John Jefferson
Left and center: Alyx Herrmann, Theo Lengyel (El Cerrito Police Department. Right: the moment of Lengyel’s arrest (Capitola Police Department).
After a former saxophonist for the eclectic rock band Mr. Bungle did not dispute that he killed his girlfriend and dumped the victim’s remains in a California park late last year, a jury of Theobald “Theo” Lengyel’s peers on Thursday convicted him of first-degree murder.
Prosecutors in Santa Cruz County had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the 55-year-old Lengyel, a.k.a. Mylo Stone, committed a premeditated murder, and the most powerful piece of evidence, evidence recently uncovered, was an hours-long recording on 61-year-old Alice “Alyx” Kamakaokalani Herrmann’s phone.
Herrmann, a California Institute of Technology graduate with a PhD in neuroscience remembered as a “rock star, a rocket scientist, a brain surgeon, a martial arts master, and a finance wizard,” recorded Lengyel, who was drinking at their Capitola home, yelling “I could mash your f—ing brain” when she would not go out after 9 p.m. on Dec. 4, 2023, to play pool with him, KRON reported.
After the victim said “we fight” when Lengyel drinks, he answered by blaming Herrmann.
“When we fight it’s actually because you are drinking. I’m always drinking, all day, every day. And the only time we fight is when you drink,” he said, according to the report.
After that, the defendant was reportedly heard threatening to kill their dog to “demonstrate” how he could kill Herrmann, which he was alleged to have done over a nearly 1-hour time period.
“You’re gonna f—ing die right now. Are you ready?” Lengyel asked, KRON reported. “Okay. How do you want to die? Blunt trauma or something else … think you should be choked to death? How about that.”
Herrmann was reportedly heard telling Lengyel to “stop” more than 50 times, even attempting to convince Lengyel to think of his kids: “You want your kids to be the kids of a murderer? Come on, stop it.”
Herrmann’s killer reportedly replied that was “too f—ing late for that,” even though she was still alive.
The victim was last seen alive on Dec. 3, 2023, when 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 started out as a person of interest in the case but became a homicide suspect after Herrmann’s 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.”
Lengyel’s drinking was the subject of testimony earlier in the trial. One of Hermann’s friends, Aida Gray, decided to come forward and testify after she read news articles about the trial and thought people should know about the “crazy question” Lengyel once asked her years earlier.
Gray reportedly said that “one night Mylo asked me to help with killing someone.”
According to the witness, her husband, Lengyel, and Herrmann were all hanging out at Gray’s 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.
Now Lengyel faces the prospect of spending the rest of his days in state prison.
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