Florida Mom Marlene Warren Loved Clowns. But the One Who Knocked on Her Door Was a Killer

Mar. 15, 2025

Marlene Warren and one of her clown paintings.Photo:Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office

Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office

• Warren was shot and killed and police spent years searching for justice

• In 2017, Warren’s son, Joe Ahrens, was shocked to learn who it was who pulled the trigger that fateful morning

Looking back at his youth in Wellington, Fla., where his stepdad, Michael Warren, ran a used-car dealership, while his mom, Marlene, managed rental properties and took care of her two sons—Joe Ahrens remembers happy days when his mother went out of her way to make even routine chores seem like fun.

“As kids, when we had to clean the house, she would turn the radio on and just get us in the groove,” recalls Joe, now 56. “She had that way about her to see the positive in everything.”The morning of May 26, 1990, the first day of Memorial Day weekend, started like any other Saturday in the family’s affluent South Florida community, where large homes were clustered around a private airport.

Marlene Warren’s front door.Palm Beach County Sheriff’s office

Palm Beach County Sheriff’s office

But this was no entertainer: As Joe watched horrified from the couch, the clown pulled out a gun and shot his mother in the face, then walked to a car in the driveway and fled. Joe recalls dialing 911 in a desperate state. “It happened so fast, and I was so much in shock and confused. Like, why? I had no idea who it could be.”Nor could Joe have imagined that the wait for answers about the shocking crime that upended his life and fractured his family would last nearly three decades. His questions—who killed his mother and why?—are the focus of “Sex. Clowns. Murder,” the upcoming episode ofPeople Magazine Investigatesairing on Investigation Discovery on Monday, Nov. 4, at 9/8c and streaming on Max. (An exclusive clip is shown below.)

Hunting for Clues

In the private Wellington community known as the Aero Club, there had been little crime to speak of, says Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw. So when Marlene was shot in the foyer of her five-bedroom home in 1990, the pressure was on to find her killer.

Based on eyewitness reports that Marlene’s assailant was dressed as a clown, investigators visited costume shops in the area, hoping to find one that had recently sold or rented out a clown outfit. In a strip shopping center in West Palm Beach they hit potential pay dirt when a staffer at a shop handed over a receipt from a woman who bought a full clown costume and a colorful wig just days before.

Unknown to Marlene, the woman in question was then-26-year-old Sheila Keen, a business associate of Marlene’s husband, Michael, with whom she was reportedly having an affair, says State Attorney Aronberg.Investigators immediately became suspicious of Michael—whom Marlene, a mother of two boys from a previous relationship, had married in 1972—and focused on the couple’s troubled relationship. Joe, who considered his stepdad a loving father figure, told authorities that just a week earlier his mother had confided in him that Michael had ceased to “care anymore” after the sudden death of her 22-year-old son John in 1988. Unhappy in the marriage, she wanted to leave, Joe said.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up forPEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletterfor breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.With most of the couple’s rental properties registered in Marlene’s name, Michael stood to benefit from her death, investigators claimed. “He was the sole beneficiary of all of their assets,” says Palm Beach County Assistant State Attorney Aleathea McRoberts.

A New Life for Michael and Sheila

“I started doing roofing work and carpentry,” says Joe. “But I got into drugs and alcohol. Every year I would call the sheriff’s department drunk and belligerent, yelling and screaming. I wanted something to happen. I was reaching out for help, but I wasn’t getting it.” As Joe struggled with his mother’s death, Michael and Sheila built a life together beyond the gaze of their family in Florida.

Mike Warren and wife Sheila.

While Michael, now 72, and Sheila, now 61, seemed to put the darkness of their Florida lives behind them, police received a federal grant to crack cold cases with new DNA technology and in 2014 decided to reopen the investigation into Marlene’s death. Using a high-powered microscope, a scientist found orange fibers matching those found in the car and in Sheila’s apartment on a ribbon attached to a balloon. In September 2017 Sheila was arrested in Virginia on suspicion of first-degree murder. She was on her way home from visiting her mother.

Sheila Keen Warren.Lannis Waters/The Palm Beach Post via ZUMA Wire

Lannis Waters/The Palm Beach Post via ZUMA Wire

Initially Sheila pleaded not guilty. Blevins checked in on Michael—who was out of town on the day Marlene was murdered and has never been charged with Marlene’s death—and asked how Sheila was handling being at the center of a criminal case. “He said, ‘She’s doing alright. She knows she’s going to be exonerated,” Blevins recalls. But on April 25, 2023, Sheila pleaded guilty to Marlene’s murder.Sentenced to 12 years in prison, she is expected to be released in January 2025. Joe, meanwhile, says 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.”

“Sex. Clowns. Murder,” the upcoming episode ofPeople Magazine Investigates, airs on Investigation Discovery on Monday, Nov. 4, at 9/8c and streams on Max.

source: people.com