(RepublicanJournal.org) – A well-known California musician has been arrested on suspicion of murdering his missing girlfriend. Alice Kamakaokalani disappeared in early December. Now police are treating it as a murder investigation — and former Mr Bungle saxophonist Theobald “Theo” Lengyel is the chief suspect.
When experimental rock band Mr Bungle was formed in Eureka, California, in 1985 it was a refuge for musicians who’d been kicked out of “One really horrible gothic metal band… and one really horrible metal band.” One of the founding members was saxophonist Theo Lengyel, who worked on Mr Bungle’s first demo album and then became a full-time member. Eleven years later the other members let him go, with bassist Trevor Dunn saying “he wasn’t growing with the rest of the band and we were running out of things for him to do.” It apparently wasn’t an amicable split.
After leaving the band, Lengyel worked in software and programming and settled in the Santa Cruz area. In 2017, he divorced after being accused of domestic violence. At some point after that, he met Alice Kamakaokalani Herrmann, of Capitola, California, and the two started a relationship.
Kamakaokalani was last seen on December 3, in Santa Cruz, and her family reported her missing nine days later. Police began a missing persons investigation and found her car parked outside Lengyel’s home. On December 17 El Cerrito Police Department said they had contacted Lengyel, but he hadn’t cooperated with their investigation and they were treating him as a person of interest.
A body, which police believe could be Kamakaokalani, was later found in Tilden Regional Park near Berkele.; Contra Costa County Coroner’s Office is waiting for DNA confirmation of the corpse’s identity.
On January 3 Lengyel was arrested at his El Cerrito home and charged with the first-degree murder of Kamakaokalani. Police said their investigation found that foul play had been involved in her disappearance, and Lengyel became the leading suspect.
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