Oxford University employee being hunted over US murder
Police say Andrew Warren and Wyndham Lathem, who are suspected of stabbing a man, should be considered armed and dangerous.
Thursday 3 August 2017 07:52, UK
An Oxford University employee and a US professor are being hunted by police on suspicion of murdering a 26-year-old American man.
Andrew Warren, 56, is a senior treasury assistant at Oxford's Somerville College, while Wyndham Lathem, 42, is an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Northwestern University in Chicago.
The two are suspected of repeatedly stabbing Trenton Cornell-Duranleau in Lathem's Chicago apartment on the evening of 27 July.
Police went to the apartment in the River North neighbourhood that night after someone at the building's front desk called reporting that he had received an anonymous phone call about a crime having been committed in that unit.
The medical officer later confirmed that Mr Cornell-Duranleau died of multiple sharp force injuries.
Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi did not discuss a possible motive and he did not say how police are linking the two suspects to the killing.
He did, however, say that security camera footage showed the pair leaving the building on the night of Mr Cornell-Duranleau's death.
He also warned other police forces in the US that they should be considered armed and dangerous.
Mr Guglielmi said Lathem and Cornell-Duranleau knew each other, but he did not know the nature of their relationship.
Warren lives in England and had come to the US recently for the first time, Mr Guglielmi added.
It is not yet known if Warren had known the victim beforehand.
A Cook County judge issued warrants for the arrests of Warren and Lathem on first-degree murder on Monday.
A notice emailed last week from building managers to residents of the apartment building where Mr Cornell-Duranleau was found said that Chicago Police were investigating "a variety of motives including a possible domestic incident", according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Lathem, who has been on staff at Northwestern for a decade, has been placed on administrative leave and banned from entering Northwestern campuses, college spokesman Alan Cubbage said.
"There is no indication of any risk to the Northwestern community from this individual at this time," he added.
"This is now a criminal matter under investigation by the appropriate authorities, and Northwestern University is cooperating in that investigation."