Northwestern Professor, Oxford Employee Arrested in Grisly Murder

Manhunt in stabbing of Chicago hairdresser ends in San Francisco.

August 6, 2017 2:15 pm
Northwestern Professor
This undated photo released by the Alameda County, Calif., Sheriff's Office shows Wyndham Lathem, an associate professor of microbiology at Northwestern University. (Alameda County Sheriff's Office via AP)

The mystery is deepening over a shocking murder of a 26-year-old Chicago man — one that led to the arrests of a Northwestern University professor and an employee from Britain’s Oxford University.

Wyndham Lathem, a micro-biology professor at Northwestern who studied the Black Plague, and Andrew Warren surrendered separately in the Bay Area on Friday. Their arrests ended a nationwide manhunt over the July 27 stabbing attack that left hairdresser Trenton Cornell-Duranleau dead in a pool of blood on the bedroom floor of Lathem’s Chicago bedroom.

Warren had flown into the Windy City for his first trip to the United States three days earlier, The Chicago Tribune reported.

But investigators are still puzzling over clues in the bizarre case. Lathem, 42, for example, sent a video message to his family, calling the slaying, “the biggest mistake of his life,” according to Chicago police.

Lathem and Warren, 56, were seen on surveillance video fleeing the building on the morning of the attack. Fifteen hours later, police responding to a call found Cornell-Duranleau dead from stab wounds to his back. Two knives were found in the kitchen, according to the Tribune.

Police have yet to zero in on a motive for the murder, but an investigator told the newspaper that there may have been a relationship between Lathem and the victim.

And in another odd twist, later the same day of the slaying, one of the suspects made a $1000 donation in the victim’s name at a Wisconsin library.

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