Husband: Wife’s not killer clown
ABC show scheduled for today at 10 p.m.
Michael Warren tells news program 20/20 that his current wife is falsely accused in the 1990 “clown killer” murder of his wife at the time. He later married the suspect, Sheila Keen Warren, who is accused of gunning down Marlene Warren while dressed as a clown. Detectives credited new DNA evidence for Warren’s arrest after 27 years. The program airs at 10 p.m. tonight on ABC-TV.
The saga of Wellington’s killer clown case will take to the television airwaves when ABC’s “20/20” features an episode today about the 27-year-old murder.
The May 1990 death of Marlene Warren — who was shot in the face on her Wellington doorstep at the hands of someone disguised as a clown — went cold for decades.
The sensational case resurfaced last month with the Sept. 26 arrest of Sheila Keen Warren, 54, in southwestern Virginia on the charge of firstdegree murder.
The former Palm Beach County woman is now married to the dead woman’s husband, Michael Warren, 65. The couple married in 2002 in Las Vegas.
Michael Warren told ABC that his current wife is “falsely accused” in his former wife’s murder.
“This is very serious and very unfair,” he said in an interview with the news show.
ABC also interviewed Marlene Warren’s mother, Shirley Twing, of Las Vegas, Nev.
Twing, 87, told the Sun Sentinel she had doubted her daughter’s murderer would ever end up behind bars and was beyond flabbergasted to hear that her daughter’s former husband was now married to the accused.
“He married the killer?” asked Twing. “Son of a gun.”
After shooting Marlene Warren in the face, the clown calmly walked to a white convertible Chrysler LeBaron, minus a license plate, and drove away.
Marlene Warren, 40, died two days later.
Within weeks of the slaying, police viewed Michael Warren and Sheila Keen as suspects. He was 38. She was 27.
She repossessed cars for Michael Warren’s used-car dealership on Dixie Highway and, detectives learned, had been having an affair with him. They frequently took long lunches together, and Michael Warren began paying Sheila Keen’s rent when she separated from her then-husband in January 1990. But no arrests were ever made. New DNA evidence, police now say, proves the person disguised as a clown was Sheila Keen Warren. They have declined to disclose in detail what that new evidence is.
Keen Warren has been extradited from Virginia to a Palm Beach County jail.
The “20/20” show airs at 10 p.m. today.