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The Killer Clown: Murder on the Doorstep revisits Florida’s most unsettling disguise-murder: the doorstep shooting of 40-year-old Marlene Warren by a clown bearing balloons and flowers on May 26, 1990, in Wellington. An orange wig, You’re the Greatest balloons, and a white Chrysler LeBaron were the only clues left behind, as per a CBS News report dated November 4, 2024.
Early suspicion focused on used-car dealer Michael Warren and coworker Sheila Keen-Warren, yet the case stalled when 1990s forensics could not clinch a match. A 2014 re-examination of hair and fiber evidence with modern DNA techniques tied the getaway car to Sheila Keen-Warren, leading to her 2017 arrest, as per a BBC News report dated November 4, 2024.
She pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2023 and was released in 2024 after credit for time served, as per a FOX News report dated November 4, 2024.
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The three-part The Killer Clown: Murder on the Doorstep docuseries premieres on SundanceTV at 10 p.m. ET/PT Thursday, June 5, with episodes 2 and 3 following on June 12 and June 19; all episodes of The Killer Clown: Murder on the Doorstep stream the same day on Sundance Now and AMC+.
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The Killer Clown: Murder on the Doorstep- one bullet to Marlene Warren, then the clown vanished, sparking decades of investigation
Forty-year-old Marlene Warren opened her Wellington, Florida, front door on May 26, 1990, expecting a get-well surprise for her son’s broken leg. Instead, a clown handed her balloons; one read "You’re the Greatest" and fired a single round into her face before driving off in a white Chrysler LeBaron.
Investigators soon learned the flowers and balloons came from a nearby Publix and that a brown-eyed woman had bought a clown costume two nights earlier. Yet in the early 1990s, forensics could not link those leads to a suspect, and the file that would later be branded The Killer Clown: Murder on the Doorstep grew cold.
Michael Warren, the victim’s husband, had an alibi, but coworkers repeatedly pointed to his employee Sheila Keen-Warren, then known as Sheila Keen, as a possible accomplice, citing an alleged affair and her habit of wearing combat boots, as per a FOX News report dated November 4, 2024.
Evidence gaps, a DNA breakthrough, and mounting suspicion
For years, detectives lacked the technology to test fibers and hair recovered from the getaway car. They also wrestled with lost files and torn evidence bags. One assistant prosecutor, Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, called the crime an assassination. As per the CBS News report dated November 4, 2024, he stated,
"This was an assassination. This was not a random act of violence."
The logjam finally shifted in 2014 when a cold-case grant funded new DNA work. Analysts matched a hair from the LeBaron to Sheila Keen-Warren, who had freely provided a sample in 1990. That result, combined with orange wig fibers found both in the car and in her apartment closet, prompted her September 2017 arrest in Virginia. Dave Aronberg told 48 Hours, as per CBS News,
“She probably never thought, in a million years, she’d be held accountable for her crimes.”
By then, she had married Michael Warren (2002) and was operating a Tennessee burger stand under the nickname Debbie, according to a BBC News report dated November 4, 2024.
A negotiated guilty plea and renewed public scrutiny
Trial delays, fading memories, and a broken chain of custody over key fibers threatened to derail the case. Facing the possibility of an acquittal, prosecutors offered a plea bargain. Sheila Keen-Warren admitted to second-degree murder in April 2023 and received a 12-year sentence, with credit for roughly 2,000 days already served.
As per Associated Press comments quoted by a BBC News report dated November 4, 2024, Aronberg said,
“Sheila Keen-Warren will always be an admitted convicted murderer and will wear that stain for every day for the rest of her life.”
She was released on November 2, 2024, after just 18 months post-plea.
The case now returns to public view in The Killer Clown: Murder on the Doorstep. The three-part docuseries premieres on SundanceTV at 10 p.m. ET/PT on June 5, with episodes 2 and 3 following on June 12 and June 19; all installments stream the same day on Sundance Now and AMC+.
As cited in the CBS News report dated November 4, 2024, Marlene’s son, Joe Ahrens, who once said about the case,
“It took over 30 years to make sense of it all.”
The series asks whether the plea truly resolves The Killer Clown: Murder on the Doorstep or merely closes one chapter in a still-unsettled story.
Stay tuned for more updates on The Killer Clown: Murder on the Doorstep.
