Plague prof, Oxford clerk held in slaying

CHICAGO» Police officers responding to a maintenance man’s 911 call Thursday found blood on a bedroom door and Trenton Cornell-duranleau’s body on the bed.

The 26-year-old hairdresser had been stabbed in the back several times, according to the Chicago Tribune. Blood was everywhere, including on two knives police believe were used in the killing. The blade on one had apparently been shattered by the force of the attack.

What was missing was the man who rented the apartment, Wyndham Lathem, 42, a bubonic plague specialist who worked as a professor at Northwestern University.

Police began a manhunt for Lathem. They were also seeking Andrew Warren, 56, a British payroll clerk who worked for Oxford University and had traveled to Chicago days before the killing.

Warren surrendered Friday to police in San Francisco and Lathem turned himself in at the Oakland, Calif., federal building, according to The Associated Press. Their surrender was “negotiated,” Michael Mccloud, fugitive task force commander with the U.S. Marshals Service, told the AP, without providing details.

Both men are charged with murder.

A police spokesman said Lathem and Cornellduranleau were involved in some sort of relationship and had “some type of falling out.” They’ve called the killing a domestic incident and are still investigating other motives.

Because of the circumstances of the killing and the manhunt, the case has attracted international attention.

Lathem is an associate professor at Northwestern University and a sought-after speaker for his research on bubonic plague. He has taught microbiology and immunology since 2007 at Northwestern’s Feinburg School of Medicine. A former colleague described him as competitive in seeking funding for his work from the National Institutes of Health and respected for the quality of his research.

Chicago police disclosed Friday that a video has surfaced in which Lathem apparently apologized to friends and family for his alleged involvement in Cornell-duranleau’s death. Officials declined to release the footage, saying it’s “integral to any future interrogation efforts.”

Reports suggest that Warren may have been staying with Lathem in the Grand Plaza Apartments, a luxury building with plum amenities and stunning views of Chicago’s skyline. Monthly rents for some units there exceed $3,300.

Warren, whose family in England reported him missing just days before the killing, works for the University of Oxford processing paychecks and pensions.

Citing friends in Great Britain, the Telegraph reported Thursday that Warren traveled to the U.S. without telling his boyfriend or any of his family, who have since appealed for him to surrender. They described Warren as reclusive, shy and consumed by grief since his father’s sudden death last winter.

Cornell-duranleau, who went by Trent, moved to Chicago only recently and lived in the city’s Pilsen neighborhood, about a 30minute drive from Lathem’s apartment in River North.