A Florida woman known as “killer clown” has been released from jail after serving a sentence for the 1990 murder of her husband’s former wife.
Sheila Keen-Warren, 61, went free on November 2, nearly two years after accepting a plea agreement in which she admitted to second-degree murder. According to the Florida Department of Corrections, she was released 18 months after entering her plea, just before her trial date.
Though Keen-Warren had been in custody for seven years since her 2017 arrest, Florida’s sentencing guidelines at the time allowed her to considerably decrease her sentence through credits for good behavior. As a result, despite her initial 12-year sentence, she was eligible for early release.
“Sheila Keen-Warren will always be an acknowledged convicted murderer and will wear that stain every day for the rest of her life,” Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg stated in a statement to the New York Post.
Greg Rosenfeld, Keen-Warren’s attorney, stated that she accepted the plea offer solely because it meant she might be released soon, avoiding the possibility of a life sentence. “We are overjoyed that Ms Keen-Warren has been released from prison and is home to her family. “As we’ve stated from the start, she did not commit this crime,” Mr Rosenfeld reportedly wrote in a message.
The case began in 1990 when Marlene Warren was shot in her home by an intruder dressed as a clown. According to Ms Warren’s son, Joseph Ahrens, he and his pals were present with balloons when a clown with balloons arrived at their house. When Ms Warren opened the door, the clown handed her the balloons. After she said, “How nice,” the clown pulled out a revolver and shot her in the face before departing the scene.
Detectives had suspected Keen-Warren for years, but she wasn’t arrested until 2017, with police attributing the delay to advances in DNA testing that allegedly tied her to the crime. However, Mr Rosenfeld, Keen-Warren’s attorney, maintained that this evidence was untrustworthy. He raised concerns about the DNA evidence, arguing that it contained both male and female genes and that one of the samples was familiar enough to have matched many women.
At the time of the shooting, Keen-Warren worked for Marlene Warren’s husband, Michael Warren, at his used car shop. In the years after Ms Warren’s death, Keen-Warren married Michael, and the couple eventually moved to Abingdon, Virginia, where they opened a restaurant. Witnesses from 1990 told investigators that Keen-Warren and Michael Warren were romantically linked, which both denied. Some costume shop employees identified Keen-Warren as the woman who purchased a clown suit just before the murder.
One of the balloons held by the clown, a silver one with the slogan “You’re the Greatest,” was linked to a Publix grocery near Keen-Warren’s house, where employees remembered seeing a lady who resembled her purchasing the balloons an hour before the event.
The probable getaway vehicle, a white Chrysler convertible, was discovered abandoned, with strands of orange hair-like fibers inside. The automobile was reported stolen from Michael Warren’s yard about a month before the murder. Keen-Warren and her then-husband were working in repossession for Michael at the time. Marlene Warren’s relatives earlier stated that she considered leaving her husband due to suspicions of infidelity. The New York Post reports that she allegedly informed her mother, “If anything happens to me, Mike did it.” Michael Warren has never faced charges in connection with her death and denies any involvement. State Attorney Aronberg acknowledged the difficulties caused by the 27-year delay in bringing the case to trial, including the deaths of important witnesses.
