Professor ‘stabbed boyfriend 70 times’ as part of sexual fantasy with Oxford University worker
By Will Stroude
An American professor murdered his boyfriend as part of a sexual fantasy concocted with an Oxford University worker he met online, prosecutors say.
Wyndham Lathem, a professor of microbiology at Northwestern University professor, has appeared in court with Oxford University administrator Andrew Warren charged over the sexually-motivated of Lathem’s boyfriend Trenton Cornell-Duranleau at his apartment in Chicago on July 27.
According to the grisly report, the 26-year-old hairdresser was stabbed over 70 times with such force that he was nearly decapitated.
Lathem, 46, and Warren, 56, had communicated for months before the killing via online chatrooms where the pair discussed “carrying out their sexual fantasies of killing others and then themselves”, prosecutor Natosha Toller told told the Cook County court in Illinois.
Lathem paid for Warren to fly to the US days before the murder with the intention of killing someone and then themselves, Toller said. She added that on July 26, one day before the killing, Lathem booked a room for Warren near Cornell-Duranleau’s apartment.
Cornell-Duranleau, who was from Michigan, was asleep in his 10th-floor apartment when Lathem let Warren into him into the property in the early hours of July 27. Lathem then crept up to his boyfriend before stabbing him in the chest and neck with a 6-inch drywall saw knife, Toller said.
Cornell-Duranleau woke up during the attack and began fighting back, at which point Warren helped Lathem to subdue him, covering his mouth and striking him with a heavy lamp, the prosecutor said.
As Lathem continued to stab Cornell-Duranleau, Warren went to the kitchen and returned with two kitchen knives before also joining in with the barbaric attack, she said.
Toller said Cornell-Duranleau’s last words to his boyfriend were: “Wyndham, what are you doing?”
Following the murder, Lathem and Warren went on the run, making a $5610 cash donation to a Chicago health centre in Mr Cornell-Duranleau’s name before fleeing the city in a rented vehicle.
They drove northwest before stopping around two hours later in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and making another cash donation of $1000 in Cornell-Duranleau’s name to a local library.
Following a nationwide manhunt that lasted eight days, the pair eventually surrendered in the San Francisco area of California before being returned to Illinois, where they will now stand trial.
Deeming both men potentially dangerous and a flight risk, Judge Adam Bourgeois Jr ordered both of them to remain in jail under strict separation until the trial. Both men are yet to enter pleas.
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