Attorneys representing the particular person accused of dressing as a clown and fatally taking pictures a Florida woman within the entryway of her house in 1990 are asking a choose to dismiss the case, as a result of prosecutors made “tactical decisions” in dragging their ft and in flip prevented the protection from having the ability to construct a case, data present.
“This shouldn’t be a ‘cold case’ within the conventional sense: the State merely picked up their investigation a long time later and performed new assessments on some of the hint evidence.”
Prosecutors intentionally selected to delay the indictment of Sheila Keen-Warren for many years, after which charged her with the homicide of Marlene Warren in 2017 regardless of the lack of new evidence, the protection crew argued.
As a outcome, protection attorneys had been confronted with untraceable or now-deceased witnesses, individuals who now not remembered what they did or noticed, and even some who had all of a sudden modified their accounts of occasions over the course of 30-plus years, legal professionals wrote in a movement to dismiss for pre-indictment delay, filed Wednesday.
FLORIDA JUDGE ON ‘KILLER CLOWN’ CASE MULLS USE OF ALLEGED COSTUME, KEY EVIDENCE AS TRIAL LOOMS
“Those charges are based, not on some dramatic cold case breakthrough, but instead almost entirely on the same attenuated circumstantial evidence that has been in the State’s possession since 1990,” the submitting states. It later provides: “More than 30 years after Marlene Warren’s murder, much of the evidence that Sheila Keen-Warren could have relied on to establish that someone else has confessed to the murder, to impeach the State’s witnesses, or present an alibi defense is unavailable for various reasons.”
Several consultants who can be referred to as to testify as protection witnesses, together with two folks “who would have testified about the mishandling of evidence,” are now not alive.
Another instance supplied within the submitting particulars how investigators failed to “preserve the three white LeBarons that they recovered shortly after the shooting.”
“The law permitted the State to take their time in filing charges, but not to force Sheila Keen-Warren to fight her case blindfolded with one arm tied behind her back,” the submitting goes on.
Marlene Warren, 40, was shot and killed at her Wellington, Florida, house Saturday, May 26, 1990, officers mentioned. Warren had simply completed breakfast along with her son and his buddies round 10:45 a.m., when they noticed a Chrysler LeBaron roll into the driveway, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office mentioned.
An individual dressed like a clown exited the automobile and walked to the house’s entrance door, police mentioned.
“The person dressed as the clown was carrying a flower arrangement and two balloons,” the sheriff’s workplace defined. One balloon reportedly bore an image of Snow White, the opposite was emblazoned with the phrases, “You’re the Greatest!”
“Marlene answered the front door and as the clown offered the items to her, witnesses heard a gunshot and Marlene fell to the ground,” police said. “The person dressed as a clown calmly walked back to the LeBaron and drove away.”
27 YEARS LATER, ARREST IS MADE IN KILLER-CLOWN CASE
Warren suffered a gunshot wound to the face and was rushed to an area hospital, the place she died two days later.
Police arrested Keen-Warren Sept. 26, 2017, 27 years after Warren’s loss of life.
Investigators realized Keen-Warren, who was married to another person on the time of the homicide, went on to wed Warren’s husband in 2002. The pair had been residing in Tennessee, the place they operated a restaurant, police mentioned.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Defense attorneys argued within the dismissal try that prosecutors suspect Warren’s husband was involved in the homicide, although he has by no means been charged in reference to the crime.
Keen-Warren is slated to go to trial in May. Prosecutors haven’t but responded to the protection crew’s movement.