The Killer Clown

Marlene Warren, 40, lived in the Aero Club, an aviation community in Wellington, Florida, with her husband, Michael Warren, who ran a car business. Sheila Keen worked for him repossessing cars, and investigators came to believe the two were having an affair.

On the morning of May 26, 1990, a person in a clown costume and orange wig rang Marlene’s doorbell, handed her balloons and flowers, and shot her in the face. The shooter drove off in a white Chrysler LeBaron that was later found abandoned with orange fibers and brown hair inside. Marlene died two days later. Detectives learned that a brown-haired woman had bought a clown costume and orange wig at a local shop shortly before the shooting, and Keen became a suspect, but prosecutors did not charge anyone for decades.

Keen married Michael Warren in 2002, and the couple later settled in Abingdon, Virginia. After improved DNA testing, detectives arrested her there on September 26, 2017. On April 25, 2023, shortly before her trial, she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 12 years, with credit for more than five years already served. She was released from a Florida prison on November 2, 2024. Her lawyer said she took the deal to avoid a possible life sentence.