Woman found guilty in Florida killer clown case released from prison

A woman convicted in 1990 of dressing up as a clown and murdering the wife of a man she later married has been released from prison, ending one of the more bizarre cold cases Florida has ever seen.

Sheila Keen-Warren, 61, was released from prison Saturday, about 17 months after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in the death of Marlene Warren, her current husband's former wife, according to online records from the Florida Department of Corrections emerges.

Keen-Warren was arrested in Washington County, Virginia, in 2017 in connection with Warren's 1990 murder. After pleading guilty, she was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but has served seven years since her arrest in 2017.

Her release from prison came after she struck a deal shortly before her trial began, The Associated Press reported. Florida law in 1990 allowed for significant recognition of good behavior, and Keen-Warren was expected to be released in about two years. She has maintained her innocence even after pleading guilty.

In May 1990, Marlene Warren was shot in the face as she opened the front door of her home in Wellington, near West Palm Beach, and was confronted by a brown-eyed woman carrying balloons and wearing a clown costume and orange clown wig. authorities said.

One of the balloons read: “You are the greatest!” and the other had Snow White painted on it, according to reports at the time.

“This is the strangest thing I've seen in all my 19 years in law enforcement,” Bob Ferrell, then a spokesman for the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, told the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel the day after the murder.

Keen-Warren was a suspect in the murder almost from the start, but prosecutors never had enough evidence to charge her until new technology allowed them to retest DNA evidence after the cold trial resumed in 2014.

Initially, suspicion quickly focused on Michael Warren, the victim's husband, as friends and family said the couple was having marital problems.

Then the murder investigation led police to find independent evidence of wrongdoing at Michael Warren's car rental agency, and in 1992 he was sentenced to prison on 43 counts of speedometer tampering, grand larceny and extortion, the Palm Beach Post reported at the time.

Michael Warren served three years in prison and disappeared in 1997. But in 2002 he resurfaced and married Sheila Keen – the same Sheila Keen-Warren who is now charged with murdering his ex-wife. Sheila had worked for Michael repossessing cars.

Investigators said they were told as early as four months after the murder that Michael and Sheila had had an affair and that Warren had been paying rent on Keen-Warren's apartment after she separated from her first husband.

It is not clear at this time if Keen-Warren has an attorney.