A woman accused of dressing up like a clown in 1990 and fatally shooting her lover’s wife has been booked into a Florida jail and told she faces the death penalty.
State Attorney Dave Aronberg issued a statement Wednesday saying he will seek the death penalty against 54-year-old Sheila Keen Warren, who was ordered held without bond at a court hearing.
Warren was booked into a jail on Tuesday after being extradited from Abingdon, Virginia, where she had lived with her husband Michael Warren for years.
She is accused of dressing up like a clown in 1990 and fatally shooting Warren’s then wife.
On Wednesday morning Warren made her first court appearance in Palm Beach County.
Sheila Keen Warren, appearing in both pictures, the woman accused of being the killer clown in a 27-year-old murder case, is now in Palm Beach County to face prosecution
Sheila Keen Warren faced a judge Wednesday morning, and the state is seeking the death penalty Keen Warren faces a charge of first degree murder
Keen Warren was booked into Palm Beach County Jail shortly after 9 p.m. Tuesday, pictured. She’s charged with first-degree murder, and prosecutors are expected to announce quickly whether they intend to seek the death penalty
Keen-Warren was arrested for the clown murder of Marlene Warren in May 1990
WPTV reports a judge set no bond in the case and ordered her to have no contact with the victim’s son.
Warren was arrested last month after a Florida grand jury indicted her on a first-degree murder charge.
Officials say Marlene Warren, 40, was shot in the face by a clown delivering carnations and balloons.
Authorities say she was confronted by a brown-eyed woman carrying balloons and wearing a clown costume with an orange wig on May 26, 1990.
Sheila Keen Warren (pictured left in her driver’s license) had been a suspect for the murder of Marlene Warren (right) early on but there was never enough evidence to charge her before
Sheila Keen Warren, 54, (seen in her booking shot last week) was arrested without incident on a charge of first-degree murder with use of a firearm in the 1990 killing of Marlene Warren, 40, in Washington County, Virginia
On the balloons, one of them said ‘You’re the greatest!’ while the other had Snow White painted on it, according to news coverage at the time.
‘This is the strangest thing I’ve seen in all my 19 years in law enforcement,’ Bob Ferrell, then a spokesman for the Palm Beach County sheriff’s office, told the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel newspaper the day after the murder.
She went to the door, and there was somebody wearing a clown suit and a clown mask.
‘As she went to take the flowers and balloons, the clown shot her. As far as I know, nothing was said.’
Investigators say a new examination of DNA gave them what they needed to arrest her.
Attorney Wayne Austin said last month that Warren is looking forward to having her day in court.
Marlene Warren – the suspect’s husband’s first wife – was shot in the face when she answered the front door of her home in Wellington, Florida. Pictured above the scene at the time in 1990
Michael Warren (right), Marlene’s husband at the time, was initially believed to be the suspect as friends and family said that the two had been having marital problems. As early as four months after the murder, detectives were informed of the affair between Michael and Sheila
Warren had been a suspect for the murder early on but there was never enough evidence to charge her but it all changed after the cold case was reopened in 2014, when new technology allowed for prosecutors to retest DNA evidence.
Michael Warren, her husband, was initially believed to be the suspect as friends and family said that the two had been having marital problems.
In 1992, he was sentenced to prison on 43 counts of odometer tampering, grand theft and racketeering after digging done by investigators for the murder showed foul play at his car rental agency, according to The Palm Beach Post at the time.
Paramedics are pictured taking Marlene Warren to an ambulance in this photograph provided by the Sun Sentinel
Michael served three years in prison and then seemingly vanished in 1997 but in 2002, he resurfaced, marrying Sheila Keen. She had worked for Michel repossessing cars.
Michael Warren was present when his wife was arrested.
As early as four months after the murder, detectives were informed of the affair between Michael and Sheila.
Warren had even gone as far to pay for Keen’s rent after she separated from her first husband.
The duo were said to be running a restaurant in Tennessee when Sheila was arrested.
‘This is the strangest thing I’ve seen in all my 19 years in law enforcement,’ Bob Ferrell, then a spokesman for the Palm Beach County sheriff’s office, told the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel newspaper the day after the murder