SANTA CRUZ — A 54-year-old El Cerrito man charged with killing his girlfriend and hiding her body beneath a pile of rocks in a Berkeley park was held to answer on charges Wednesday.
Theobald “Theo” Brooks Lengyel. (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel)
After a two-day preliminary hearing on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Nancy de la Peña ruled that the prosecution had provided sufficient preliminary evidence needed to send Theobald Lengyel to trial on felony charges of murder, burglary and vehicle theft.
The family of Alice “Alyx” Kamakaokalani Herrmann, a 61-year-old software engineer, reported the Capitola woman had gone missing Dec. 12, after she failed to arrive in Hawaii for a planned flight. According to testimony, Herrmann last communicated with one of her brothers Dec. 3 and logged into her employer’s work system remotely Dec. 5. Fellow members of Outrigger Santa Cruz, who have continuously attended related court hearings, reported seeing Herrmann at a practice at the Santa Cruz Small Craft Harbor on Dec. 3.
Herrmann’s brother, with assistance from the Capitola Police Department, gained access to her 43rd Avenue home, where they found Herrmann’s wallet, cellphone and smartwatch, according to preliminary hearing testimony. The Capitola and El Cerrito police departments were involved in early aspects of the case, but ultimately Capitola took over the investigation.
Days earlier, Lengyel shaved his head and beard and sent messages to family members, including his brother in Portland, saying something to the effect of “brace yourself, it’s much worse than you could ever imagine,” Capitola Police detective Zack Currier testified. He then traveled to Portland, Oregon, to see his brother, to whom he gave his dog and pickup, according to testimony. Lengyel reportedly would not say what had happened, but cried and sobbed for most of a train trip back to California, his brother reportedly told Currier.
During a search of Herrmann’s Toyota Highlander, found parked in front of Lengyel’s home, investigators located about three dime-sized splotches of Herrmann’s blood inside the vehicle’s rear compartment, Currier testified. Currier said he later documented purple marks on Lengyel’s bicep area that Currier said he felt looked like an aged bruise in the shape of a bite mark.
On Dec. 14, Lengyel arrived at the El Cerrito Police Department lobby with legal representation to turn himself in, testified El Cerrito Police Department detective Michael Olivieri. Detectives, however, said they did not yet have an arrest warrant and released Lengyel, Olivieri said. Lengyel would then reportedly go on to have several lengthy phone conversations with Currier, at one point saying he was confused as to why he had not been arrested yet, Currier said.
“He said he was baffled by it and that Capitola Police Department has done some blunders,” Currier testified.
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Lengyel also reportedly spoke to Herrmann’s brother by phone for more than two hours, during which Lengyel at some point allegedly apologized to him and said something to the effect of “he didn’t mean to hurt anybody and that people are so fragile and people break easily,” Currier testified. Lengyel also reportedly told the brother that he had placed Herrmann in a fetal position and covered her with rocks in the same location where Lengyel then unsuccessfully tried to hang himself, according to Currier.
The charges of burglary and vehicle theft stemmed from a visit Lengyel paid to Herrmann’s locked home after police began investigating her disappearance. Currier testified that Herrmann’s brother had installed cameras inside her home that captured Lengyel walking around inside for nine minutes and that the keys to Herrmann’s Volkswagen Beetle — as well as the vehicle — were missing afterward.
Herrmann’s remains were located Jan. 2 at the East Bay’s Tilden Regional Park. Santa Cruz County Sheriff-Coroner’s Office Forensic Pathologist Stephany Fiore testified that she could not definitively determine Herrmann’s cause of death, due to the decomposition of her remains, but that she had found the death was “homicide by unspecified means.”
Lengyel, who has also gone by the name Mylo Stone, was a founding member of the Eugene-based funk-metal band Mr. Bungle.