WAUKESHA, Wis. (Court TV) — A Wisconsin man charged with killing his neighbor had a tough start to representing himself at trial as multiple objections derailed his opening statement.
Kevin ‘Conrad’ Lychwick delivers an opening statement. (Court TV)
Kevin “Conrad” Lychwick, 63, is charged with first-degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse in the death of Carlos Maldonado, 55, who disappeared in April 2024.
“I am not a killer,” Lychwick told the jury during his opening statement. “I am not guilty of this crime. I feel sorry for my poor neighbor, but I did not know him well enough to have any animus against him, and I have never killed anyone in my life. The largest warm-blooded animal I ever killed was a skunk that walked in front of my car by accident years ago.”
Prosecutor Daniel Tombasco told the jury that the evidence in the case tells a different story. Maldonado was last seen alive on April 14, 2024; his daughter reported him missing days later after she was unable to get in touch with him. Months later, on Oct. 30, 2024, a maintenance worker at the apartment complex where both the defendant and the victim lived found a blue tarp in the woods; that tarp covered Maldonado’s decomposing remains. A medical examiner determined that the victim had been shot twice — once in the torso and once to the center of the face. Two projectiles were found with the body.
Carlos Maldonado’s remains were found months after his disappearance. (court exhibit)
Video from a trail camera in the woods allegedly shows Lychwick walking around the area where the remains were found on April 29, 2024. Investigators reviewed the video and said “they saw the defendant carrying a white trash bag. They saw him suspiciously looking in windows of the apartment complex as if he was looking to see if somebody was watching what he was doing,” Tombasco said. The video also appears to show the defendant carrying a tool of some sort, investigators said.
Police said that when they began investigating Lychwick, they made several startling discoveries. A search warrant served on Lychwick’s home allegedly revealed handwritten notes “with several ‘operations’ listed on them. One of those “operations,” titled “Operation Slop Shop” had the victim’s name written beneath it and identified Maldonado “as a threat.” A second paper “indicated that Operation Slop Shop had been completed, that the threats from the first stop had been ‘neutralized,'” prosecutors said. An additional piece of paper listed “several other operations listed with many other individuals” with a connection to the defendant, Tombasco said.
Tombasco told the jury that investigators uncovered “the Holy Grail of evidence” when they stopped Lychwick’s car for speeding. Inside the trunk was a 1939 Luger firearm; the ballistics matched the two projectiles found with the victim’s body.
Handwritten notes were allegedly found in Kevin ‘Conrad’ Lychwick’s apartment. (court exhibit)
Lychwick struggled to argue against the mountain of evidence in his opening statement, with prosecutors repeatedly objecting when the defendant tried to claim the police searches were illegal. “The court has made a ruling that the searches in this case were valid and they were constitutional, so I’m not going to permit arguments that the searches were not legal,” Judge David Maas warned Lychwick.
Lychwick also tried to paint himself as the victim of police determined to frame him for the crime. “I am unprepared for this trial. I am in poor health,” he told the jury. “I enter these proceedings under protest. … I am not an attorney and I have no access to my assets right now and I had no access to a telephone or lawyer.” When Lychwick tried to explain to the jury why he is representing himself — calling his former attorney “grossly inadequate” — the judge cut him off again. “I should not weigh their — sway their decision one way or the other whether or not you’re in custody; you are your attorney and you are held to the standards of an attorney, whether that attorney is well-prepared or prepared at all. Nonetheless, the trial’s going, so that’s not going to be considered by the jury either.”
After the jury was dismissed for its lunch break, Maas gave Lychwick an additional warning to abide by the rules previously set regarding evidence to be admitted at trial.
