DNA led to killer clown
Police say hair samples from suspect solved cold case in woman’s slaying
One moment Sheila Keen Warren was on a trip to see her mom in Vermont. The next, she was handcuffed and placed in the back of a Virginia sheriff ’s cruiser.
“Where are we going?”, “Am I under arrest and what for?”, “Is my husband under arrest?” the 54-year-old blond-haired woman in the bright aqua tank top, capri jeans and flip-flops asked.
Back at the sheriff’s headquarters, she sat in an interview room making small talk about her nickname “Debbie” and where she lived.
But then the conversation turned serious when she was told she’s the accused shooter in South Florida’s killer clown case from 27 years earlier.
Authorities had come to hold her accountable for the May 26, 1990, slaying of Marlene Warren, 40, in Wellington.
Keen Warren placed her head down on a desk and declined to say another word.
This glimpse of Keen Warren’s Sept. 26 capture, and the renewed investigation that led to it after all
these years, is detailed in files released Thursday by the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office, in response to public records requests.
The records explain how recent testing of DNA evidence was the key to cracking a high-profile case that had long gone cold but is now the center of a death penalty prosecution.
Keen Warren’s husband, Michael Warren, was married to the murder victim and was labeled an original person of interest by police. Authorities won’t say if he is still a suspect.
Sheriff Ric Bradshaw told reporters after Keen Warren’s arrest it “remains to be seen” whether anyone else will be charged in the case. Michael Warren, who has long denied any role, was en route to Calder Race Track with friends at the time his wife was shot at their home in the Aero Club community.
The 2,847 pages of documents released Thursday include new allegations along with all of the original investigative reports that made the case so remarkable: Marlene Warren opened the door to greet a clown wearing an orange wig, a red bulb nose, gloves and a smile painted on its white face. The clown held two balloons and flowers in one hand and a pistol in the other.
The clown fired at Warren’s face. She died within two days. The clown fled in a white Chrysler LeBaron, which was found four days later abandoned at a shopping center parking lot.
Here are some of the revelations from the evidence also recently shared with Keen Warren’s lawyer:
— Detectives collected samples of Sheila Keen’s hair and vials of her blood through a June 1990 search warrant, because she was then a suspect. There was also a court-ordered search of her apartment that yielded fibers from a bright orange wig and clothing that police were checking for blood stains. And similar fibers were found in the getaway car.
— In the reopened investigation, those samples were sent to an FBI crime lab and some matches were made to fibers collected from the Chrysler, though a precise DNA connection is not included. “Sheila Keen can be included as a possible source of these hairs,” according to a 2016 investigator’s report. But the FBI lab’s report was not released to reporters.
— Michael Warren was listed as the beneficiary of a life insurance police issued for his wife Marlene Warren in March 1979. In May 2017, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance confirmed that “the death claim was paid in June 1991 in the amount of $53,359.37 to Michael Warren.”
— An attorney, Christopher DeSantis, gave investigators a statement in 1991 concerning his conversation two years earlier with Michael Warren as they left a courthouse. Warren “asked me what the ramifications would be if a husband killed his wife on her estate,” DeSantis said then. The lawyer advised that if the husband had a friend who did it and they couldn’t tie the husband to the friend, he’d get away Scott free.
— In October 2017, DeSantis gave another statement to investigators. This time, he said he “he told Mike Warren … that if someone wore a clown suit they would get off because no one would be able to identify the features such as male/female or identity of the person committing the crime.”
— One day after Keen Warren’s arrest, Palm Beach County detectives met with an employee of the Kingsport, Tennesee restaurant formerly owned by Michael and Sheila Keen Warren. The employee, Julia Thomas, said her former roommate and co-worker, Danielle Sweeting, told her of a time that “Debbie” got drunk and confessed to her. “Debbie said that she had picked out the clown outfit and killed his wife,” Thomas recalled.
— Marlene’s son Joseph Ahrens and another person, Jean Pratt, got into a car and chased the clown moments after the shooting. Detectives wrote that Jean Pratt told investigators in a June 27, 1991, statement that “the clown suspect was definitely a man … It wasn’t a woman.”
— Michael Warren’s friends told police that he “did not act very upset” after his wife’s death. Witnesses told the cops that a few months before the murder they observed fights between Marlene and Michael Warren, as well as Marlene confronting Sheila Keen about having an affair with Michael.
— Marlene Warren’s funeral was videotaped but detectives who reviewed it saw nothing useful to the investigation.
Keen, then 27, had been working for Michael Warren’s used car dealership, Bargain Motors Inc. of West Palm Beach, helping to repossess cars.
Warren, who has long denied any role in the murder, was en route to Calder Race Track with friends at the time his wife was shot.
During the original murder investigation, detectives discovered Warren was rolling back odometers on vehicles at his used car lot. He was convicted of racketeering and multiple other felonies and served nearly four years in a minimumsecurity state prison at the Homestead Correctional Institution. He was released on New Year’s Eve 1997.
Five years, later he and Sheila Keen wed in Las Vegas, Nev., a fact that investigators didn’t know until they reopened the case in 2014.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office used a $125,000 federal grant, and formed a task force with members of the state attorney’s office and the FBI. They interviewed numerous witnesses, took a fresh look at the evidence, and ordered the DNA testing done, leading to an Aug. 31 grand jury indictment.
The Warrens had no idea they were again under scrutiny. They lived in small, historic Abingdon, Va., for 15 years until her arrest. They had a reputation as a hardworking, friendly couple. No one there knew about their past.
And then suddenly came the day that U.S. Marshal’s pulled over their black Cadillac Escalade and took Keen Warren into custody.
She has pleaded not guilty to a first-degree murder charge, and is being held at Palm Beach County Jail without bond.
“Sometimes justice can be delayed but, justice eventually arrives,” State Attorney Dave Aronberg said.
Defense attorney Richard Lubin has said it’s a “complicated” case because it’s so old. He did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
The next hearing in the case is set for May 9; Keen Warren has waived her right to a speedy trial and most court appearances.
Michael Warren has made only one public statement about his wife’s predicament. In October, he told ABC’s “20/20” that his wife is “falsely accused.”
“This is very serious and very unfair,” he told the news show.