Victim’s mother speaks out
For 27 years, Marlene Warren’s mother grieved over her daughter’s death at the hands of someone dressed like a clown without the closure that comes with an arrest and — eventually, hopefully — a conviction.
All that changed with the Sept. 26 arrest of her daughter’s husband’s new wife, and former lover, Sheila Keen Warren.
After seemingly stalling out for nearly 30 years, the wheels of justice in the Wellington killer clown case have whizzed forward in the past 10 days with an arrest, extradition of the 54-year-old defendant from Virginia to a Palm Beach County jail, and Wednesday’s pronouncement that state prosecutors will seek the death penalty.
And that, Shirley Twing says, seems a fitting punishment for the woman accused of shooting her daughter in the face.
“Well, that’s the rules there,” Twing, 87, of Las Vegas, said Thursday of Florida’s stance on capital punishment. “She took a life. So, if she goes, that doesn’t hurt my feelings either.”
Prosecutors say new DNA evidence has allowed them to make an arrest after nearly 30 years. They have refused to disclose what that evidence is.
Michael Warren’s first wife, Marlene Warren, greeted a person disguised as a balloon-and-flower-bearing clown at her front door in Wellington on a Saturday morning in May 1990. She was met with gunfire and died two days later.
Michael Warren and Sheila Keen, a repo woman at his West Palm Beach used car lot, and his purported lover, were quickly eyeballed as suspects. He was 38. She was 27.
But an arrest case went cold.
Keen Warren, up until her arrest late last month, was living with Michael Warren, now 65, in Abingdon, Va. They wed in 2002.
After nearly three decades, Twing had given up hope of seeing an arrest. “I’m sure glad they found her. It’s quite a relief. I never thought they’d do it.”
Twing’s grandson, Joe Ahrens, witnessed his mother’s murder. He was 21. After Keen Warren’s arrest Ahrens, who now lives in Iowa, posted on Facebook, “I got some good news today they got the murderer that killed my mother 27 years ago.”
“He’s hanging in there, let’s put it that way,” Twing said. “He’s naturally upset as well, but happy they finally got Sheila. He feels the same way we do.” was never made and the
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