A woman who admitted to dressing up as a clown and killing the wife of a man she eventually married back in 1990 has been set free from prison as of Saturday, wrapping up a case that’s pretty unusual, even for Florida.
Sheila Keen-Warren, now 61, was released after serving 18 months following her guilty plea to second-degree murder in the shooting death of Marlene Warren, according to records from the Florida Department of Corrections.
She took the plea just before her trial was about to kick off.
Despite pleading guilty, Keen-Warren has always claimed she didn’t do it. She received a 12-year sentence but had already spent seven years behind bars since her arrest in 2017. Thanks to Florida’s laws back in 1990, she earned quite a bit of good behavior credit, so it was anticipated she’d be out in around two years.
Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg noted that Sheila Keen-Warren will carry the label of convicted murderer with her for life.
Her lawyer, Greg Rosenfeld, mentioned that she accepted the plea deal mainly because it meant she could get out sooner rather than facing a potential life sentence if found guilty at trial.
We’re super excited that Ms. Keen-Warren is finally out of prison and going back to her family! As we’ve mentioned from the start, she didn’t do this crime, he texted on Saturday.
Joseph Ahrens, Marlene Warren’s son, was home with his friends when they heard a knock at the door from someone dressed as a clown.
When his mom opened the door, the clown handed her some balloons. After she said, “How nice,” the clown pulled out a gun and shot her in the face before running away.
For years, investigators in Palm Beach County had their suspicions about Keen-Warren being involved in the murder, but it wasn’t until 27 years later that they arrested her after new DNA testing linked her to evidence found in the getaway car.
Rosenfeld has pointed out that this evidence isn’t very strong. At the time of Marlene’s death, Keen-Warren worked for Michael Warren at his used car dealership; they eventually got married in 2002 and moved to Abingdon, Virginia, where they opened a restaurant just across the border from Tennessee.
Back in 1990, witnesses claimed that Sheila Keen and Michael were having an affair—though both denied it.
Over time, detectives learned that employees from a costume shop recognized Sheila Warren as someone who bought a clown suit days before the incident.
Plus, one of two balloons—a silver one saying You’re the Greatest—was only sold at one Publix supermarket close to Keen-Warren’s house.
Store workers told detectives they saw a woman resembling her buying those balloons just an hour before everything happened.
The car thought to be used for their escape was found abandoned with orange fibers inside that looked like hair; it had been reported stolen from Michael’s lot about a month prior to Marlene’s shooting since Keen-Warren and her then-husband used to repossess cars for him.
Back in 2000, relatives shared with The Palm Beach Post that Marlene Warren, who was just 40 when she passed away, had a feeling her husband was cheating on her and wanted to leave him.
However, since the car lot and other properties were under her name, she was worried about what might happen if she went through with it. Allegedly, she told her mom, If anything happens to me, Mike did it.
Despite this, Mike has never faced charges and maintains he had nothing to do with it. But last year, Rosenfeld mentioned that the case was starting to crumble.
One DNA sample surprisingly contained both male and female genes, while another could match one out of every 20 women. Plus, even if that hair did belong to Keen-Warren, it might have been there before the car was reported stolen.
He also pointed out that Marlene’s son and another witness told detectives the car found by deputies wasn’t actually linked to the killer—though investigators insisted otherwise.
Aronberg admitted last year that there were some gaps in the case due to the three decades it took to bring it to trial and the loss of key witnesses along the way.
Michael Warren had previously been convicted in 1994 for grand theft, racketeering, and odometer tampering; he spent nearly four years behind bars—a sentence his lawyers argued was overly harsh because of suspicions surrounding his wife’s death.
When we tried reaching out to him on Saturday for a comment, he didn’t get back to us.