Theo Lengyel faces life in prison when sentenced next month
Theo Lengyel, a founding member of the avant-garde jazz-metal group Mr. Bungle, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the killing of his girlfriend in December 2023.
The Santa Cruz jury deliberated for just one day before handing down the guilty verdict Friday against Lengyel, who now faces life in prison when he’s sentenced in November.
Police in Capitola, California, arrested the 55-year-old musician on January 3, one month after his girlfriend Alice “Alyx” Kamakaokalani Herrmann went missing on December 3, 2023. Herrmann’s remains were later found in Berkeley, California’s Tilden Regional Park, while her car was last seen in front of Lengyel’s home.
While Lengyel was a person of interest from the onset of the investigation due to his uncooperativeness during Herrmann’s disappearance, prosecutors produced its most damning piece of evidence during the trial: An audio file on Herrmann’s phone that recorded the couple verbally fighting on the night of her murder, followed by audio of what prosecutors argued was Lengyel strangling Herrmann to death.
On the recording — which prosecutors didn’t discover until September 22, 2024, a month int the Lengyel’s murder trial, the Associated Press reports — the couple is heard arguing after Herrmann said she didn’t want to go out that night. During the argument, Lengyel is heard yelling at Herrmann, “I could mash your fucking brain.”
The argument then turned physical, with the audio file recording Herrmann both pleading for her life and gasping for air.
Lengyel was a member of Mr. Bungle from 1985 through 1996. He played saxophone and clarinet on the band’s first two major label albums, 1991’s Mr. Bungle and 1995’s Disco Volante. “We unanimously decided to go on without [Lengyel] because he wasn’t growing with the rest of the band and we were running out of things for him to do,” the band’s Trevor Dunn wrote in a fan Q&A on his website in 2005. “He got pissed off and I haven’t heard from him since.”