Cross-examination of ex-wife complicates prosecutors’ narrative in Theo Lengyel murder trial

The testimony of Joleen “Jody” Welch, ex-wife of Theo Lengyel, in a Santa Cruz courtroom this week undermined some of prosecutors’ account of Lengyel as a calculating, irredeemably violent alcoholic — muddling the prosecution’s argument as to Lengyel’s character.

Lengyel is charged with murder in the December 2023 death of his ex-girlfriend, Capitola’s Alice “Alix” Herrmann.

In opening remarks of Lengyel’s trial, Assistant District Attorney Conor McCormick said that Welch’s testimony would speak to a pattern of Lengyel’s abusive behavior that predated the death of Herrmann, which was ruled a “homicide by unspecified means” by the coroner. 

Welch “knows about [Lengyel’s] controlling behavior, she knows about his fits of rage, she knows about his alcoholism, she knows how he made her feel isolated,” McCormick said on Sept. 4, the first day of the trial. “She’s going to tell you about a pattern that she saw in her marriage to this guy.”

Star witness

Welch, who was married to Lengyel for 16 years before their split in 2017, was a star witness for the prosecutors, her testimony occupying nearly all of Tuesday and Wednesday’s court proceedings. As a character witness, her stories of Lengyel’s abusive episodes were crucial to prosecutors establishing the nature of this pattern that, they argue, culminated with him murdering Herrmann, his girlfriend of five years, in his El Cerrito home and burying her body in nearby Tilden Park in Berkeley. 

After her disappearance, Lengyel eventually told investigators where to find her body and gave up his cellphone to police. Herrmann’s body was found in a shallow grave in the park alongside a piece of rope, the remnants of Lengyel’s failed attempt to hang himself beside her body, as he previously told Capitola police detective Zackary Currier during questioning.

During Tuesday’s court proceedings, prosecutors spent much of the day drilling into very specific incidents in which Lengyel was controlling or violent toward Welch, sometimes in the presence of their three children. 

The most specific of these occurred on the day that Welch, Lengyel and their three children attended an afternoon San Francisco Giants game in 2015, though Welch could not recall the precise date. Lengyel got increasingly intoxicated at the game, and Welch ultimately drove back to their El Cerrito home with the children and without him. But later that night, Lengyel appeared at the El Cerrito home while Welch was in the kitchen, broke the glass window on the kitchen door, and then had a violent altercation with Welch. 

Annrae Angel, Lengyel’s lawyer, re-read portions of a police interview with Welch and El Cerrito Police Department detectives, in which they asked how many times Lengyel was physically violent toward her. Per the report, she told detectives that it was “mainly one time,” referring to the day of the 2015 Giants game. 

Angel checked this with Welch. “That was the only time that he physically put hands on you in a violent manner?” she asked. 

“Yes, from what I remember,” Welch replied.

During his opening statement last week, prosecutor McCormick described the moment after the Giants game at the El Cerrito home in detail, paraphrasing Welch’s anticipated testimony. 

“He grabs through the window and punches her in the stomach, he gets on top of her and puts his hand around her neck. He’s screaming at her, he’s holding her down, ‘f–k you, f–k you!’” McCormick said. 

Emotional testimony

But questioning from the defense lawyer revealed some details in Welch’s testimony that complicated the story, and didn’t align with McCormick’s opening statements. 

In Tuesday’s emotional testimony, Welch described Lengyel breaking the window to the door, apologizing about the glass, then proceeding to push her against the wall, which caused her to hit her head. The two of them then ended up on the couch with Lengyel above her, which is when he punched her in the stomach and put his hands on her neck. 

In cross-examining Welch on Wednesday, Angel dug into the details of that day, asking Welch to recall if she was ever violent toward Lengyel, whether they often had screaming fights, and the specifics of when Lengyel put his hands on her neck that day in 2015. 

Angel displayed on the court monitor a sketched blueprint of the El Cerrito home hand-drawn by Welch, and asked her to show how and where the fight occurred. 

“You said at some point during that interaction, you remember that his hands were on your neck — was it one hands, or both hands?” Angel asked. 

Welch said she did not remember. The lawyer continued: “You stayed in that position on the couch while he continued to yell at you?”

“I need to make a correction,” Welch said. “I don’t remember that happening on the couch. I remember it happening against the wall.” 

She described Lengyel “pushing” her against the wall. “And at that point is when you remember feeling his hands on your neck?” the defense lawyer asked. 

“It was somewhere in that whole frantic moment,” she replied. 

Under questioning, Welch couldn’t recall the extent of the pressure of Lengyel’s hands on her neck. Lengyel’s lawyer asked “how long” his hands were “near your neck.” 

“I don’t remember how long, but it wasn’t that long,” Welch countered. 

“So it was seconds?” Angel asked. 

“It could have been seconds. What I remember is that it was a quick thing, and then at that point, he backed off,” Welch replied. 

“And then he backed off?” Angel asked. 

“I don’t remember,” Welch said. 

The defense’s strategy appeared to be to question the accuracy of Welch’s memory from the nine-year-old incident. Indeed, later in the trial, McCormick explained that he was asking certain questions to the subsequent witness, a niece of Lengyel’s, in order to “speak to the credibility of the last witness,” meaning Welch.

Another prosecution narrative that was dulled by Welch’s testimony was the implication that Lengyel was the only violent one in the relationship. 

Definition of ‘violence’

“Were there times in your marriage when you physically put hands on” Lengyel, the defense counsel asked Welch. 

“Yes,” Welch replied. “I remember one time specifically, another time vaguely.” 

Welch recounted getting into an argument in which she “charged and grabbed” Lengyel. 

“Those two times, when you put hands on him, did he hit you back or fight back?” Angel asked. 

“No, he did not,” Welch replied.

But repeated questions from Angel led to a tense back-and-forth between Angel and Welch regarding the definition of “violence.” 

“McCormick previously asked you if there were any other incidents of violence, and you say, ‘No, just the one,’” Angel said, referring to the fight after the Giants game. “Is that accurate?” 

“I said, ‘That was the main one,’ and when I say main, it’s because that was so f–king horrible,” Welch replied. She mentioned a moment when Lengyel stabbed a table with a knife repeatedly, and another incident in which Lengyel yelled at her while striking the hose of a vacuum cleaner against the stairs.

“What is your description of physical violence?” Welch asked Angel, “because stabbing a table with a knife in front of you, that’s very physical to me.”

“OK, let me rephrase my question,” Angel said, asking if the day of the Giants game was “the only time that he physically put hands on you in a violent manner,” to which Welch replied in the affirmative.

“And when he stabbed the table or he banged the vacuum hose against the railing, those were violent events, but they were expressed without you being physically touched?” Angel asked. 

“From what I remember, yes,” Welch replied.

Financial control

Questioning from the defense also undercut the prosecutors’ claims of Lengyel as financially controlling, which they emphasized in opening statements last week. 

“At one point, [Lengyel] had put [Welch] on an allowance,” McCormick said then. “This is an adult woman — he put her on an allowance to control her money.” 

But when Angel drilled into the financial situation between the two in the final years of their marriage, Welch’s testimony implied that money she needed from him for child support and other expenses was always forthcoming. 

Angel established that in the later years of their marriage, Lengyel was the breadwinner for the family — working in tech for several finance firms —and that Welch had access both to a joint account and her own checking account, which drew from their other accounts. 

“He always said his money was my money,” Welch testified. 

After reviewing a court order from Contra Costa County from November 2017, Judge Nancy de la Peña noted that Lengyel was ordered to pay $5,806 per month in child support and temporary spousal support after their separation. From their assorted accounts and home loan equity lines, Welch testified that she received these payments. 

One incident of financial control that prosecutors homed in on during their questioning of Welch involved a moment when Lengyel was angry that Welch would not have sex with him, took her wallet and refused to buy her a pastry at a bakery in San Francisco.

“He’d taken my wallet,” Welch said, adding that Lengyel told their children, “Oh, Momma doesn’t get pastries. Momma’s been naughty.” 

Niece takes the stand

Wednesday’s hearing ended with some brief testimony from Ariana Frances Allgeier, therapist and estranged niece of Lengyel. 

Allgeier testified that Lengyel had, during a family trip in fall 2015, confided in her that Lengyel had “punched Jody in the stomach.” Allgeier said he then told her something to the effect of, “If she stays with me, I don’t know if I’ll be more disappointed in her or disappointed in me.” 

“What was his demeanor when he talked about” that incident, the defense counsel asked Allgeier in cross-examination. 

“He was pretty distraught,” Allgeier said.

Allgeier also testified that in encounters with Welch, she was frequently woeful. “During family gatherings, Jody often seemed to be crying very easily, and seemed distraught,” Allgeier said.

Allgeier had a daughter about the same age as one of Welch and Lengyel’s children. Prior to their estrangement, the children would frequently play together at the Lengyel family’s El Cerrito house.

“Did you have the opportunity to see Jody or Mr. Lengyel, together or separately, if there was anything that caused you concern about what was going on in their home?” McCormick asked. 

Allgeier described an incident in which she came over to the house to pick up her daughter in the middle of the day on a weekend and saw Lengyel “out front doing some yard work, and one of his daughters was crying and saying, ‘Dad, stop it, please stop talking like that to Mama.’” 

The trial continues on Thursday at 10 a.m. at Santa Cruz County Superior Court. Future witnesses are likely to include the caretaker of Herrmann’s ailing father, who, prosecutors say, allegedly told Herrmann, “Alice, you are in an abusive relationship.”

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