SANTA CRUZ >> The Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Office is seeking to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that El Cerrito man Theobald Lengyel, 54, murdered his romantic partner, 61-year-old Alice “Alyx” Kamakaokalani Herrmann, of Capitola.

Hermann’s badly decomposed body was found on Jan. 2, folded into a shallow grave, rocks piled on top of her, in Tilden Regional Park in Berkeley. She was last seen by her Outrigger Santa Cruz teammate and friend Dec. 3. Activity on Herrmann’s smartphone and watch ended shortly before midnight the next day, said Assistant District Attorney Conor McCormick.

Attorneys for the prosecution and defense offered summary opening statements Wednesday afternoon after five days of jury selection that concluded with the selection of 12 jurors and five alternates.

According to attorneys, Herrmann and Lengyel met as co-workers at a tech startup, a relationship that later evolved into a 5-year romantic partnership. Lengyel, who struggled with alcohol abuse, received financial support for Herrmann after he was laid off from his job in 2019, said defense attorney Annrae Angel.

McCormick told jurors he planned to bring witnesses to the stand who would testify to Lengyel’s violent anger and Herrmann’s concerns about the issue. Several would testify, he said, to consoling a distraught or fearful Herrmann. McCormick also said that a medical examiner would testify that Herrmann likely died of a chokehold, though a precise determination was hindered by the body’s decomposition.

“By the end, you’re not going to find it particularly shocking,” McCormick said of the violence associated with Herrmann’s death. “Because it wasn’t the first time he put hands on a woman. It wasn’t the first time he went for a woman’s throat. It wasn’t the first time he made one of his partners feel scared.”

Angel said she planned to show a more loving version of the relationship between the two, despite the fact that her client was responsible for Herrmann’s death.

“Alyx Herrmann was not a shrinking violet. She was a strong, powerful woman that people will testify to,” Angel said. “When she didn’t want something to happen, she would say so. She was not a person who could be taken advantage of.”

Angel said there would be no witnesses to physical violence between Lengyel and Herrmann and that “it’s hard to know the end of the story.”

“We’re just going to try to get at some of the nuances so that, at the end of this trial, you will understand a little bit more about Theo Lengyel and Alyx Herrmann’s relationship and how that tragically ended,” Angel said. “And that he is not guilty of murder because he did not have the proper state of mind to murder her, even though he did kill her.”