A former rock musician has been discovered responsible of killing his girlfriend after prosecutors discovered an audio recording of the sufferer preventing for her life.
Theobald “Theo” Lengyel, a founding member of the experimental rock band Mr Bungle, was convicted of the first-degree homicide of Alice “Alyx” Kamakaokalani Herrmann at her California house on 4 December final yr.
He faces life in jail and is about to be sentenced in November.
Lengyel, 55, was arrested in January after Ms Herrmann’s stays had been present in a wooded space of a park in Berkeley, California.
She had been reported lacking the earlier month after she did not present as much as a household gathering in Hawaii, with Lengyel named by police as an individual of curiosity.
Through the trial, prosecutors performed an audio file recorded on Ms Herrmann’s cellphone begging for her life as her boyfriend strangled her to demise.
It’s unclear if Ms Herrmann, 61, deliberately recorded the audio or if an app inadvertently recorded it.
An official from the district lawyer’s workplace admitted that investigators didn’t uncover the audio file till 22 September 2024 – one month after Lengyel’s homicide trial started.
The recording begins with Lengyel – also referred to as Mylo Stone – enjoying piano earlier than rising indignant at Ms Herrmann as a result of she would not need to exit to play pool. Ms Herrmann repeatedly says she doesn’t need to go as a result of she has to work in Berkeley the subsequent day.
A couple of minutes into the argument, Lengyel might be heard threatening his girlfriend, saying: “I could mash your f***ing brain.”
Based on prosecutors, the verbal argument escalated right into a bodily altercation. Ms Herrmann might then be heard pleading for her life and gasping for air.
Lengyel left Mr Bungle in 1996 after enjoying saxophone, clarinet and keyboards on a number of recordings, together with the band’s self-titled 1991 debut album and Disco Volante in 1995. He didn’t take part within the band’s latest reunion excursions, which started in 2020.
Mr Bungle was shaped in Northern California’s Humboldt County in 1985 by highschool buddies together with guitarist Trey Spruance, bassist Trevor Dunn and vocalist Mike Patton, who went on to carry out with Religion No Extra. Mr Bungle experimented with funk, heavy steel, digital, jazz and different musical kinds, gaining reputation in the course of the different rock increase of the Nineteen Nineties.
