British Accomplice Of Ex-Northwestern Prof Sentenced For Murder

CHICAGO — The British man who admitted to taking part in a Northwestern University professor's plot to brutally kill his boyfriend was sentenced Wednesday to 45 years in state prison.

Andrew Warren, 61, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in July 2019, two years after the fatal stabbing of 26-year-old Trenton Cornell. Cornell had been dating then-associate professor of microbiology Wyndham Lathem. His body was found in Lathem's River North apartment.

Lathem, 47, confessed to the slaying on video and was found guilty at trial in October 2021 by a jury after less than two hours of deliberations. He was sentenced last month to 53 years in prison. He is not projected to be paroled until 2070.

At the time of the killing, Warren, a former driver and cashier for a British bus company, worked as a treasury assistant at Oxford University's Somerville College and lived with his sister, who reported him missing a day after he left the U.K., according to past reports.

As part of his plea deal, Warren agreed to testify against Lathem, and prosecutors agreed to permit him to serve out a portion of his sentence in the United Kingdom. A prisoner transfer back to his native country, which would need to be approved by British authorities, would allow for the possibility of parole.

Lathem paid to fly Warren to Chicago after the two met online, initially discussing a suicide pact, according to evidence presented at trial. Before killing Cornell, they traveled to the St. Louis area and tried to buy a gun but were unable to do so, jurors were told.

Related: Ex-Northwestern Prof Sentenced In 'Perverted' Murder Of Boyfriend

After Wednesday's sentencing hearing, Cornell's mother, Mischelle Duranleau, told reporters she was grateful, in a sense, that Warren had enough of a conscience to eventually tell the truth about the killing.

"He could have stopped it," Duranleau said, according to the Chicago Tribune. "So there is this really big mixed feeling between absolute anger and appreciation.”

Warren had little to say at his hearing before Cook County Circuit Judge Charles Burns sentenced him to 45 years.

“I just want to say that I’m really so sorry," Warren said at the hearing, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. "That’s all I have to say."

Earlier: British Man Admits Murder, Agrees To Testify Against NU Professor