A former Northwestern professor and an Oxford University employee lured a 26-year-old man into a Near North Side high rise and stabbed him dozens of times to fulfill an elaborate, violent sexual fantasy, prosecutors said Sunday. 
 
 Wyndham Lathem, a former associate professor of microbiology, and Andrew Warren, a British national, were held without bail Sunday after prosecutors made the gruesome allegations public for the first time. 
 
 The two men had chatted online for months about their shared fantasy of killing other people and themselves, said Assistant State's Attorney Natosha Toller. 
 
 In late July, they took the first steps toward carrying out that fantasy: Lathem paid for Warren to fly to Chicago, prosecutors said, and the two came up with a plan. 
 
 The two planned to slay victims of Lathem's choosing, prosecutors said, and then the two men would kill each other simultaneously — Warren shooting Lathem while Lathem stabbed Warren. 
 
 And Lathem had decided on their first victim, prosecutors said: his boyfriend, 26-year-old Trenton Cornell-Duranleau. 
 
 On July 26, Lathem "lured" Cornell-Duranleau to his apartment in the 500 block of North State Street while texting Warren that they would kill him that night, according to Toller. 
 
 Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson and Detective Cmdr. Brendan Deenihan describe the events that led to the arrests of Wyndham Lathem, 43, and Andrew Warren, 56, during a news conference at Chicago Police Department headquarters Aug. 20, 2017. Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson and Detective Cmdr. Brendan Deenihan describe the events that led to the arrests of Wyndham Lathem, 43, and Andrew Warren, 56, during a news conference at Chicago Police Department headquarters Aug. 20, 2017. SEE MORE VIDEOS 
 
 Warren came over about 4:30 a.m. the next day, after Cornell-Duranleau had fallen asleep in Lathem's apartment, prosecutors said. Lathem showed Warren a six-inch drywall knife saw and gave him a cellphone, with instructions to record video of Lathem stabbing Cornell-Duranleau to death, according to prosecutors. 
 
 As Warren stood in the doorway to the bedroom, cellphone in hand, Lathem stabbed the sleeping Cornell-Duranleau "over and over in the neck and chest area," Toller said. 
 
 Cornell-Duranleau woke up and began to scream and fight back, prosecutors said. 
 
 Lathem cried to Warren for help, Toller said, so Warren walked in and put his hands on the victim's mouth, then hit him in the head with a heavy metal lamp. 
 
 Warren left to get two kitchen knives, prosecutors said, and both men then leaned over Cornell-Duranleau and stabbed him again and again, prosecutors said. Warren was stabbing with such force that he broke the blade of one of the knives he used, prosecutors said. 
 
 The attack left Cornell-Duranleau nearly decapitated, prosecutors said. He had sustained dozens of stab wounds, at least two of which would have been fatal on their own, according to Toller. 
 
 His last words, prosecutors said, were "Wyndham, what are you doing?" 
 
 As Cornell-Duranleau bled out in the bedroom, his attackers showered, then tried to clean up the scene, prosecutors said. 
 
 They left Lathem's apartment in the early morning hours and fled — sparking a nationwide manhunt that ended when they surrendered to authorities in California nine days later, prosecutors said. 
 
 While they were on the lam, the men made two charitable donations in Cornell-Duranleau's name, prosecutors said: $5,610 to the Howard Brown Health Center, an LGBT health and social services provider, and $1,000 to a public library in Lake Geneva, Wis. 
 
 Chicago Police Department Suspects Andrew Warren, left, and Wyndham Lathem have been formally charged with first-degree murder in the July 26 stabbing homicide at 540 N. State St. Suspects Andrew Warren, left, and Wyndham Lathem have been formally charged with first-degree murder in the July 26 stabbing homicide at 540 N. State St. (Chicago Police Department) (Chicago Police Department) 
 
 At the library, Lathem called the front desk of his apartment building and left an anonymous tip: Someone should check the apartment, because a crime had been committed in that room. 
 
 Both men have admitted to the slaying, prosecutors said. Warren spoke to police, and Lathem sent a video to his family and friends admitting that he killed Cornell-Duranleau, according to prosecutors. 
 
 In the video, Lathem "elaborated that he is not the person people thought he was," prosecutors said, and admitted Cornell-Duranleau "trusted him completely and felt safe with him but he betrayed that trust," Toller said. 
 
 Warren spoke to detectives in San Francisco, police said Sunday. Prosecutors said he admitted to planning and carrying out Cornell-Duranleau's murder, though he said he did not take video of the slaying as Lathem had requested. 
 
 "Defendant Warren told the police that the victim had no idea what was coming," Toller said Sunday. 
 
 And, ominously, Warren admitted that the two had planned to kill at least one other person — but Warren didn't know if that person had ever shown up to Lathem's apartment after the two men fled, prosecutors said. 
 
 At the bond hearing Sunday, Lathem's attorney Barry Sheppard gave Judge Adam D. Bourgeois Jr. copies of dozens of letters from Lathem's friends and colleagues, attesting to his character and academic accomplishments — a highly unusual move. 
 
 "The court has read his professional and academic achievements," Bourgeois said from the bench after looking through the material. "Some of the finest in the world, right? It has nothing to do with this, though." 
 
 Sheppard also told the judge that prosecutors "cherry-picked" statements from the video Lathem sent his family and noted that in the video the word "mistake" is used. 
 
 Sheppard, as well as Warren's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Courtney Smallwood, asked Bourgeois to set a bond for the two men — a request the judge denied. 
 
 "The heinous facts speak for themselves," he said, ordering both men held without bail. 
 
 After the hearing, Sheppard warned against a rush to judgment, telling reporters that Lathem "has led a life of outstanding, unblemished citizenship." 
 
 "We simply ask the public to patiently allow the legal system to work," he said. 
 
 Lathem was fired from Northwestern after fleeing the state, and Warren has been suspended from his job as a financial officer at Somerville College, part of the Oxford system. 
 
 Chicago Tribune's Matthew Walberg contributed. 
 
 mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com 
 
 tbriscoe@chicagotribune.com ||||| Detective Commander Brendan Deenihan speaks about the charges against Andrew Warren and Wyndham Lathem during a news conference at the Chicago Police Department headquarters on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2017.... (Associated Press) 
 
 CHICAGO (AP) — The fatal stabbing of a hairstylist in Chicago was part of a sexual fantasy hatched in an online chatroom between a Northwestern University professor and an Oxford University employee, whose plan included killing someone and then themselves, prosecutors told a Cook County judge Sunday at a bond hearing for the men. 
 
 An Illinois prosecutor shared disturbing new details about the July 27 slaying, describing to the court how Trenton James Cornell-Duranleau, the 26-year-old boyfriend of since-fired microbiology professor Wyndham Lathem, was stabbed 70 times at Lathem's Chicago condo and with such brutality that he was nearly decapitated. His throat was slit and pulmonary artery torn. 
 
 Lathem, 46, had communicated for months before with Andrew Warren, 56, about "carrying out their sexual fantasies of killing others and then themselves," Natosha Toller, an assistant Cook County state's Attorney, told the court. While the prosecutor used the plural in talking about the alleged fantasy to kill, she did not say there were other victims. 
 
 Judge Adam Bourgeois Jr. at one point shook his head in apparent disgust as he listened to the prosecutor offer a chilling narrative of the slaying. He later deemed both men potentially dangerous and flight risks, ordering them to remain in jail pending trial on first-degree murder charges. 
 
 "The heinous facts speak for themselves," he said. 
 
 Lathem and Warren — a British citizen employed as a financial official at the Oxford, England, university — were dressed in their own clothes Sunday at their first court appearance in Chicago. They stood calmly, their hands behind their backs, as the prosecutor and judge spoke. 
 
 Lathem paid for Warren's ticket to travel to the United States and he picked Warren up at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport a few days before the killing, the prosecutor said. On July 26, one day before the killing, Lathem booked a room for Warren near the condo, Toller said. 
 
 Cornell-Duranleau, a Michigan native, had been asleep in Lathem's high-rise Chicago condo when Lathem let Warren into the 10th-floor unit around 4:30 a.m. on July 27 — treading carefully so as not to wake the victim. As Warren stood in a doorway, Lathem crept up to Cornell-Duranleau and began plunging a 6-inch drywall saw knife into his chest and neck, Toller said. 
 
 Lathem had told Warren to take video of the killing using his cellphone, but Warren did not end up recording it, the prosecutor said. 
 
 When Cornell-Duranleau awoke, he began screaming and fought back; Lathem yelled at Warren, asking him to help subdue Cornell-Duranleau, the prosecutor said. 
 
 Warren ran over to cover the victim's mouth, then struck him in the head with a heavy lamp in an attempt to silence him, Toller said. As Lathem continued to stab the victim, Warren left the room and returned with two kitchen knives, she said. 
 
 Warren bent over Cornell-Duranleau and joined Lathem in stabbing him, the prosecutor said. At one point, the victim bit Warren's hand as he struggled to fight off the attack. 
 
 She said the victim's last words were to Lathem: "Wyndham, what are you doing?" 
 
 While prosecutors said Lathem and Warren had concocted a plan to kill themselves after the stabbing, Toller did not say why they never followed through with it. 
 
 After showering, Lathem and Warren left the apartment an hour after the stabbing began, the prosecutor said. They surrendered to California authorities on Aug. 4 after an eight-day manhunt and were recently returned to Illinois. 
 
 The stab wounds to Cornell-Duranleau included 21 to the chest and abdomen, and 26 in the back, as well as multiple cuts on his hands. Cornell-Duranleau's lungs were also both punctured, and there were wounds to his colon, spleen and liver. 
 
 After leaving the apartment and renting a car, Lathem on the same day left an anonymous $5,610 donation — in cash — at the Howard Brown Health Center in Chicago in the name 'Cornell-Duranleau.' They then drove to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and, 13 hours after the first payment, Lathem went to its public library and wrote a $1,000 check as a donation, also in the victim's name, the prosecutor said. 
 
 Toller said Lathem, while on the run, sent a video message to his parents and friends, admitting to the killing and telling them "he is not the person people thought he was." 
 
 Lathem's lawyer, Barry Sheppard, said in a brief statement to reporters after the hearing that people shouldn't "engage in a rush to judgment." He said his client had led "a life of unblemished ... citizenship," which included academic work on the bubonic-plague virus. 
 
 Warren spoke briefly when the judge asked if he wanted a British diplomatic office to be in contact. "No," Warren said. For the bond hearing, Warren relied on a public defender, who did not comment later. 
 
 The judge set a Tuesday hearing for the men, when another judge will be assigned to oversee the criminal case. Both would have a chance to enter pleas at a later arraignment. 
 
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 Follow Michael Tarm on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mtarm .
– Two men from the academic world joined forces to live out their twisted murder fantasy, prosecutors said at a hearing for Wyndham Lathem and Andrew Warren in Chicago Sunday. Prosecutors said Lathem, a microbiology professor at Northwestern University, and Warren, a treasurer at Oxford University, communicated for months in an online chat room about their "sexual fantasies of killing others and then themselves," the Chicago Tribune reports. Prosecutors said the men decided to kill other people before killing each other simultaneously. Lathem allegedly decided that their first victim would be Trenton Cornell-Duranleau, his 26-year-old boyfriend. Prosecutors said that on July 27, days after Lathem paid for Warren to travel to the US to carry out their fantasies, they attacked Cornell-Duranleau while he was asleep in Lathem's apartment, the AP reports. The medical examiner testified that the attack left him with 70 stab wounds, some of which almost decapitated him. The two men then went on the run instead of carrying out their plan to kill each other, prosecutors say. After eight days, they surrendered to authorities in California. Lathem's lawyer told the court that his client, a plague expert who has since been fired by Northwestern, is a "distinguished microbiologist," but the judge denied bail for both men. "The heinous facts speak for themselves," he said.