John Jefferson
Alice “Alyx” Kamakaokalani Herrmann, Theobald “Theo” Brooks Lengyel (left and center in El Cerrito PD photos), (right) Lengyel’s arrest (Capitola Police Department)
A friend of a slain woman who had been reading news articles about the California murder trial of the victim’s ex-rocker boyfriend decided to come forward and testify that the defendant several years ago abruptly requested to look at her dresses in a walk-in closet and, when they were alone, asked a “crazy question”: whether she could help him “kill someone.”
Theobald “Theo” Brooks Lengyel, a.k.a. Mylo Stone and a onetime founding member of the experimental rock band Mr. Bungle from the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, is on trial in Santa Cruz County of first-degree murder in the Dec. 3, 2023 disappearance and subsequent likely strangulation death of his girlfriend, 61-year-old Alice “Alyx” Kamakaokalani Herrmann, after she had attended a canoe club event. An investigation began nine days after Herrmann was last seen; her family reported her as a missing person following a missed flight to Hawaii.
Lengyel, 55, started out as a person of interest in the case but became a homicide suspect after a body was found in a wooded area of Berkeley’s Tilden Regional Park in January. For the Capitola Police Department, it “became clear that foul play was involved” and that the keyboardist, saxophonist, and clarinet player had been “uncooperative.”
At trial, witnesses, including an ex-wife, have testified that Lengyel was prone to angry outbursts and had a drinking problem, SF Gate reported.
One of those trial witnesses, a friend who worked in tech just like Herrmann and Lengyel and had told police while Herrmann was missing that they “need to look at Mylo closely for this,” apparently felt the reported details of the trial weren’t enough and should include her own account.
KRON reported that Aida Gray told prosecutors after the trial began and after she’d read articles about it that “one night Mylo asked me to help with killing someone” under strange circumstances.
The witness reportedly said that her husband, Lengyel, and Herrmann were all hanging out at her house in 2019 having some wine when the defendant “suddenly asked to go look at my dresses” in her walk-in closet. Gray reportedly said that she agreed since the dresses were fancy and she did not mind showing them off. What allegedly happened next “out of the blue” in the closet stuck with her.
Gray reportedly testified that Lengyel “suddenly asked me if I can help him kill someone,” calling that “a crazy question” but not one he appeared to have made in jest.
“He looked me in the eyes. He was intense,” Gray said. The witness reportedly recalled her husband saying “what the f— is his problem?” after she returned to the living room and told him what was said. The gathering ended then and there, the witness added.
The defense, facing a steep hill to climb, has reportedly warmed to the strategy of conceding that Lengyel killed Herrmann but didn’t commit premeditated murder.
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