Suspects in Chicago slaying had friends in Bay Area, say authorities
OAKLAND >> A Northwestern University professor and a University of Oxford employee suspected of the stabbing death of a Chicago man drove to the Bay Area because they had friends here, authorities said.
Suspects Wyndham Lathem, 42, and Andrew Warren, 56, were arrested without incident after turning themselves in Friday, the U.S. Marshals Service, which coordinated the investigation, said in a statement. Lathem is being held at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, and Warren is being held at San Francisco County Jail, according to jail records.
Lathem, an associate microbiology professor at Northwestern known for his work studying the bubonic plague, surrendered to authorities at the federal courthouse in Oakland at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, according to the Marshals Service. About an hour earlier, Warren, a resident at Somerville College, a part of the Oxford University Network, walked into a San Francisco police station in Golden Gate Park and surrendered there.
The two are scheduled to appear in court Monday morning and then be returned to Chicago, where they would be interrogated by homicide detectives. Police did not say when that would happen.
A manhunt had been underway since first-degree murder warrants were issued for the two men shortly after the body of 26-year-old Trenton James Cornell-Duranleau was found on July 27 in the luxury Chicago apartment where Lathem lived. Cornell-Duranleau’s body was riddled with stab wounds, police said.
The duo were arrested in California apparently after driving across the country. Mike McCloud, the U.S. Marshals task force commander, said the fugitives chose to flee to the Bay Area because they had friends here. But many of the details of what they did and where they stopped along the way are still unknown.
“That’s part of the mystery of this case,” McCloud said in an interview.
On Friday afternoon, an attorney for Lathem reached out to the Marshals Service to conduct negotiations that led to his surrender that night, McCloud said. After being arrested in Oakland, Lathem declined to answer any questions from authorities.
“They thought it was best to end it,” McCloud said. “At some point you get tired because you’re always looking over your shoulder.”
On the day of the slaying — but before the body was discovered — Lathem and Warren drove about 80 miles northwest from Chicago to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where one of them made a $1,000 cash donation to the public library there in Cornell-Duranleau’s name, police said. Lake Geneva police said the man making the donation did not give his name.
“I’ve never seen where suspects in a homicide would make a donation in the victim’s name,” said Lake Geneva police Lt. Edward Gritzner.
Police said earlier on Friday that Lathem had also sent a video to friends and relatives apologizing for his involvement in the crime, which he called the “biggest mistake of my life.” The video raised concern among investigators that Lathem might kill himself.
Now, Lathem is under “intensive observation” — formerly known as suicide watch — and being checked at least every 15 minutes at the Santa Rita jail, said Alameda County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Ray Kelly.
“Both individuals will be held accountable for their actions and we hope today’s arrest brings some comfort for the victim’s family,” a Chicago police statement said. “We are also thankful both men are safely in custody and this did not end in further tragedy.”
Warren had arrived in the United States three days before the death of Cornell-Duranleau and was seen in surveillance video leaving the building with Lathem the day of the stabbing.
Police said Lathem had a personal relationship with Cornell-Duranleau, who moved to Chicago from the Grand Rapids, Michigan, area after receiving his cosmetology license. They said they were still trying to determine how Cornell-Duranleau or Lathem knew Warren, or if Warren knew them before he flew to the United States before the stabbing.
On the night of the slaying, a front desk attendant at the high-rise building where Lathem lived received an anonymous call from a man who said that a crime had been committed in Lathem’s 10th floor apartment, police said. When police opened the door they found Cornell-Duranleau’s body. He had been stabbed several times in an attack so brutal that police said the knife broke.
Police also said that by the time they found the body on the night of July 27, Cornell-Duranleau had been dead for 12-15 hours.
The two men have no previous criminal records, McCloud said: “They weren’t our normal fugitives.”