Palm Beach County, FL – April 25, 2023 – Marlene Warren opened the door. Bright orange hair and a big red rubber nose, the clown smiled and offered her the flowers and balloons. Accepting the gifts, she watched in horror as the clown drew a gun and shot her in the face. That is what former repossession agent, Sheila Keen Warren, pleaded guilty to in a Palm Beach County court on Tuesday.
The murder occurred back in May 26, 1990, when 27-year-old Sheila Keen Warren was working as a repossession agent with her then husband, Richard Keen, for Michael Warren who operated a used car and rental business in West Palm Beach.
According to prosecutors, Warren’s son, Joseph Ahrens, was at home at the time of the shooting and testified to seeing “a clown come to the front door, hand Miss Warren balloons and flowers before shooting her in the face,” then drive away in a white Chrysler LeBaron.
Two days later, Marlene Warren passed away from the injury.
Four days later, a white Chrysler LeBaron was found in a Winn-Dixie parking lo. Inside, investigators found “trace evidence,” including long brown human hairs and what law enforcement officers “described as artificial orange-like fibers,” A search of Keen Warren’s home at the time turned up similar fibers, according to prosecutors.
As a motive, Sheila was rumored to have been having an affair with Michael Warren, the victims husband.
Despite testimony from witnesses at a local costume shop that placed her buying a clown costume and wig approximately two days before the murder existing technology did not exist to link the hair found in the LeBaron to Sheila. Prosecutors were at a dead end and the case went cold.
Keen Warren and the victim’s husband, Michael Warren, would later marry and go on to own a restaurant in Tennessee in 2002. The two lived in Abingdon, Virginia, until Keen Warren’s arrest in 2017.
Then, in 2014 the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Unit reopened the homicide investigation. After contacting witnesses and conducting additional DNA analysis, authorities said they established probable cause linking Keen Warren to the murder.
A grand jury subsequently issued a true bill for first-degree murder a month before her arrest in September 2017.
The trial has dragged on ever since and Warren has maintained her innocence until today.
Sheila Keen Warren, now 59, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in a Palm Beach County court Tuesday as part of a plea deal reached weeks before her trial was set to begin.
Warren, has been in jail since her arrest. As the result, she will receive 2,039 days of credit toward her sentence, Judge Scott Suskauer said while accepting the deal.
Warren’s attorney, Greg Rosenfeld called the plea “a big win for our client.” All the while continuing to deny her guilt in the gruesome crime.
“It was an incredibly hard decision for our client, saying you did something that you didn’t do,” Rosenfeld said. “I mean, nothing’s harder than that.”
“Our client wanted to go home,” he added.
Marlene Warren’s son, Joseph Ahrens, who was at home at the time of the shooting, told Judge Suskauer he agreed with the terms of the plea deal.
“The only thing I want to say is, all through this trial, I didn’t see any remorse,” Ahrens told the court while appearing remotely.
“God be with her,” he added.
Source: ABC News
Repo Woman Killer Clown Pleads Guilty – Repossession Violence – Repossession History – Repossess – Repossession – Repossession Agency
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