Latest / 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories / Case of the Killer Clown

Transcript

Case of the Killer Clown · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:08
  Disprushings. On the morning of May twenty sixth, nineteen ninety, twenty one
• 0:40
  year old Joe Aarons was eating breakfast with a few of his friends and his
• 0:44
  mother, Marlene Wren, when somebody approached the front door. Through a window,
• 0:50
  Joe could see that it was somebody wearing a clown costume. The clown
• 0:54
  was just over six feet tall, with a skinny build and wearing a curly
• 0:59
  or wig, a red prosthetic nose, and face paint. At first,
• 1:06
  Joe didn't think anything of it. He had recently broken his leg and he
• 1:08
  assumed one of his loved ones or friends was dressed as a clown and showed
• 1:14
  up to brighten his day. The clown knocked on the front door of the
• 1:17
  house and Marlene went to open it. There was a loud bang and Marlene
• 1:23
  crumpled to the ground. The clown shot her. Joe and his friends panicked,
• 1:29
  running to call nine one one. Marlene was still alive, but it
• 1:32
  was clear that she was having difficulty breathing and she couldn't get back on to
• 1:37
  her feet. Meanwhile, the clown turned and silently walked away, leaving the
• 1:42
  bunch of flowers and two balloons. Sitting outside the front door. The clown
• 1:47
  climbed into the driver's seats of a white car parked outside, and very calmly
• 1:52
  drove away. Joe left his friends at the house waiting for the first responders
• 1:57
  to arrive, while he got into his own car and tried to chase the
• 2:00
  clown down. However, he'd been slowed down by his broken leg and he
• 2:05
  lost sight of the other vehicle. Back at the house, Marlene was in
• 2:09
  trouble. She was in critical condition, and when she was transported to the
• 2:14
  intensive care unit of the hospital, her condition showed no sign of improving.
• 2:19
  For two days, Joe sat by his mother's bedside. Quote I kept telling
• 2:23
  her I love her, he said, and that I don't want her to
• 2:27
  go and please don't leave me. But Marlene's injuries were too serious, and
• 2:31
  eventually she was taken off life support and she passed away. Now all that
• 2:38
  Joe Erins had left was the only father figure he'd ever known, his stepdad,
• 2:44
  Mike Warren. Marlene had married Mike when Joe was a toddler, and
• 2:47
  the two of them had started to use car business together. However, while
• 2:52
  their business was successful, they had recently started having difficulties with their marriage,
• 2:57
  and Marlene had confessed to Joe that she suspected did Mike was cheating on her.
• 3:01
  At around that same time, Marlene had become increasingly paranoid that Mike would
• 3:07
  harm her. She told Joe and her own mom, Shirley Twing the same
• 3:12
  thing, that if anything happened to her, Mike would be the culprit.
• 3:16
  Shirley saw that Marlene was genuinely fearful, and when she heard the news of
• 3:21
  her daughter's death, she immediately believed that Mike was the killer. As well
• 3:25
  as his suspected affair, Mike had a lot to gain from her death.
• 3:30
  Most of the assets that the couple co owned were in Marlene's name, so
• 3:35
  upon her death, he would gain all of those assets, as well as
• 3:38
  their properties. Investigators were also quick to look into Mike Warren, but they
• 3:44
  discovered that he had an alibi. He'd been driving with friends at the time
• 3:47
  the clown had arrived at Marlene's door, and multiple people were able to confirm
• 3:53
  his whereabouts. However, there was one name that kept cropping up in the
• 3:57
  early stages of the police investigation. All of Marlene and Mike's coworkers at their
• 4:01
  company, Bargain Motors, suggested that officers needed to talk to a woman named
• 4:08
  Sheila Keene. Marlene had been right about Mike's infidelity, and as it turned
• 4:14
  out, a lot of people knew that Mike was having an affair with Sheila,
• 4:17
  who also worked at Bargain Motors. One of their coworkers, Dell Award,
• 4:23
  described Mike as someone who had a lot of compassion and a lot of
• 4:26
  empathy, saying that this made him very attractive to women. Della believed that
• 4:31
  Sheila had quickly developed feelings for Mike and that the affair had become serious.
• 4:36
  Sheila might have had a soft spot from Mike, but she was known for
• 4:41
  being a very tough lady. Her job at Bargain Motors was to repossess cars,
• 4:46
  and she had to carry a gun with her throughout the day in case
• 4:49
  any of the car's owners became violent. When investigators questioned Sheila about her alibi,
• 4:56
  she told them that she had been working when Marlene was killed, but
• 4:59
  she was unable to provide any details that would verify this. There was one
• 5:03
  thing that was consistent in Mike and Sheila's interviews with police. Both suspects insisted
• 5:11
  that their relationship was purely platonic. However, when investigators interviewed Shela's neighbors and
• 5:16
  showed them pictures of Mike, the neighbors responded that they had been under the
• 5:20
  impression that Mike was Sheila's husband. It didn't help the case that the killer
• 5:27
  had been extremely well disguised. The only details that the authority had about the
• 5:30
  clown's appearance or its height, and the fact that Joe had noticed that the
• 5:35
  clown had big brown eyes underneath the white face paint. In an effort to
• 5:41
  identify the clown, investigators began searching for anybody who had recently purchased a clown
• 5:46
  costume or a specific type of balloon. One of the balloons the clown had
• 5:50
  been holding was a metallic silver color with lettering that said You're the Greatest.
• 5:57
  The silver balloon was only stalked by one one retail outlet in Florida, a
• 6:01
  Public's supermarket. Supermarket employees remembered that the balloons and a bunch of flowers had
• 6:08
  been bought by a white woman with brown hair and brown eyes, a description
• 6:13
  that matched Sheila. A woman of the same description had also purchased a clown
• 6:16
  costume from a local store two days before the crime. One of the costumes
• 6:23
  stores workers, Deborah Offered, had been annoyed when the woman arrived at the
• 6:27
  store right before it closed asking to buy a clown costume. Deborah had asked
• 6:31
  her to come back the next day, but the woman had been insistent,
• 6:35
  saying, no, I need something right now. Paying with cash, she
• 6:40
  had purchased the clown costume, as well as the face paint, a curly
• 6:44
  orange wig, and a clown nose. There was now highly suspicious circumstantial evidence
• 6:49
  surrounding Shila, but none of it was enough to convict her. Meanwhile,
• 6:55
  the local community was terrified by the idea that a killer clown was on the
• 7:00
  loose, and Joe needed closure about what had happened to his mother. The
• 7:04
  next break in the case took place four days after Marlene was murdered, when
• 7:09
  an abandoned car was located. It was a Chrysler le baron the same vehicle
• 7:14
  that Joe had seen the clown drive away in. Inside the car, investigators
• 7:18
  found synthetic orange fibers that appeared to come from a wig, as well as
• 7:24
  a single long brown hair. During a search of Sheila's apartment, they found
• 7:29
  the same two things, long brown hairs and orange wig fibers. But you
• 7:34
  know, it was the nineteen nineties, and while the hairs were found to
• 7:39
  be consistent under a microscope, DNA technology wasn't able to confirm that the hare
• 7:44
  definitely belonged to Shila or that the fibers were from the same clown wig.
• 7:48
  So Sheila was out there free living her best life, but there was widespread
• 7:54
  public belief that she was the killer. Despite always maintaining that they'd never had
• 7:59
  an fair Mike and Sheila entered a public relationship. In two thousand and two,
• 8:05
  they got married and Sheila became Sheila Keen Warren. For more than two
• 8:11
  decades, the case remained unsolved. Then in twenty seventeen, there was an
• 8:16
  update. Sheila Keen Warren was arrested for Marlene's murder after advanced DNA testing confirmed
• 8:22
  that the long brown hair inside the killer clown's vehicle belonged to Sheila. In
• 8:30
  twenty twenty three, six years after that, the case went to trial,
• 8:33
  and although Sheila continued to insist that she had not killed Marlene Warren, she
• 8:39
  decided to plead guilty to second degree murder in exchange for a plea deal that
• 8:43
  would result in a reduced sentence. The deal calls for a twelve year sentence,
• 8:48
  but Keen Warren has already served six years awaiting trial. Also, Florida
• 8:54
  law in nineteen ninety, which is what they're going by, allowed significant time
• 8:58
  off for good behavior, so her attorney expects her to be released sometime later
• 9:03
  this year. The attorney on the other side, Dave Ehrenberg, gave a
• 9:07
  statement about the deal, saying, Sheila Keen Warren has finally been forced to
• 9:11
  admit that she was the one who dressed as a clown and took the life
• 9:16
  of an innocent victim. She will be a convicted murderer for the rest of
• 9:20
  her days. Joe Erins had only been twenty one years old when his mother
• 9:24
  was killed in front of him, but by the time Sheila pleaded guilty,
• 9:28
  he was in his early fifties. He watched the court proceedings via an online
• 9:33
  video feed, and when asked to give a message to Sheila and the court,
• 9:37
  he simply said, may God be with her. That's ten minute murder
• 9:48
  for today. Brief and bingeable true crime. My name is Joe and I'm
• 9:54
  the host. Thank you for listening. If you're brand new to listening to
• 9:56
  the podcast, make sure you hit subscribe before you move on to the next
• 10:01
  episode. That's going to more easily help you catch up on all of the
• 10:03
  back episodes and not miss any of the new episodes when they come out.
• 10:07
  Also, connect with me on social media Facebook and Instagram is where I post
• 10:11
  the photos that go along with the stories that you hear about, and it's
• 10:15
  not gross and graphic stuff though. Also, for as long as the government
• 10:18
  allows, apparently, you can follow ten Minute Murder on TikTok. I do
• 10:24
  put content there that I don't put in other places, So if you want
• 10:26
  to check that out, go to TikTok. Type in ten minute Murder and
• 10:31
  it's going to be right there. If you like this episode, you like
• 10:33
  the podcast, and there's a place that you're listening that allows ratings and reviews,
• 10:37
  please do that. Apple, Spotify, Audible, all those places,
• 10:41
  any of those places, your positive feedback is very much appreciated. For all
• 10:46
  things related to the podcast, you can go to ten minute Murder dot com.
• 10:50
  Thank you for listening. If you're on to the next one, I'll
• 10:52
  see you there. Bye.