cases linked to the group are U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland, who was fatally shot during an ambush in Vermont, and Richard and Rita Zajko, the parents of Zizian member Michelle Zajko, who was recently charged with their execution-style murders in Pennsylvania.
To date, no Zizian suspect has yet gone to trial.
LaSota’s own federal firearms case was recently delayed again after his attorneys withdrew from representing him and asked the court to postpone ruling on his competency.
Andy Ngo is the author of the forthcoming investigative true-crime book, The Zizians: Inside a Trans Death Cult.
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