AN OXFORD University employee has pleaded not guilty over the stabbing to death of a hairstylist in Chicago.

Andrew Warren, 56, appeared in court in Chicago this evening alongside his fellow accused, ex-Northwestern University professor Wyndham Lathem who also denies the charge.

Lathem, 46, and Warren are charged with first-degree murder over the death of 26-year-old Trenton James Cornell-Duranleau in July.

Defence lawyers entered pleas on their behalf.

Mr Cornell-Duranleau, Lathem’s boyfriend, was in bed in Lathem’s Chicago apartment when the men allegedly stabbed him dozens of times as part of what prosecutors say was an apparent sexual fantasy.

The two men surrendered to authorities days later in California after sparking a US-wide man hunt.

An earlier court hearing was told the victim was stabbed 70 times at Lathem’s Chicago apartment and with such brutality that he was nearly decapitated.

His throat was slit and pulmonary artery torn, the court heard.

At the same hearing, judge Adam Bourgeois deemed both men potentially dangerous and flight risks, ordering them to remain in jail pending trial, saying: “The heinous facts speak for themselves.”

At today's hearing prosecutors said they plan to seek an extended sentence because the murder was part of a “preconceived plan”.

Following the arrest of Oxford University employee Warren, who says online he lives in Swindon, he has since been suspended from his job as senior treasury assistant at Oxford’s Somerville College.