Manhunt intensifies for Northwestern professor, 2nd man wanted for Chicago slaying

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iStock/Thinkstock(CHICAGO) — A manhunt has intensified for a Northwestern University professor and a second man who are wanted in connection to a murder in Chicago, a police spokesman said today.

Suspects Wyndham Lathem, 42, an associate professor at Northwestern, and Andrew Warren, 56, are “at large but we have an idea of their whereabouts,” Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in an email today. “Efforts to locate them are only intensifying from here on in.”

On July 27 around 8:30 p.m. local time, officers responded to a call at an apartment registered to Lathem in Chicago’s River North neighborhood, police said. There, officers found a man with several lacerations to his body, police said. The victim, who was not identified by police, died at the scene.

Guglielmi said that once police had “suspicions that the professor and his associate may have fled the Chicago area,” several federal agencies were brought in to investigate and a national alert was sent to police departments across the country advising that murder warrants were issued for both men.

“Our primary focus is to facilitate a safe surrender and we strongly encourage Professor Lathem and Mr. Warren to do the right thing and turn themselves into any police department in the U.S. or contact CPD [the Chicago Police Department] and we will make any necessary accommodations,” Guglielmi said.

According to The Associated Press, “Warren is a senior treasury assistant at Somerville College in England, which is part of the Oxford University network.”

Lathem, who has been a faculty member at Northwestern’s microbiology-immunology department for 10 years, has been banned from entering the school, Alan Cubbage, Northwestern University vice president for university relations, said in a statement Wednesday.

“There is no indication of any risk to the Northwestern community from this individual at this time,” Cubbage added.

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