COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — The former Northwestern University professor and British financial officer charged in a bloody River North murder pleaded "not guilty" Thursday.
Wyndham Lathem, 43, and Andrew Warren, 56, were arraigned on six counts of first-degree murder after being assigned a trial judge at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse, 2650 S. California Ave.
RELATED: Professor's Murder-Sex-Suicide Plot Hatched In Chatroom, Prosecutors Say
The duo made international headlines last month when they led authorities on a cross-country manhunt that ended in San Francisco.
Police on July 27 found Lathem's boyfriend, 26-year-old hairstylist Trenton Cornell-Duranleau, viciously stabbed to death inside Lathem's River North apartment. Prosecutors allege Lathem and Warren killed the man in a premeditated sex-murder-suicide fantasy before fleeing Chicago in a rental car.
The duo made two donations in Cornell-Duranleau's name while on the run, authorities said: $5,610 to a health center and $1,000 to a public library. According to police, Lathem also sent friends and relatives a video confession in which he apologized for his role in the slaying and said he wasn't the man people thought he was.
RELATED: Northwestern Professor Sent Apology Video To Friends After Murder
Michigan native Cornell-Duranleau was a hairstylist with a "youthful free spirit" who loved music, animals and video games, according to an obituary posted by his family.
Lathem was fired from Northwestern in August "for the act of fleeing from police when there was an arrest warrant out for him." Warren is currently suspended from his job at Somerville College in Oxford, England.
According to prosecutors, Lathem and Warren spent months planning Cornell-Duranleau's murder after discussing a sexual fantasy in an online chatroom. The pair agreed to kill someone before simultaneously murdering each other, authorities said.
Lathem paid for Warren to fly to Chicago and put up the man in a hotel, prosecutors allege. Warren's sister reported him missing, while the men allegedly decided to kill Lathem's boyfriend.
Video evidence shows Lathem and Cornell-Duranleau entering Lathem's building in the 500 block of North State Street before the murder. Once Cornell-Duranleau was asleep, prosecutors said, Lathem texted Warren that he should come over to help kill Cornell-Duranleau.
The duo is accused of stabbing Cornell-Duranleau at least 70 times while he slept. The victim was nearly decapitated, authorities said, and suffered several wounds that would've been fatal by themselves. He had multiple defensive injuries.
Prosecutors said Cornell-Duranleau awoke during the attack and asked, "Wyndham, what are you doing?"
As Cornell-Duranleau bled to death, Lathem and Warren showered in the bathroom, prosecutors said; both men had been cut during the attack. Warren reportedly told police Cornell-Duranleau had "no idea" what was coming.
On July 27, Lathem called his doorman to anonymously report a crime in his 10th-floor apartment, police said. Officers found Cornell-Duranleau about 8:30 p.m., laying in his underwear on the floor. Several knives and a broken lamp were recovered.
