Former member of Mr. Bungle found guilty of murdering the girl

On October 13, 2024By Yukito

Theobald "Theo" Lengyel's arrest. - Source: Capitola Police Department — Arrest of Theobald “Theo” Lengyel. – Source: Capitola Police Department

Theo Lengyel, a founding member of the avant-garde jazz-metal group Mr. Bungle was found guilty of first-degree murder in the December 2023 killing of his girlfriend.

A Santa Cruz jury deliberated for just one day before convicting Lengyel on Friday, who faces life in prison when he is sentenced in November.

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Police in Capitola, California, arrested the 55-year-old musician on January 3, a month after his girlfriend Alice “Alyx” Kamakaokalani Herrmann disappeared on December 3, 2023. Herrmann’s remains were later found in Berkeley in California’s Tilden Regional Park. while her car was last seen outside Lengyel’s house.

Although Lengyel had been a person of interest from the beginning of the investigation because of his uncooperative behavior during Herrmann’s disappearance, prosecutors presented their most damning piece of evidence during the trial: an audio file on Herrmann’s phone that recorded the couple arguing on the night of her wedding. murder, and then an audio recording of what prosecutors said was Lengyel’s strangulation of Herrmann.

In the recording, which prosecutors only discovered on September 22, 2024, a month after Lengyel’s murder trial, Associated Press reports – the couple can be heard arguing after Herrmann said she didn’t want to go out that evening. During the argument, Lengyel shouts at Herrmann, “I could crush your fucking brains.”

The argument then turned physical, and an audio file recorded Herrmann pleading for her life and gasping for air.

Lengyel was a member of Mr. Bungle from 1985 to 1996. Played saxophone and clarinet on the band’s first two major label albums: “1991” Mr. Bungle and years 1995 Volante disco. “We unanimously decided to move on without (Lengyel) because he wasn’t growing with the rest of the team and we were running out of activities for him,” Trevor Dunn wrote in response to fan questions on his website in 2005. “He got angry and I haven’t heard from him since.”

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