One morning in May 1990, a clown came to Marlene Warren’s door, handed her carnations and balloons, then shot her dead in front of her son.
In West Palm Beach on Tuesday, in a secretive lunch-break deal, her husband’s alleged mistress and future wife finally pleaded guilty to being the killer, even though she still insists she is innocent. The surprise move closed a case strange even by Florida standards.
In a deal that will probably see her released from prison within a year, Sheila Keen-Warren, 59, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.
Long suspected of being the shooter, she has been jailed awaiting trial for first-degree murder since 2017, when Palm Beach county sheriff’s investigators said improvements in DNA technology proved a hair found in the clown’s getaway car came from her.
Trial was set to start next month. If convicted, Keen-Warren would have received a life sentence. Prosecutors sought a death sentence but dropped it.
No public notice was given for the plea hearing in West Palm Beach on Tuesday, which would have drawn reporters and spectators. Instead, it was handled quietly during the judge’s lunch break from another murder trial.
The Palm Beach county state attorney, Dave Aronberg, said the plea deal “obtained a measure of justice” for Marlene Warren and her son.
“Sheila Keen-Warren has finally been forced to admit that she was the one who dressed as a clown and took the life of an innocent victim. She will be a convicted murderer for the rest of her days,” Aronberg said.
Keen-Warren’s lawyer, Greg Rosenfeld, said: “The state of Florida originally wanted to execute her, but now she is going home in 10 months. While it was difficult to plead guilty to a crime she did not commit, it was kind of a no-brainer when there is a guarantee that you will be home with your family.”
Rosenfeld described “an incredible win for Ms Keen-Warren”. The deal calls for a 12-year sentence but Keen-Warren has served six awaiting trial. Also, in 1990 Florida law allowed significant time off for good behavior, so Rosenfeld said he expected release early next year.
Aronberg’s office said Keen-Warren would be in prison at least two more years.
Marlene Warren’s son, Joseph Ahrens, watched the Tuesday proceeding online. Only 21 when he saw his mother murdered, his only message to the court and Keen-Warren was, “May God be with her.”
Keen-Warren was an employee of Marlene Warren’s husband, Michael, at his used car lot. Since 2002, she has been Michael Warren’s wife.
In 1990, witnesses told investigators the two were having an affair, though both denied it.
Detectives said costume shop employees identified Sheila Keen-Warren as the woman who bought a clown suit a few days before the killing. One of the two balloons – a silver one that read, “You’re the Greatest” – was sold at only one store, a Publix supermarket near Keen-Warren’s home. Employees told detectives a woman who looked like her bought the balloons an hour before the shooting.
The presumed getaway car was found with orange, hair-like fibers inside. The white Chrysler convertible was reported stolen from Michael Warren’s car lot a month before the shooting. Keen-Warren and her then husband repossessed cars for Warren.
Relatives told the Palm Beach Post in 2000 that Marlene Warren, who was 40, suspected her husband was having an affair and wanted to leave him. But the car lot and other properties were in her name and she feared what might happen if she did.
She allegedly told her mother: “If anything happens to me, Mike done it.”
He has never been charged and denies involvement.
On Tuesday, Rosenfeld said the state’s case was falling apart. One DNA sample somehow showed both male and female genes, he said, while the other could have come from one out of every 20 women, even Marlene Warren.
Even if that hair did come from Keen-Warren, the lawyer said, it could have been deposited before the car was reported stolen. He said witnesses told detectives the car wasn’t the killer’s. Investigators insisted it was.
Aronberg conceded that there were holes in the case, caused by the three decades it took to get it to trial, including the death of key witnesses.
In 1994, Michael Warren was convicted of grand theft, racketeering and odometer tampering. He served almost four years in prison, a punishment his attorneys said was disproportionately long because of suspicions he was involved in his wife’s death.
On Tuesday, he did not return a call seeking comment.
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