Theo Lengyel, a founding member of the 1980 experimental band Mr. Bungle, was arrested on January 3 for the first-degree murder of his missing girlfriend, Alice Kamakaokalani Herrman. The 61-year-old’s body was found in Berkeley, California, after a month of disappearance. The Capitola Police Department is investigating the case, fearing foul play was involved. 

Although the police did not disclose the possible motive behind the murder, they took Theo Lengyel into custody as they found Hermann’s car in front of his residence, situated five miles north of Berkeley. Previously, he refused to cooperate with law enforcement when identified as a person of interest.

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Who is Theo Lengyel? 

Theo Lengyel, who originally goes as Theobald Brooks Lengyel is an American musician. He was the founding member of the Bay Area-based rock band Mr. Bungle and was its frontman and alto saxophonist until 1999. Lengyel also played clarinet and keyboard for the band, apart from playing the saxophone. Also called Mylo Stone, Lengyel founded Mr. Bungle along with vocalist Mike Patton, guitarist Trey Spruance, and bassist Trevor Dunn when they were all together in high school in the mid-1980s. 

While the other members of the band still continued to play in the jazz metal band, Lengyel left the band in 1996 after an irresolvable fallout with his bandmates. Trevor Dunn, during a 2005 Q&A session on his website, reportedly told them they “unanimously decided to go on without him (Lengyel) because he wasn’t growing with the rest of the band.” He also added how they were “running out of things for him to do.”

Further, when the band communicated the same to him, Lengyel allegedly got angry and never looked back. During his time with Mr. Bungle, he was part of their first two major albums, Mr. Bungle (1991) and Disco Volante (1995).

Theo Lengyle arrested on murder charges

Pacific Islander Alice "Alyx" Kamakaokalani Herrman's remains were found after a month on Wednesday, 3 January, in Berkeley's Tilden Regional Park after missing her flight to Hawaii. Theo Lengyel, her boyfriend, was identified as a person of interest since her family reported her missing.

Lengyel traveled over 600 miles from his home in El Cerrito, California, to Portland, Oregon, in the past month. Around this time, investigators found Herman's car, a red 2007 Toyota Highlander SUV, in front of his house. Following this discovery, Lengyel was arrested and charged with first-degree murder and is currently being detained at the Santa Cruz County Jail without the chance of bail. Besides the murder charge, he is also facing felony burglary and grand theft auto charges.

Previously Lengyel was also accused of domestic abuse by his former wife in 2017. She even got a restraining order against him. Later that year, they filed for divorce. 

So far, how and where Hermann was murdered remains undisclosed. The motive, too, is unclear. However, the human remains were sent for DNA confirmation to the Contra County Coroner’s Office on 3 January, Wednesday.

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