Sheila Keen-Warren has admitted what authorities have suspected for more than 30 years: She was the person who, dressed as a clown and holding flowers and balloons, fatally shot a Florida woman on her doorstep in 1990. Keen-Warren pleaded guilty Tuesday to the second-degree murder of Marlene Warren and was sentenced to 12 years in prison, with credit for time served since her arrest in 2017, the Palm Beach Post reports. Under sentencing guidelines in place at the time of the murder and with time off for good behavior, Keen-Warren could be released in around 10 months, according to defense attorney Greg Rosenfeld.
Without the plea deal, Keen-Warren, 59, would have faced a trial for first-degree murder. Rosenfeld, who claimed last year that his client was innocent and ready for her day in court, said she changed her plea because Florida wanted to execute her, reports WPTV. "They wanted to murder our client, and now she's going home in 10 months," he said. Keen-Warren, who had been having an affair with the victim's husband, had long been a suspect in the murder but she wasn't arrested until 27 years later when evidence was retested after advances in DNA technology. She married Marlene Warren's husband, Michael Warren, in 2002 and they were together when she was arrested.
Marlene Warren, 40, had just finished breakfast with her 22-year-old son and his friends when she answered the door to the killer clown on May 26, 1990, authorities say. Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg told WPTV that a big factor in the decision to seek a plea deal was the deaths of key witnesses. Keen-Warren "has finally been forced to admit that she was the one who dressed as a clown and took the life of an innocent victim," Aronberg said. "She will be a convicted murderer for the rest of her days." (More Florida stories.)
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