Ex-Mr. Bungle Member’s Murder Trial Takes Shocking Twist as a Recording of the Murder is Discovered
Okay, this is going to be a tough story to make funny, lighthearted jokes about so, before you read it—especially if you’re a woman—it might be a good idea to get a cute puppy on your lap to pet and remind you of the good things in life. Okay, now that you’ve got your puppy, here’s the story: There’s been a new development in the murder trial of ex-Mr. Bungle member Theobald Brooks “Theo” Lengyel for allegedly murdering his girlfriend Alice “Alyx” Kamakaokalani Herrmann, as it now seems that Herrmann managed to record her own murder on her cell phone.
We first reported on this story back in January when Lengyel, 54, was arrested. According to the Berkeley Scanner, authorities had previously inspected Herrmann’s cell phone, but somehow missed the three-hour recording in her Just Press Record app. The recording starts with an argument between the couple around 9 p.m. on December 4 at Herrmann’s home in Capitola, California in which Lengyl tried to get Herrmann to come and play pool with him and she repeatedly refused.
As the argument started escalating, Lengyl started threatening Herrmann, at one point threatening to kill her dog to demonstrate his ability to kill her if he wanted to. From about 10:40 p.m. to the time of her death at 11:33 p.m., Herrmann seemed to be under some form of physical restraint and is unable to get away from him. There’s more grizzly details that I won’t even get into because it depresses me just to read it, but you can read about the full details of the recording at the Berkeley Scanner if you’re interested.
The trial has been going for a month already, so this has thrown a wrench into everything. The prosecution filed a motion to amend the charges to make Lengyel eligible for life without parole. That motion was denied, by Judge Pena, but the door was left open to future motions along similar lines. According to KRON 4, the prosecution also made a motion to enhance the charges to include torture, and the judge hasn’t ruled on that yet.
On Tuesday, jurors listened to the recording in its entirety, not even cutting out the sections of the tape where nobody is talking. Halfway through the trial, Judge Pena allowed the jurors a chance to walk around and get some air, as one juror was seen crying in a courthouse hallway.
According to the Berkeley Scanner, Lengyel has not denied killing Herrmann, but, in a bizarre twist of logic, his lawyer has argued that somehow his actions didn’t constitute murder. That’s going to be a hard defense to keep up in light of this recording, and the defense is likely going to have to change their whole strategy. I hope that new strategy is simply giving up, because this case seems unwinnable at this point.
We’d like to once again offer our condolences to all of Herrmann’s friends and family.
