Why Did a Killer Clown Murder a Loving Mom Who'd Just Made Breakfast for Her Son and His Friends?

On a Saturday in 1990 in affluent Wellington, Fla., Marlene Warren woke up early to make breakfast for her son and two of his friends who had stayed overnight.

It was Memorial Day weekend and Marlene, 40, wanted the day to start off well for her son, Joe, 21, who was recovering from a broken leg.

That Saturday, May 26, 1990, would turn out to be the worst morning of the family’s lives.

At 10:45 a.m., while Joe and his friends were watching TV in the living room, they heard a knock at the door, he recalled in a 2024 episode of People Magazine Investigates on Investigation Discovery/ID and streaming on Max.

Through the glass, they saw a delivery person dressed as a clown waiting on the front porch and carrying balloons and a basket of flowers.

Marlene was likely delighted to see the clown, as she had loved them ever since she was a child. As an adult, she liked to paint pictures of clowns to hang on the walls of the house.

Then, the unthinkable happened.

The clown pulled out a gun and fired at Marlene, who dropped to the floor of the foyer, lying in a pool of blood next to red and white carnations strewn about.

As Joe screamed for his friends to call 911, he watched the clown calmly get into a white convertible and drive away.

Nothing like this had ever happened in Wellington.

"This was a nice, quiet, small neighborhood," neighbor Bill Kramer previously told PEOPLE in a 2017 magazine story. "It was unbelievable."

Police investigated but the case went cold for nearly three decades — until September 2017 when they finally made an arrest.

Those who knew Marlene were shocked to learn that the suspect was Sheila Keen Warren, then 54, who had married Marlene's husband, Michael, then 66, after Marlene was killed.

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After being arrested near the home she shared with Michael in Abingdon, Va., Sheila was extradited to Palm Beach County, where she was held without bond as she awaited trial.

She pleaded not guilty, claiming she had nothing to do with Marlene’s death. But prosecutors at the time said DNA evidence connected her to the cold-blooded killing.

As investigators started to peel back the layers of the bizarre case, they learned that Sheila had tried hard to keep what had happened in Florida in the past.

After marrying in Las Vegas in 2002, the two settled into a 4,100 sq. ft. lakeside French Tudor-style mansion in Abingdon, near the successful fast food restaurant they owned in nearby Kingsport, Tenn. 

In her new life, Sheila was known as "Debbie."

They enjoyed this chapter of their lives, hosting movie-watching parties in their basement viewing room and inviting friends for rides on their pontoon boat in the summer.

Some weren’t surprised that Michael and Sheila had gotten married because investigators had looked into rumors of an affair between them after Marlene was killed.

Sheila, they later learned, worked with Michael helping him repossess cars for his used-car dealership in Florida.

Marlene, a mother of two boys from a previous relationship, married Michael in 1972. He has never been charged with any crime connected to her death.

The couple, however, had reportedly been having marital problems when she was killed.

At the time, though, police didn’t have enough evidence to make any arrests, even when they found fibers from an orange wig in Sheila's home and in an abandoned white convertible later linked to Michael’s business.

Over the years, advances in DNA and other technologies helped convict Sheila after the case was reopened in 2014. Forensic scientists found orange fibers matching those found in the car and in Sheila’s apartment on a ribbon attached to a balloon.

On April 25, 2023, Sheila pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for shooting Marlene.

Sentenced to 12 years in prison, she was released in November 2024 — 18 months after she entered her plea, Department of Corrections records show. 

Joe said he wishes Sheila had received a life sentence for killing his mother. “I lost my whole family. But it’s a comfort to have two angels — my mother and my brother. They’re watching me, guiding me home.”

*With reporting by Linda Marx in Wellington, Fla.