Friends Say Brookfield Murder Victim Planned to Dismiss Suspect's Husband

A Brookfield businessman found brutally murdered in his home was planning to end the employment of a man whose wife is now jailed in connection with the killing, the victim's friends said Friday.

in his home 14300 block of Golf Parkway in southeastern Brookfield. One of the two suspects in the slaying is Lynn M. Hajny, whose husband Albert, worked for Aegerter's company, Air Page Corp.

Keefe John and Jack Hughes, who were friends of the victim, said Aegerter had helped the Hajnys in recent years when Albert Hajny lost his job and the couple was in danger of losing their New Berlin home.

But they said Aegerter had planned to let Albert Hajny go as the Air Page hours were reduced from five to three days a week and told Lynn Hajny that about two weeks ago.

They said Aegerter's phone records also showed Aegerter talked to Lynn Hajny for about 15 minutes at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday. Aegerter talked to another friend at 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, making plans to meet that friend at 6 a.m. Wednesday to repair a communications tower in Menomonee Falls that was struck by lightning during Tuesday's thunderstorms.

Documents filed in court allege that Lynn Hajny, 48, and a boyfriend, Tommy V. Douyette, 42, went to Aegerter's home late Tuesday evening or early Wednesday morning to "hit and hurt him." 

Police found Aergerter dead — bound, beaten and covered in the garage — after an employee called at 9:55 a.m. Wednesday to report Aegerter had failed to show up for a work meeting.

John said Aegerter was supposed to meet one of John's employees at  the Menomonee Falls transmission tower.

"When John didn't show up, we sent him a number of pages" that went unanswered, John said.

"He was never late to anything," John said. "He would always return a page."

Pagers were Aegerter's lifeblood, said Hughes, a Hubertus man who said he has been friends with Aegerter for more than 25 years.

A ham radio operator and radio communications expert, Aegerter worked as a nighttime engineer at a Milwaukee radio station before starting his own pager and satellite communications business in the 1960s, Hughes said.

When Aegerter failed to return his pages, John's employee called Al Hajny, who drove to the Menomonee Falls tower site to assist, the friends said.

Albert Hajny was not arrested in connection with Aegerter's murder and police said he was not involved.

"He didn't do anything," Police Capt. Jim Adlam said, adding that talk that Aegerter planned to end Albert Hajny's employment was "speculation."

Police were continuing to investigate the case and had no other comment.

An autopsy was completed Thursday and its findings were sealing pending the investigation. Lynn Hajny and Douyette remained in the Waukesha County Jail Friday, awaiting their next court hearing Thursday.

In addition to Albert Hajny, Aegerter had another employee, Jeremy Swenson, who drove over to Aegerter's house to try to find him, Hughes said. When no one answered the door and Aegerter's truck was in the driveway, Swenson called the police to check on his welfare.

Hughes said as Swenson went into the house, police found Aegerter in the garage, covered partially with a sleeping bag and blood on the floor. Officers ordered Swenson out of the house, which had become a crime scene.

According to documents filed in court and statements by a prosecutor, Aegerter had been beaten in the head and face, his nose and some ribs broken, and had electrical cords around his neck and feet. Plastic grocery bags covered his head which was wrapped in duct tape. His neck had strangulation marks and documents quote Lynn Hajny as telling her cousin, "Tom snapped his (Aegerter's) neck."

The court documents say Douyette told police that Aegerter owed Albert Hajny two to three months of pay, and that Lynn Hajny had asked Douyette to go to Aegerter's house to "hit and hurt him."

Douyette told police he struck Aegerter in the head and face perhaps nine times, according to a probable cause statement filed in court.

John, the Germantown business owner, said he didn't believe that Aegerter owed Al Hajny money.

"He (Aegerter) was the type of person who never paid a bill late in his entire life," John said. 

He said he was shocked to learn of the death, calling it "very sad."

Hughes, who said he and Aegerter would talk for hours about ham radios and technology, added: "I still can't believe he's gone. I expected we'd be old men together laughing about the old days."