Police: Professor suspected in murder apologizes

Associated Press

CHICAGO

A Northwestern University professor suspected in the stabbing death of a Chicago man sent a video to friends and relatives apologizing for his involvement in a crime that he called the “biggest mistake of my life,” raising concern among investigators that he might kill himself.

“We are trying to keep this from becoming more tragic than it already is,” Chicago Police Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Friday. He asked that anyone who either is with Wyndham Lathem or knows his location contact law enforcement immediately.

Guglielmi said that the U.S. Marshals Service, which has joined the investigation, has interviewed several of the people who received the video from Lathem, an associate microbiology professor at Northwestern. Guglielmi declined to discuss details of the video or release it because he said it could be used in future interrogation efforts.

The video is the latest twist in the bizarre slaying of Trenton James Cornell-Duranleau, 26, whose body was found stabbed several times inside Lathem’s Chicago apartment July 27. First-degree murder warrants have been issued for Lathem, 42, and Andrew Warren, a 56-year-old University of Oxford (England) employee, who was seen on surveillance video leaving the high-rise building with Lathem on the day of the slaying.

Police have released very few details about the investigation.