The jury returned with a guilty verdict Thursday in the trial of 56-year-old Theobald "Milo" Lengyel, the former Mr. Bungle bandmember who admitted to the killing of 61-year-old girlfriend Alice "Alyx" Herrmann in her Capitola home.Days after being played a harrowing and tragic audio recording that captured the final moments of Alyx Herrmann's death last December, a jury in Santa Cruz County returned Thursday with a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree. There had not been any question of Theobald Lengyel's guilt during the trial, but the defense had been arguing about the degree of guilt, in order to reduce his possible punishment. As discussed here earlier, via courtroom reporting by Lookout Santa Cruz, Lengyel's attorney argued that her client "loved" Herrmann and acted out in a fit of passion.That argument was undercut by witness testimony from Lengyel's ex-wife and sister, who attested to his drunken rages, spitefulness, and erratic behavior. A longtime friend also came forward after the trial began to testify that Lengyel had once, creepily, cornered her and asked if she would help him kill someone. And the jury was perhaps most persuaded by an audio recording that had not been publicized earlier, which Herrmann may or may not have purposely made using the Just Press Record app on her iPhone. As KRON4 reported earlier this week, prosecutors waited until near the end of the trial, just before closing arguments, to play the nearly three-hour recording. Over objections from Lengyel's attorney, Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Nancy de la Pena allowed prosecutors to play the recording, and jurors were given transcripts to read along. The recording begins with Lengyel playing piano, just before 9 pm on December 4, 2023, after which he and Herrmann get into an argument about going out to a bar to play pool.Herrmann can be heard saying she wants to go to bed, and says, "Why is it so important to you? Why is it a contest of wills? Have a fun time."The threats begin almost an hour into the recording, when Lengyel says, "I could mash your fucking brain."Herrmann tells him, "When you drink, this shit happens, we fight," to which Lengyel replies, "When we fight it’s actually because you are drinking. I’m always drinking, all day, every day. And the only time we fight is when you drink."Herrmann is heard dumping a bottle of liquor down a toilet, and Lengyel threatens to kill her dog, saying, "How about I just kill Trav to demonstrate how I could kill you?"Herrmann says, "You need to go out. You should find another girlfriend. Bye! Bye! Bye, why are you still here?"By 10:39, what had been a verbal argument escalates into a physical altercation, and prosecutors said that the recording showed that Herrmann was physically restrained or sat on for the next 50 minutes, during which time she can be heard struggling but also defiantly telling Lengyel to get out of her house."Are you at my mercy right now?" Lengyel is heard saying."You’re gonna fucking die right now. Are you ready?" Lengyel is later heard saying after Herrmann is heard whimpering and crying. Jurors heard Herrmann in the last moments of her life — in a recording she made because she perhaps knew she could be in danger or wanted proof of Lengyel's malice — saying "stop it" 53 times, and saying, "Stop it. You want your kids to be the kids of a murderer? Come on, stop it.” As Bay Area News Group reports, jurors returned with their verdict Thursday after less than one day of deliberations. Friends and family of Herrmann, including women in her outrigger paddling club, reportedly "joined in tearful embraces and relieved group laughter" after the verdict was read.After six weeks of testimony and a very emotional trial, the news group reported that prosecutors appeared " visibly depleted."Sabine Dukes, a coach in the Santa Cruz paddling club, tells Lookout Santa Cruz of her friend, Herrmann, "We use that butterfly metaphor so often for her, because there’s sort of this like airiness, but then it’s also this very resilient person... It’s just such a horrible act to begin with that the verdict, and the justice doesn’t even come close to helping because it’s just so overwhelmingly awful what happened. How could you hurt a butterfly?"Lengyel is scheduled for sentencing on November 7.Previously: Bombshell Testimony Comes Three Weeks Into Murder Trial of Former Mr. Bungle Band Member