In the end, Andrew Warren wanted a chance to avoid dying in an American prison.
Warren, a 58-year-old British citizen, this week agreed to a plea agreement with Cook County prosecutors, admitting his role in the murder of 26-year-old Trenton James Cornell-Duranleau.
Warren agreed to a 45-year prison sentence in exchange for damning testimony against his former co-defendant, former Northwestern microbiologist Wyndham Lathem.
But details of the plea deal unsealed this week show that prosecutors also agreed not to challenge Warren if he makes a request to the U.S. Department of Justice to be transferred back to his native England. Police said Warren flew into the U.S. for the first time when he came to Chicago just days before he joined Lathem in the brutal stabbing of Lathem’s boyfriend — Cornell-Duranleau — inside Lathem’s River North apartment on July 27, 2017.
There is no guarantee that U.K. authorities would welcome Warren back following his guilty plea and sentencing here.
The return to England could cut Warren’s sentence nearly in half — prisoners in the U.K. are eligible for credit for good behavior that can reduce their sentence by 50%.
Warren will not be formally sentenced until after Lathem’s trial.
Warren had faced 20 to 60 years in prison, according to his plea deal. Warren has been jailed since turning himself into police in California after spending nearly two weeks on the lam with Lathem following the murder.
According to the plea deal, prosecutors already had a strong case against Warren, who had given a videotaped confession to police after his arrest. Court records indicate Warren will testify that he began corresponding with Lathem online a month before flying into Chicago. Three days later, he went to Lathem’s apartment, where the world-renowned microbiologist allegedly outlined a plan to fatally stab Cornell-Duranleau, who was sleeping in a bedroom, while Warren filmed the murder. Warren also admitted to covering Cornell-Duranleau’s mouth and holding him down as Lathem stabbed him, and to hitting him in the head with a lamp, then stabbing him in the chest, authorities said. Police said Cornell-Duranleau was stabbed dozens of times.
Warren and Lathem fled the city in a rented car, and police have said Lathem sent friends and family plaintive messages confessing to the murder. The pair also stopped at a public library in Lake Geneva, where the donated $1,000 in Cornell-Duranleau’s name, and also donated more than $5,000 to a men’s health center in Chicago. Days later, after negotiating with police, Lathem dropped Warren off at a police station in San Francisco, then turned himself in to police in nearby Oakland.
