British man expected to stand trial for deadly River North stabbing in July

A British man charged in a gruesome River North murder with former Northwestern University professor Wyndham Lathem is expected to stand trial at the end of July.

The move by Andrew Warren to press his speedy trial rights means the 57-year-old will have a separate trial from Lathem when the trial is scheduled to start on July 29.

No date has been set for Lathem’s trial.

Cook County prosecutors have said the two men chatted for months online about murder fantasies, and in July 2017 hatched a plan to kill Lathem’s 26-year-old boyfriend, Trenton Cornell-Duranleau inside Lathem’s North State Street apartment in 2017.

Warren allegedly admitted to the murder in a statement after surrendering to police in San Francisco, telling investigators that the plan had been for Warren to film Lathem stabbing Cornell-Duranleau, before Warren killed Lathem and himself.

That statement would have been hearsay evidence against Lathem, which likely would have meant that even if had the two gone to trial at the same time, Judge Charles Burns would have to swear in separate juries. Lathem allegedly sent video messages to friends in which he apologized and admitted to the killing.

Prosecutors said Lathem stabbed the sleeping Cornell-Duranleau with a drywall saw, then called Warren to help. Warren allegedly put his hand over Cornell-Duranleau’s mouth, then struck him in the head with a lamp, before going to the kitchen and returning with two knives. Warren and Lathem then stabbed Cornell-Duranleau dozens of times, prosecutors said.

Warren, 57, a clerk in the bursar’s office at Somerville College in England, had flown to Chicago at Lathem’s expense the day before the murder took place, prosecutors said. After the killing, the pair went on a road trip, visiting Lake Geneva, where they allegedly made a $1,000 donation to the public library in Cornell-Duranleau’s name. From the library, Lathem allegedly called the front desk at his building, cryptically warning that a crime “may have been committed” in his apartment and urging they “check it out.”

Days later, Lathem dropped Warren off at a police station near Golden Gate Park, then drove himself to a police station in Oakland, where he had negotiated his surrender to police.