Chicago, Illinois — The stage is set once more for a courtroom battle soaked in blood and betrayal. Dr. Wyndham Lathem, once a respected Northwestern University immunology professor, now awaits his retrial for a murder that stunned the city.
The killing took place in July 2017. The victim, Trenton Cornell-Duranleau, a 26-year-old hairstylist, was found butchered in his North State Street apartment. He had been stabbed more than 50 times in what authorities described as a twisted, premeditated act of sexual violence.
Two men were arrested. Lathem, the academic, and Andrew Warren, a payroll clerk from Oxford, England. While both were convicted, it was Warren who came across as the more violent and unhinged of the two. Back in the United Kingdom, he had been previously convicted of armed kidnapping and sexual assault on another male but those records are hidden from the public by British law. He was no choirboy.
Desperate for a conviction, prosecutors cut a deal with Warren to testify against Dr. Lathem. They promised him a transfer to serve his sentence back home, but instead, he wound up in Menard Prison, one of the most notorious lockups in Illinois. And now, just as the retrial approaches, Warren may refuse to testify again.
That refusal will throw a wrench into the prosecution’s case. They may now try to read Warren’s old testimony to the jury. Legally, they can do it if a judge rules that Warren is unavailable and that Lathem had a chance to cross-examine him the first time. But this is shaky ground. It deprives the defense of live confrontation and smells like an end-run around the Constitution.
Worse, the jury probably won’t even be told that Warren has refused to testify. The prosecution will want to keep that quiet. But the defense might fight to let that information in, to show the jury that the star witness is no longer willing to take the stand and face questions. That silence could speak volumes.
Behind all this is a darker question. What else has Warren done? Rumors swirl of other unsolved murders in Oxford, cases with chilling similarities to what happened in Chicago. But no one across the pond seems too eager to investigate further. If there are more victims, their stories remain buried.
As for Dr. Lathem, he sits in Cook County Jail. There is always the possibility of a deal, a plea to a lesser charge with credit for time served. Prosecutors and defense attorneys make those bargains quietly and often.
But for now, the clock ticks toward a second trial. The blood has long since dried, but the truth remains soaked in shadow. This case isn’t just about what happened in that apartment. It’s about what no one wants to talk about. And that silence may be the loudest thing in the courtroom.
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