Former member of metal band Mr. Bungle charged with murder after body found in Bay Area park

A former saxophonist for the experimental Northern California metal-funk band Mr. Bungle was charged this week with first-degree murder after a body — believed to be that of his girlfriend — was found in a Bay Area park, authorities said.

Theobald “Theo” Lengyel, 54, is suspected of killing Alice “Alyx” Kamakaokalani Herrmann, 61, the Capitola Police Department said in a statement.

Herrmann, who lived in Capitola, a seaside town of 10,000 people, was last seen in Santa Cruz on Dec. 3. Family members reported her missing nine days later.

Authorities have released few details about the case, which involved multiple Central Coast and Bay Area law enforcement agencies.

After Herrmann disappeared, police found her Toyota Highlander in front of Lengyel’s home in the city of El Cerrito, north of Berkeley.

Lengyel — who also was known as Mylo Stone and drove a 1989 Ford truck with a license plate reading UNCLDRT — was believed to have driven from the Bay Area to Portland after his girlfriend vanished, police said.

Alice “Alyx” Kamakaokalani Herrmann, 61, of Capitola, was last seen Dec. 3.

(El Cerrito Police Department)

He “has not cooperated with the police investigation,” El Cerrito police said in a Dec. 16 statement.

This week, Capitola police said the investigation into Herrmann’s disappearance led authorities “to recover human remains in a wooden area within Tilden Regional Park in Berkeley.”

It is unclear when or where the body was found in the 2,079-acre park, which borders multiple cities. The Capitola Police Department declined to provide further details, citing the ongoing investigation.

The police department said identification of the body is pending DNA confirmation from the Contra Costa County coroner’s department — which told The Times on Thursday that the coroner’s case had been moved to Santa Cruz County.

The Santa Cruz County coroner’s department declined to provide any details, deferring to Capitola police as the investigating agency.

Lengyel was arrested Tuesday and booked into the Santa Cruz County Jail. He has been charged with first-degree murder, burglary and auto theft, according to records from the Santa Cruz County Superior Court.

The Santa Cruz County Office of the Public Defender, which is representing Lengyel, according to court records, did not respond to requests for comment.

Lengyel was an early member of Mr. Bungle, a thrash metal band formed in 1985 by a trio of high school buddies in the Humboldt County logging and fishing town of Eureka. The original members included Mike Patton, who later became the frontman for the rock band Faith No More.

Lengyel, who played saxophone, clarinet and keyboard, had joined the band by 1987, when it recorded a demo tape called “Bowel of Chiley,” with song titles including “Fart in a Bag” and “Cottage Cheese.”

In a 1991 review of a Mr. Bungle performance, the late Jonathan Gold, The Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning restaurant critic, wrote that “the nearly two-hour set seemed to drag on to infinity.”

In the performance at the now-defunct Club Lingerie on Sunset Boulevard, the band’s bassist was dressed as a jester, the drummer wore a demon mask and a horn player was dressed as a carrot.

Mr. Bungle, Gold wrote, opened with the “Welcome Back, Kotter” theme song, left the stage, then came back and performed it again in Spanish.

“For the rest of the set, they sputtered and spurted their way through complicated rhythm and tempo changes, setting up funk grooves or metal grooves or ska grooves only to abandon them a few seconds later for a tricky break or a dissonant jam, or for a drum-fill lifted from Bell Biv DeVoe’s ‘Poison,’ or for a minute or so of Bugs Bunny-type jazz,” Gold wrote.

“Oh yeah ... circus music. There was a lot of circus music.”

Lengyel left the band in the mid-1990s and has not performed in its recent reunion shows.

Mr. Bungle and its record label, Ipecac Recordings, could not be reached for comment.