Wyndham Lathem, a former Northwestern University professor, was sentenced to 53 years in prison on Tuesday for killing his boyfriend by stabbing him more than 70 times in 2017. Trenton James Cornell-Duranleau’s murder was planned months in advance by Lathem and Andrew Warren, an Oxford University financial officer whom Lathem met online. The pair concocted a plan to kill someone and then themselves. Cook County Judge Charles Burns called the murder “cold-blooded” and an “execution.” The attack was so violent that one of the blades used on Cornell-Duranleau, 26, was found broken in the apartment. Warren took a plea deal for a 45 year sentence in 2019 after testifying against Lathem. Lathem’s defense attorney claims that his sentence is “unduly harsh given [his] outstanding contributions to society and his lifetime battle against infectious disease.”
