Feds: Defendant in killing of Minnesota native working as border agent got gun from Bay Area murder suspect

The 21-year-old woman charged with fatally shooting a native Minnesotan working in Vermont as a federal border agent used a gun bought by someone who is charged with a homicide in California and was a “person of interest” in two homicides in Pennsylvania, according to state and federal court records.

The disclosures came in a court filing Monday by prosecutors explaining why Teresa Youngblut of Seattle should remain in custody on a charge of assaulting a federal law enforcement officer stemming from the Jan. 20 killing of David “Chris” Maland, 44, who grew up in Blue Earth.

A German man with Youngblut, 30-year-old Felix Baukholt, was killed during the exchange of gunfire during a traffic stop on Interstate 91 in Coventry.

Youngblut is being held without bail and is due in U.S. District Court in Burlington, Vt., on Thursday for a detention hearing.

In their filing Monday, prosecutors laid out a host of reasons — but no motive in the attack for now — as to why Youngblut should remain locked up as her case moves forward, notably “her associations with other individuals suspected of violent acts.”

The filing said that one of those associates, tied but not yet charged in connection with a double killing in Delaware County, Pa., purchased the guns that Youngblut and Baukholt used in the shootout that left Maland dead.

The seller of the gun also is implicated in a homicide in Vallejo, Calif., according to federal prosecutors. Murder charges in Sonoma County reveal his identity as 22-year-old Maximilian Snyder. The charges say Snyder fatally stabbed 82-year-old Curtis Lind at the victim’s home on Jan. 17.

The charges noted that Lind was killed “for the purpose of preventing his testimony in a [trial].”

That trial stems from when Lind was seriously wounded more than two years ago on his property.

“Curtis was the victim of a previous unprovoked violent attack on Nov. 13th, 2022 ... by three young adults,” read an online fund-raising campaign begun by Lind’s family in the wake of his death. “He miraculously survived being stabbed multiple times, had a sword impaled through his chest and ultimately lost his right eye.”

Snyder and Youngblut were high school classmates at the elite Lakeside School in Seattle, the Seattle Times reported Monday. Court records obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune show the two applied for a marriage license in King County on Nov. 5.

Federal prosecutors also argued in writing for Youngblut’s continued confinement that a U.S. Department of Homeland Security database revealed that Youngblut has traveled out of the country in each of past three years, is estranged from her parents and does not appear to currently have an established residence.

They also pointed to references to illicit drug use in Youngblut’s journal, which was seized by the FBI during a search of the car from where she allegedly fired upon Maland, that includes “I feel kina high vibrationy maybe more so than on other LSD trips?”

Maland was a graduate of Fairmont High School and an Air Force veteran who spent the past 15 years working along U.S. borders in Texas and Vermont, among other assignments.

In a statement, his family also said it was believed he had been planning to ask for his partner’s hand in marriage.

“He loved his family and was looking forward to a life with the love of his life and her daughter,” Joan Maland, an aunt of David Maland and a spokeswoman for the family, said Tuesday.

An online fundraiser on behalf of Maland’s family noted that he provided security for the State Department and the Pentagon during the Sept. 11 attacks.

Among Maland’s survivors is his cousin, Minnesota state Rep. Krista Knudsen, a Republican who lives in Lake Shore, north of Brainerd. On Wednesday, the state House of Representatives observed a moment of silence in Maland’s honor.