Chicago professor fulfills ‘sexual fantasy’ by killing his boyfriend

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share via Email
• Copy Link

  Link Copied

A Chicago professor and another man that he met online allegedly killed the professor’s boyfriend as part of a sexual fantasy.

The professor, Wyndham Lathem, 46, and Andrew Warren, 56, had discussed killing other people and then themselves in a chat room, and on July 27, they carried out the murder of Lathem’s boyfriend, Trenton James Cornell-Duranleau.

Lathem, a Northwestern University professor, paid for Warren, an Oxford University employee, to fly to Chicago and put him up in a nearby hotel. Cornell-Duranleau was asleep when Lathem let Warren in. Lathem then began to stab Cornell-Duranleau in the chest and neck and asked Warren to record it, but Warren did not.

Cornell-Duranleau woke up screaming and tried to fight back, at which point Lathem asked for help. Warren struck Cornell-Duranleau in the head with a lamp and then later returned from the kitchen with two knives.

In all, Cornell-Duranleau was stabbed 70 times and with so much force that he was nearly decapitated. His last words, according to prosecutors, were, “Wyndham, what are you doing?”

It is not clear why the two men didn’t kill themselves as they had intended or if there were any other victims. It is known that they left the apartment after showering, and police searched for them for eight days before they were found and surrendered separately.

Cook County Associate Judge Adam Bourgeois Jr. has since declared both of them to be potentially dangerous and ordered that they remain in jail, because they are potential flight risks.