University employees jailed in stabbing

SAN FRANCISCO — Far from their prestigious campuses, a Northwestern University professor and a University of Oxford finance officer were jailed in the San Francisco area Saturday after eight days as fugitives sought in the death of a young hairdresser in Chicago stabbed repeatedly until the knife broke, police said.

The Northwestern microbiologist, Wyndham Lathem, had a relationship with the victim, although the nature of it wasn’t clear, and Lathem had made a video apologizing for what he called “the worst mistake of my life,” police said.

Lathem, 42, was being held without bail in Alameda County and faced a court appearance in the city of Pleasanton. The other suspect, Andrew Warren, a treasury assistant at one of Oxford’s residential colleges in England, was being held at the county jail in San Francisco.

Both men surrendered separately and peacefully in the Bay Area on Friday evening.

They had been fugitives since the body of 26-year-old Trenton James Cornell-Duranleau was found in Lathem’s Chicago apartment on July 27.

Police said Lathem had a relationship with Cornell-Duranleau, who moved to Chicago from the Grand Rapids, Mich., area after receiving his cosmetology license. They have not elaborated on how Cornell-Duranleau or Lathem knew Warren, or if Warren knew them before he arrived in the U.S.

Chicago police said Warren was 56; he was booked into jail as age 49.

A deputy U.S. marshal said Lathem’s surrender came after fast-paced negotiations through an attorney that led to the fugitive turning himself in at the federal courthouse in Oakland.

Police also said that by the time they found the body on the night of July 27, Cornell-Duranleau had been dead for 12-15 hours.