Sheila Keen Warren pleads guilty to shooting husband’s 1st wife in 1990 killer clown case

A girl has admitted to dressing up as a clown and fatally shooting her husband’s first wife on the sufferer’s Florida house greater than 30 years in the past, regardless that her legal professional nonetheless maintains her innocence.

Sheila Keen Warren, 59, pleaded guilty to second-degree homicide in a Palm Beach County courtroom on Tuesday as a part of a plea deal reached weeks ahead of her trial used to be set to start. She used to be arrested in 2017 for the homicide of Marlene Warren, who used to be shot in the face after opening the entrance door of her house in Wellington in 1990 and died two days later.

Keen Warren withdrew her plea of no longer guilty and adjusted her plea to guilty all through Tuesday’s courtroom look. The plea deal requires a 12-year sentence, regardless that Keen Warren’s legal professional, Greg Rosenfeld, instructed journalists out of doors the court that he expects her to be house in 10 months. If convicted, she confronted a lifestyles sentence.

Keen Warren, who has been in prison since her arrest, will obtain 2,039 days of credit towards her sentence, Judge Scott Suskauer stated whilst accepting the deal.

Rosenfeld referred to as the plea “a big win for our client” — whilst proceeding to deny her guilt in the stunning crime.

“It was an incredibly hard decision for our client, saying you did something that you didn’t do,” Rosenfeld stated. “I mean, nothing’s harder than that.”

“Our client wanted to go home,” he added.

During the listening to, prosecutors defined proof they’d have introduced ahead all through the trial that they are saying implicated Keen Warren in the deadly shooting on May 26, 1990 — together with testimony from witnesses from a neighborhood dress store that positioned her purchasing a clown dress and wig roughly two days ahead of the incident.

Palm Beach County Assistant State Attorney Reid Scott stated that witnesses inside of the house on the time of the shooting noticed “a clown come to the front door, hand Miss Warren balloons and flowers before shooting her in the face,” then power away in a white Chrysler LeBaron.

A white Chrysler LeBaron used to be discovered roughly 4 days later in a Winn-Dixie parking zone that had “trace evidence,” together with lengthy brown human hairs and what regulation enforcement officials “described as artificial orange-like fibers,” Scott stated. A seek of Keen Warren’s house on the time grew to become up an identical fibers, he stated.

At the time of the homicide, Keen Warren used to be a repossession agent who would repossess vehicles for the sufferer’s husband, who operated a used automobile and condo trade, prosecutors stated.

Keen Warren and the sufferer’s husband, Michael Warren, would pass on to personal a cafe in Tennessee and marry in 2002, prosecutors stated. The two lived in Abingdon, Virginia, till Keen Warren’s arrest in 2017.

The info of the case “would lead a jury to find her guilty of the crime,” Reid stated.

When requested by means of the pass judgement on in the event that they have been acutely aware of any bodily proof that can exonerate the defendant, Keen Warren and her legal professional each spoke back no.

Warren’s son, Joseph Ahrens, used to be at house on the time of the shooting, government stated. He instructed Judge Suskauer he agreed with the phrases of the plea deal.

“The only thing I want to say is, all through this trial, I didn’t see any remorse,” Ahrens instructed the courtroom whilst showing remotely.

“God be with her,” he added.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Unit reopened the murder investigation in 2014. After contacting witnesses and undertaking further DNA research, government stated they established possible reason linking Keen Warren to the homicide. A grand jury therefore issued a real invoice for first-degree homicide a month ahead of her arrest in September 2017.