BURLINGTON — A Washington state woman who federal authorities say was involved in a shootout that killed a U.S. Border Patrol agent last week has been ordered held in custody while her criminal case remains pending.
Teresa Youngblut, 21, faces charges of using a deadly weapon in an assault on a federal agent, as well as a separate count of firing a gun during the assault. Prosecutors have alleged that she emerged from a vehicle during a traffic stop on Interstate 91 in the Northeast Kingdom town of Coventry and opened fire, leading to the death of Agent David C. Maland and a passenger in Youngblut’s car, Felix Bauckholt.
Youngblut, who was shot and injured in the Jan. 20 incident, appeared Thursday in federal court in Burlington wearing red prison clothing and a surgical mask covering her face. Her right arm was in a sling.
She did not speak during the brief hearing and appeared to be looking down throughout the proceeding. Her parents, Eric and Carla Youngblut, sat in the courtroom in the gallery behind her.
Youngblut made her first court appearance in the case Monday, and Thursday’s hearing was set to consider the prosecution’s request that she remain in custody while the case proceeds. Steven Barth, a federal public defender, had said at Monday’s hearing that he was contesting that request.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Lasher, the prosecutor, did not present any witnesses Thursday to make his case as to why Youngblut should remain in custody. Instead, he largely relied on arguments he made in court documents filed Monday ahead of Youngblut’s initial court appearance.
Lasher told Magistrate Judge Kevin Doyle that Youngblut posed both a risk of flight and a danger to the community if released. The prosecutor said that Youngblut had “possessed, drew and discharged a firearm” during the traffic stop.
Barth, representing Youngblut, also did not present any witnesses during Thursday’s hearing, nor did he make his own case for his client’s release.
“The defense is not offering argument,” Barth told the judge.
Instead, Barth said, he was holding the prosecution to its burden of proving to the judge that Youngblut should be detained.
After hearing from both attorneys, Doyle agreed to the prosecution’s request, ordering Youngblut detained. The evidence against Youngblut related to the charges against her, the judge said, appeared “to be strong.”
Doyle said that Youngblut had refused to meet with federal pretrial services personnel and, as a result, he had no information on her background, including any employment history or access to financial resources.
Doyle set the next hearing in the case for Feb. 7.
Barth declined comment following the proceeding, as did Youngblut’s parents.
Youngblut has not been charged with firing the shot that killed Maland, 44, who served in the U.S. Air Force before joining the Border Patrol. Bauckholt, a German national and passenger in the 2015 Toyota Prius that Youngblut had been driving, had also exited the vehicle and drawn a firearm but didn’t fire any shots before being shot and killed, according to charging documents.
Youngblut and Bauckholt had been under surveillance by law enforcement for about a week prior to the shooting, a court filing stated, with reports of the two seen around the Northeast Kingdom dressed in black tactical gear, including while in downtown Newport.
Tactical gear, including a ballistic helmet and night-vision goggles, were seized from the Prius after the shooting. Cellphones wrapped in aluminum foil were also recovered from the scene, court records stated.
No new details into the ongoing probe by federal authorities were revealed during Thursday’s hearing.
Lasher told the judge that Youngblut fired a gun, without warning, at border patrol agents out of the driver’s side of the vehicle during the traffic stop.
He also said that Youngblut had “association” with others linked to violent acts that raised concern. Among those associations, the prosecutor said, was to a person recently charged in a homicide case in California.
Lasher did not identify that person, though the nonprofit California news organization Open Vallejo reported Monday that Youngblut had applied for a license in November 2024 to marry Maximilian Snyder. Snyder, 22, was arrested and charged last week in the stabbing death of a Vallejo landlord, Curtis Lind. He appeared in a California court for the first time Tuesday.
Lind, according to Open Vallejo, had been set to testify in April in a criminal case against tenants stemming from a 2022 attack that left Lind blind in one eye and an alleged assailant dead.
The prosecutor, in reiterating arguments made in his court filing earlier this week, also told the judge during Thursday’s hearing that Youngblut, who has a Washington state driver’s license and has traveled internationally at least three times in recent years, lacked ties to Vermont.
Lasher did state in his court filing that the firearms possessed by Youngblut and Bauckholt at the time of the shooting had been purchased by a person “purporting to be a resident of Orleans, Vermont.”
Also, according to the filing, the person who bought those firearms was a “person of interest” in a double-homicide investigation in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.
In a press release issued Wednesday, Pennsylvania State Police said that the firearm “used in the killing” of the border patrol agent in Vermont had been purchased by a “person of interest” in the December 2022 killing of a couple, 72-year-old Richard Zajko and 69-year-old Rita Zajko, who were found dead inside their home in Delaware County.
VTDigger reported earlier this week that the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had issued an alert to federally licensed firearms dealers asking for their help in “identifying any firearms purchases made by Michelle Jacqueline Zajko, a person of interest in the shooting of a Customs and Border Protection Officer on Jan. 20, 2025.”
A person by that name appeared linked to the couple killed in Pennsylvania, according to public records and legal notices.
The Times Union reported Thursday that a multi-state police bulletin issued last week indicated that Michelle Zajko was a “person of interest in a double homicide that occurred in Pennsylvania in 2023.” The Albany newspaper said she “may be driving a green 2013 Subaru Outback with an expired Vermont registration.”
During Thursday’s hearing in Youngblut’s case, the judge addressed her alleged “association” to others connected to violent acts.
“I’m not going to rely explicitly on that information at this point in time,” Doyle said.
Youngblut faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years, if convicted.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Judge orders woman facing charges related to fatal border patrol shooting held in custody.