Alleged killer clown scheduled to finally face jury in Oct.

She lived as a free woman for 27 years after allegedly shooting her lover’s wife in the face, killing her. Sheila Keen-Warren’s trial has been repeatedly delayed since her arrest in 2017.

Now, Keen-Warren is scheduled to face a jury at 8:30 a.m. Oct. 21 when they’ll be tasked with deciding whether she was the person dressed in a clown costume and makeup who fired the shot that killed Marlene Warren 32 years ago.

Keen-Warren’s jury trial was set to begin June 3 but was delayed for a sixth time, despite Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Scott Suskauer’s reluctance. Defense attorneys said they simply needed more time as the legal proceedings in the decades-old case had become a “logistical nightmare,” they wrote in a court record in May.

It’s been a race against time all these years to prepare the case for trial. Some witnesses have moved out of the county, the state, the country and some have died or can no longer testify.

Prosecutors argued in their response to the defense’s motion to continue the trial that each delay makes it increasingly likely that more witnesses will be unable to testify.

Court records show witnesses were still being deposed two weeks ago.

Keen-Warren’s initial trial date was set for January 2020 and was rescheduled to May 2020 but was put on hold due to the pandemic. The October date is the seventh date that has been scheduled.

The murder is one of South Florida’s most notorious and strangest. Warren, 40, opened the door of her Wellington home on May 26, 1990, and was met with someone wearing a white-painted face, a red clown nose and an orange wig, holding balloons and flowers.

The clown fired a shot to Warren’s face and fled in a white Chrysler LeBaron. It was later discovered that that car was connected to Warren’s husband’s used-car company.

Keen-Warren had worked for Michael Warren’s company repossessing cars and was allegedly having an affair with him. The two eventually married and moved to Virginia.

Officers found orange-yellow acrylic hair fibers and human hairs in the LeBaron, both of which led them to Keen-Warren.