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

• On Memorial Day weekend in 1990, Marlene Warren opened her door to what she thought was a delivery of flowers and balloons by a clown

• 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, 40, had gotten up early to make breakfast for Joe, then 21 years old and recovering from a broken leg, and a trio of friends who had stayed overnight, as the pals watched TV in the living room.

Unexpectedly, at 10:45 a.m., a knock came at the front door. Marlene, who rushed to answer it, found what appeared to be a delivery person dressed as a clown on the porch, carrying balloons and a basket of flowers.

As chance would have it, Marlene loved clowns—since she was a little girl, she had been fascinated by their expressive faces. Even as an adult she liked to paint pictures of them to hang on the walls of the house.

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 of People Magazine Investigates airing on Investigation Discovery on Monday, Nov. 4, at 9/8c and streaming on Max. (An exclusive clip is shown below.)

The episode details the long pursuit of an elusive killer by dogged Palm Beach County, Fla., investigators, which resulted in the arrest in 2017 of a suspect with a surprising connection to the victim. Our goal in this office is to do justice,” Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg told People that year. “We are going to do justice for Marlene Warren.”

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. 

Police began following leads, including a report of a Chrysler LeBaron convertible, like the one Joe said he saw driving away from the murder scene, parked outside a nearby grocery store. Inside the car, detectives gathered strands of human hair—as well as orange synthetic hair.

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.

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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.

Questioned by police, Sheila and Michael denied having an affair and any connection to Marlene’s death. And with little evidence to rely on, no arrests were made—the case went cold.

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.

They wed in Las Vegas in 2002, after Michael served three years in prison for grand theft, racketeering and tampering with the odometers of the cars he sold at his dealership. He and Sheila—who now went by the name Debbie—moved to Abingdon, Va. They owned a fast-food restaurant and hosted get-togethers at the dock where they moored their pontoon boat. “They were always outgoing,” says neighbor Brook Blevins.

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. 

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 of People Magazine Investigates, airs on Investigation Discovery on Monday, Nov. 4, at 9/8c and streams on Max.