Chicago Tribune | Bond denied in condo rage shooting death
This tragic event took place in a Chicago suburb, not far from where we lived until recently. The man was evicted by his condo board for non-payment of assessments, according to press reports. Here in Illinois condo boards use forcible detainer proceedings to collect past due assessments. That means owners are treated like delinquent tenants, subject to eviction proceedings. This is faster than foreclosure (and we don't have non-judicial foreclosure at all here). From what I read, that's what they did here, and it's standard operating procedure in this state. But he came home and found his belongings on the street, confronted the association secretary, and flipped out.

Horrible as it is to say this, I expect more of this sort of thing. It is getting harder to live outside CIDs because of the tremendous market dominance of common interest housing in new construction. Of course, nothing a condo board does would ever justify or excuse this sort of violence, but they often do things--rightly or wrongly--that send people into a flat spin. With millions of people getting conscripted into a style of life they don't understand and accept, the law of averages says that conflict, and often serious conflict, will result. Most of the time it is just cold stares and lawsuits. Occasionally something like this happens.

Bond was denied today for a Franklin Park man charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of his condominium association's secretary and the wounding of her roommate.

Zdzislaw "Wally" Kuchlewski, 67, who also has been charged with attempted murder, appeared this afternoon for a bond hearing in the Maywood branch of Cook County Circuit Court. He was ordered to be returned there Friday for a preliminary hearing in the Tuesday evening shootings.

The man had come home Tuesday to find his belongings on the front lawn of the building, in the 9100 block of West Grand Avenue, CLTV reported.

Kuchlewski's condominium association board had gone to court and obtained an eviction order against him because he had fallen nearly $4,000 behind on his association fees, police said.

Enraged, Kuchlewski waited in the building's parking lot for the first condominium board member to come home, police said. When the association's secretary, Rita A. Hohmeier, 75, drove up about 6:15 p.m., he confronted her.

"When she exited her car with another woman, a verbal fight ensued," said Franklin Park Police Chief Randy Peterson. "We got a call of people arguing. A short time later, we got a call of shots being fired, at which time the evictee had shot both women."

The man surrendered to police as soon as officers approached, witnesses said.

Hohmeier died from her wounds. The other woman sustained injuries to her mouth and liver and was taken in critical condition to Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood.