Border Patrol Agent David Maland was killed Monday during a traffic stop in Coventry, Vermont, about 20 miles from the Derby Line - Rock Island Border Crossing. Initial details were sparse but strange. According to reports, the traffic stop led to a shootout in which Maland and a "German national in the country on what the FBI called a current visa was killed, and an injured suspect was taken into custody and is being treated at a local hospital." The incident was a bit out of the ordinary. One doesn't think of rural Vermont as a place where shootouts occur with federal agents and on the risk spectrum of "aliens likely to be shooters," Germans are somewhere over to the far lefthand side.

The German was Felix Bauckholt.

Bauckholt's still live LinkedIn profile says he worked in the New York office of Tower Research Capital, the high frequency trading firm. Tower Research didn't respond to a request to comment on Bauckholt's recent employment status, but the alleged expiry of his visa suggests he may no longer have been working there. 

Tower Research Capital is a high frequency market maker and prop trading firm that operates high speed trading strategies. US government data suggests that two people at Tower Research have had H1B visas renewed this year: a head of data on a base salary of $350k and a quant trader on a base salary of $165k. It has 1,200 employees in total. 

Bauckholt's LinkedIn profile says he joined Tower in October 2021 after two years at Radix Trading. He also completed a Jane Street internship in 2018. Jane Street interns now earn around $20k a month.

Bauckholt graduated from Canada's university of Waterloo with a bachelor's in mathematics. In 2014 and 2015 he appears to have won gold and bronze prizes respectively in the International Mathematics Olympiad. 

He was accompanied by a 21-year-old woman named Teresa Youngblut. She was wounded in the shootout and was charged on Friday with complicity in the killing.

The FBI arrest affidavit is where it starts to get weird.

On Tuesday, January 14, an employee of a hotel in Lyndonville, Vermont, contacted law enforcement when Bauckholt and Youngblut checked in. What drew attention was that they acted strange, and "they appeared to be dressed in all-black tactical style clothing with protective equipment, with the woman, later identified as Youngblut, carrying an apparent firearm in an exposed-carry holster."

Based on that encounter, Vermont State Police and Homeland Security Investigations personnel tried to initiate a “consensual conversation,” but neither wanted to go along with that ploy. They told the police they were in the area looking for land to buy.

The encounter was sufficiently out of the ordinary to draw surveillance because on Sunday, January 19, they were spotted walking in Newport, VT, and Youngblut was packing.

The document said law enforcement personnel had earlier been surveilling the pair between 11:30 a.m. and 2:35 pm at a Walmart in Newport, Vt.

“They observed Baukholt enter the Wal-Mart at approximately 1 :00 pm and came out with what was later confirmed by Wal-Mart employees to be two packages of aluminum foil,” the affidavit said.

The document said Youngblut stayed in the Prius in the driver’s seat while Baukholt entered the store, and that when “Baukholt returned to the vehicle, he was seen removing sheets of foil and wrapping unidentifiable objects while seated in the passenger seat,” and he was also seen making at least one phone call.

This is how the shootout unfolded.

"On January 20, 2025, at approximately 3:00 pm, an on-duty, uniformed United States Border Patrol (USBP) Agent initiated a stop of a blue 2015 Toyota Prius Hatchback with [a] North Carolina license plate... to conduct an immigration inspection as it was driving southbound on Interstate 91 in Coventry, Vermont," read an FBI criminal complaint obtained by Fox News. 

"The registered owner of the vehicle, Felix Baukholt, a citizen of Germany, appeared to have an expired visa in a Department of Homeland Security database. Youngblut was driving the Prius, and Baukholt was the lone passenger in the Prius," it continued.  

"Between approximately 3:00 pm and 3:15 pm, agents reported gunshots at the scene," the affidavit said. "Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Cameron Thompson was notified of the incident and responded to the scene of the stop, arriving at approximately 3:35 pm. He spoke with two of the Border Patrol Agents involved in the incident. They described that both Baukholt and Youngblut possessed firearms and that Youngblut drew and fired a handgun toward at least one of the uniformed Border Patrol Agents without warning when outside the driver's side of the Prius." 

"Baukholt then attempted to draw a firearm. At least one Border Patrol Agent fired at Youngblut and Baukholt with his service weapon," the affidavit also said. "The exchange of gunfire resulted in Border Patrol Agent Maland, Youngblut, and Baukholt all sustaining gunshot wounds. Baukholt was declared deceased at the scene as a result of his injuries." 

Maland also died after being taken to a local hospital for emergency care, while Youngblut is currently receiving care at a facility in New Hampshire, according to the affidavit. 

The "immigration stop" took place while the vehicle was headed away from the Canadian border, so it is starting to look like a pretext as several Border Patrol agents were involved. 

According to the affidavit, agents had secured a .40-caliber Glock 23 “on or near” Youngblut after the shootout, while a .380-caliber M&P Shield firearm was secured “on or near Baukholt after the incident.”

The affidavit said the evidence is “consistent with Youngblut having fired the .40-caliber Glock 23 at least twice from the driver’s side of the Prius, one or more Border Patrol Agents returning fire with at least seven 9-millimeter shots, and then agents clearing the Glock 23 40-caliber and M&P Shield .380-caliber pistols, resulting in the described casings and cartridges being on the ground.”

The inventory from the affidavit indicates that Youngblut fired at least two times, but there is no evidence that Baulkholt fired.

Teresa Youngblut, 21, of Washington State, and Felix Baukholt, a German national, have been identified as suspects in the fatal shooting of U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland during a traffic stop on Interstate 91 in Coventry, Vermont.https://t.co/EBrWQEUHHD pic.twitter.com/u0xKo2AzN1

— News Channel3 Now (@newschannel3now) January 24, 2025

After the shootout, agents recovered a bewildering array of stuff.

After the fatal shooting, authorities seized a number of items from the Prius, including a ballistic helmet; a night-vision-goggle monocular device; a tactical belt with holster; a magazine loaded with cartridges; two full-face respirators; 48 rounds of .380-caliber jacketed, hollow-point ammunition; a package of shooting range targets, some already used; two handheld two-way radios; about a dozen electronic devices and multiple electronic storage devices; documents containing identification, utility, lease, travel, and lodging information related to several states; and “an apparent journal” found with Youngblut’s identification papers, the affidavit said.

What does it all mean? 

It seems that Youngblut was the leader of the two. She had the real gun, and she initiated the firefight. I'm sure her being from Washington is not related, but when you hear "all-black tactical style clothing with protective equipment" in connection with that state, it is hard not to think of Antifa. How did Baulkholt get sucked into the plot? The guy was a math genius earning a boatload of money until it seems he got fired and his visa was suspended. 

If one were looking for a plausible scenario, it would be that the pair planned some sort of one-way mission against the Border Patrol station to make an anti-Trump statement, but your guess is as good as mine.