An Oxford University employee has agreed a plea bargain with prosecutors in the United States and will receive a 45-year sentence for murder in exchange for testifying against his co-accused.
Andrew Warren, 58, had met Wyndham Lathem, 44, a Northwestern University professor, online and the pair had discussed Lathem’s sex fantasy which revolved around murdering his 26-year-old lover, Cornell-Duranleau.
Warren, who is British, flew to Chicago in July 2017 and stayed with Lathem and Cornell-Duranleau at the apartment in Chicago’s swanky River North district.
One night the pair overpowered Cornell-Duranleau and he was beaten and stabbed 70 times and bled out after his pulmonary artery and throat were cut.
Lathem and Warren then went on the run.
Warren was suspended from his job as senior treasury assistant at Somerville College in Oxford and Lathem was fired from his job as a microbiology professor at Northwestern University.
A nationwide manhunt for the pair ended when they were arrested in California a few days later.
Warren has now given a full statement to prosecutors and has agreed to testify at Lathem’s trial in exchange for the authorities dropping the prospect of life without parole. The death penalty was abolished in Illinois in 2011.
Natosha Toller, an assistant Cook County state’s attorney, told local media in Chicago that Warren said he met Lathem in an online chatroom and they shared sexual fantasies.
Lathem reportedly told Warren he wanted to kill Cornell-Duranleau and then themselves but Ms Toller said that after the murder they lost their nerve and fled west.
During the bizarre road trip the pair stopped at a public library in Wisconsin and donated US$1,000 in Mr Cornell-Duranleau’s name.
Lathem also sent his friends and relatives a video message in which he described the crime as the “biggest mistake of his life”.