British Man Admits Murder, Agrees To Testify Against NU Professor

CHICAGO — A former Oxford University staffer pleaded guilty Monday to taking part in a grisly 2017 fatal stabbing and will testify against the former Northwestern University professor accused of orchestrating what prosecutors said was a murder-suicide sex fantasy. In exchange for Andrew Warren's guilty plea to one count of first-degree murder and his testimony against Wyndham Lathem, prosecutors said they will recommend a 45-year prison sentence after Lathem's case is resolved.

Warren's trial had been scheduled to begin next week for the murder of Trenton Cornell-Duranleau, 26, a hairdresser from Ohio who had been living in Chicago and dating Lathem before he was stabbed dozens of times in Lathem's River North apartment on July 27, 2017.

Prosecutors said Warren, 58, and Lathem, 44, had met online and discussed plans to kill Cornell-Duranleau as part of "sexual fantasies of killing others and then themselves." They planned to both wind up dead afterwards, with Warren expected to film Lathem murdering his boyfriend before killing Lathem and himself, prosecutors said at the time.

Warren and Lathem have been held without bail at the Cook County Jail since they turned themselves in to authorities in the San Francisco Bay Area following a nationwide manhunt. While on the lam, the pair made donations in the name of the man Warren has admitted murdering at a Chicago health clinic and a public library in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

About a half-dozen of Cornell-Duranleau's family members and supporters left the courtroom after Monday's hearing without speaking to reporters, the Chicago Tribune reported. Although Warren signed a written plea agreement, Circuit Judge Charles Burns made the unusual decision to keep the plea agreement sealed until after Lathem's next court appearance Tuesday, according to the Tribune, which was first to report Warren's guilty plea.

Convictions for first-degree murder generally must be served in their entirety, meaning Warren would be about 100 years old before he is eligible for release. But a spokesperson for the Cook County State's Attorney's Office said the judge's order restricts prosecutors from releasing any specifics of the agreement, so it was not immediately clear how much time Warren would be required to serve.

Before his arrest, Warren worked as a senior treasury assistant at Oxford's Somerville College, and lived with his sister. Lathem, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Northwestern at the time of the murder, was an expert on bubonic plague and was initially described as "armed and dangerous" because of his potential access to the deadly bacteria blamed for the Black Death.

Earlier:

• Murder Trial Of Ex-Oxford University Staffer Set To Begin In July
• Not Guilty Pleas In Fatal Sex Fantasy Stabbing
• Sex Fantasy Of Ex-Northwestern Professor, Oxford Staffer Led To Fatal Stabbing
• Northwestern Professor Wanted: 5 Things We Know About The Brutal Murder Case So Far