Oxford official in US court over ‘sexual fantasy killing’

THE fatal stabbing of a hairstylist in Chicago was part of a sexual fantasy hatched in an online chatroom between an Oxford University worker and a US professor, prosecutors said yesterday.

Somerville College’s Andrew Warren, 56, and Professor Wyndham Lathem, 42, have been charged with murdering Trenton Cornell-Duranleau.

A hearing in Chicago heard that Warren and Lathem, a microbiologist at Northwestern University, planned to murder someone then kill themselves.

An Illinois state prosecutor said Cornell-Duranleau – who was Lathem’s boyfriend – was stabbed 70 times at Lathem’s Chicago flat with such brutality that he was nearly decapitated.

Warren, pictured, of Swindon, Wiltshire, has been suspended from his job as senior treasury assistant at Oxford. Lathem is expected to plead not guilty.

Chicago Police Commander Brendan Deenihan said there was a ‘dark and disturbing’ motive behind the death. He said the defendants met online and Warren flew to Chicago days before the body was found on July 27.

The two handed themselves in eight days later after a nationwide manhunt.

Cornell-Duranleau was asleep when Lathem began plunging a 6in serrated knife into his chest and neck, prosecutor Natosha Toller said.

When the victim awoke and fought back, Warren allegedly hit him with a lamp before fetching two kitchen knives and joining Lathem in stabbing him.

Miss Toller said Lathem and Warren had talked in detail beforehand about how they would kill themselves. She said Lathem was supposed to stab Warren as Warren was shooting him.