GUILTY VERDICTS END MOTHER'S WAIT FOR JUSTICE

The agony of the nearly yearlong wait for Lorraine Randall to see justice
brought to those who killed her son appeared to be almost too much to bear
in the moments before a jury filed into Circuit Court to have its verdict
read Monday.

Randall's son, Kyle Hachmeister, 18, was killed in a drug and money robbery
in the home he shared with his mother and stepfather last February, and it
was his mother who found him as he lay dying in his bedroom.

On Monday, waiting for the jury's verdict, she shared hugs with her husband
Michael, her parents, and others in the family. As the guilty verdicts were
finally announced, Randall and the rest of Kyle's family burst into tears
of relief and sadness.

After watching Jeremy Greene and Genevieve Pauser leave the courtroom in
shackles to begin serving life terms in prison for the murder, a still
shaken Randall paused on her way out to read a brief statement to the
press, in which she thanked Assistant District Attorneys Doug McLean and
Chris Genda.

She praised McLean's closing argument in which he reminded jurors that
testimony showed that when Greene returned to the getaway car after
stabbing Hachmeister, he told the others not to worry because "dead men
don't talk."

"Attorney McLean stated that 'yes they do, and when they do they cry out
for justice,' " Randall said.

"No one is a victor in a case like this," she said, but added that "for our
son, Kyle Joe, justice has now been served."

There were also tears on the other side of the courtroom, where friends and
relatives of Greene and Pauser remained calm when the verdicts were read,
but wept and hugged as they watched them leave the courtroom after life
sentences were imposed.

Greene, Pauser, Corey Ellis and Lindsey Kopp, all 19, now stand convicted
for their parts in the Feb. 19, 2001, stabbing of Hachmeister, According to
the prosecutors, it was Pauser who came up with idea to rob Hachmeister,
her longtime friend, of his drugs and money.

Greene and Ellis, whom Hachmeister did not know, entered the home as Pauser
and Kopp waited in car. When Hachmeister awoke and screamed, "No! Get out
of here!" Greene stabbed him, the prosecution said.

All four were arrested within days of the murder, and Ellis and Kopp
reached plea bargains in which they agreed to plead guilty to felony murder
and testify against Greene and Pauser. They have yet to be sentenced.

That testimony was crucial to the state's case, as were taped conversations
of telephone calls Pauser made to her mother in which she made key admissions.

Both Greene and Pauser took the witness stand to deny any involvement in
the killing, but Greene's alibi was badly damaged when the woman who
supposedly gave him a ride to a party on Caddis Bend in Fitchburg on the
night of the murder said not only had she not given him a ride, she didn't
even know where Caddis Bend was.

The woman at whose house Greene supposedly attended the party said there
was no such party that weekend.

After some 12 hours of sorting through those differing accounts, jurors in
the case found Greene and Pauser guilty.

Dane County Circuit Judge William Foust immediately sentenced both
defendants to the mandatory life in prison term, and will hold a hearing
later to determine a parole eligibility date. They must serve a minimum of
20 years, but the date could be set later than that or denied altogether.

McLean, noting there have been frequent drug robberies in Madison lately,
said the case should serve as a warning to those who sell drugs.

"This is a tragic example of what can happen and it should send a powerful
message," he said.

"If you trade in dope, even if it's marijuana, and even if you try to keep
it in your circle of friends, it can turn on you ... and you are going to
get hurt or killed."