Recently filed court documents raise questions about law enforcement’s account of the lead-up to the fatal shooting of a Border Patrol agent last year
Teresa Youngblut, 22, is accused of killing agent David “Chris” Maland during a traffic stop in Coventry on Jan. 20, 2025. Youngblut could face the death penalty if convicted. Her companion in the car, Felix Bauckholt, was killed during the shootout.
Law enforcement, in previous court records, said they pulled the pair over for an immigration inspection, citing a Homeland Security database that allegedly listed Bauckholt’s visa as expired. They said the database turned out to be incorrect.
But in a motion filed on Wednesday, federal public defender Steven Barth, one of Youngblut’s attorneys, wrote that federal agents already knew that Bauckholt — a German national — was in the country on a valid visa. Barth also claimed that Border Patrol agents had decided to detain the pair for “alien smuggling.”
“Over thirty minutes after the stop of the vehicle, the decision was made to approach Youngblut and Bauckholt with force, remove them from the Prius, and detain them on suspicion of ‘alien smuggling,’ despite the already-established validity of Bauckholt’s visa. It was thereafter that shots were fired,” Barth wrote in Wednesday’s filing.
Barth said this information was revealed during the discovery material the defense team received for the case so far.
According to court records, Youngblut stepped out of the car’s driver seat and allegedly fired a handgun at the agents “without warning.” Maland, one of the Border Patrol agents that pulled the pair over, was killed in the shootout.
Bauckholt tried to draw a gun and was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents. Youngblut was also shot during the incident, court records say.
Youngblut and Bauckholt had attracted the attention of law enforcement several days before the traffic stop, according to prosecutors. A hotel employee in Lyndonville had contacted police after the pair checked into the hotel dressed in “all-black tactical style clothing with protective equipment.” Youngblut also appeared to be carrying a firearm, court records say.
According to Wednesday’s filing, the fatal traffic stop took place immediately after agents had been surveilling the pair in a Walmart parking lot “where they observed them snacking, talking on the phone, wrapping unknown items in foil, and purchasing an item that appeared to them to be either a bolt cutter or a snow scraper but was in actuality a roll of aluminum foil.”
The motion filed by Barth asked a judge to order the federal government to preserve all law enforcement communications and investigative material related to the shooting, as well as surveillance of Youngblut and Bauckholt in the days prior to the incident. The government hasn’t preserved these materials, despite promising to do so, Barth wrote in the motion.
Barth also noted that while their investigation into the incident is ongoing, “there are reasons to question the accuracy and forthrightness of these law enforcement accounts.”
“First, because both Bauckholt and Youngblut were shot by law enforcement during the stop (Bauckholt, fatally), the involved officers’ actions necessarily faced particular scrutiny,” Barth wrote. “Second, at least some of the involved officers reached out to their union representatives and retained lawyers immediately after the incident. As a result, CBP and FBI interviews with involved officers regarding the incident were delayed and were eventually conducted only with lawyers present.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Barth didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. The U. S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Vermont declined to comment.
Youngblut and Bauckholt have been linked to a cult-like group, often referred to as the Zizians, made up of mostly young computer scientists whose online writings span radical veganism, gender identity and artificial intelligence, according to reporting by the Associated Press. Members of the group have been tied to multiple killings in three states.
Last week, prosecutors charged one of them, Michelle Zajko, with the 2022 murders of her parents in Pennsylvania. Zajko, who at one point lived in Coventry, was already facing charges for allegedly providing Youngblut and Bauckholt with the guns they used during the shootout.
