Fugitive professor confesses on video
2 suspects make donation in slain man’s name
A Northwestern University professor, one of two men wanted in the fatal stabbing of a hairdresser in Chicago, has been sending videos to friends calling the stabbing “the biggest mistake of my life,” Chicago police said Friday.
The professor, Wyndham Lathem, 42, and University of Oxford administrative assistant Andrew Warren, 56, are being sought in the death of Trenton James Cornell Duranleau, 26, who was found dead in Lathem’s apartment July 27, according to police.
Police across the U.S. and England are involved in the search.
Chicago police chief spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Lathem apologizes in the video for his involvement in the slaying and calls it “the biggest mistake of my life,” but provided no additional details.
Lathem and Warren reportedly drove to Lake Geneva to make a $1,000 donation to the town’s library in the victim’s name soon after the crime, Chicago police say.
“Detectives have been working on a timeline and retracing the pair’s movements in an effort to try and understand what could have prompted the murder and where they went,” Guglielmi said.
There are no apparent ties between any of those involved in the incident and the Wisconsin resort town 85 miles northwest of Chicago.
“There’s no concrete connection as to why the Lake Geneva Library. It’s obviously strange,” Lake Geneva police Lt. Ed Gritzner told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
He said that on July 27, the men came to the library and requested to make a donation in another person’s name and the library accepted the donation. Then on July 31, Lake Geneva police received a call from the library saying that Chicago police were questioning them about the donation.
Chicago police were able to confirm the suspects’ identities with the library though the library does not have any cameras or footage of the men being in the library.
Wyndham received his PhD in microbiology from the University of Wisconsin in 2003.
Chicago police said they have an idea of the whereabouts of the two suspects and have issued a national alert to police departments across the country advising that the two men have arrest warrants for murder in Chicago.