Sheila Keen-Warren Murdered Someone While Dressed as a Clown — Where Is She Now?

When did clowns go from sources of childlike joy and laughter to harbingers of terror fear? According to the Associated Press, those who are experts in this particular area of interest are divided. David Carlyon, author, playwrightm and a former clown with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in the 1970s told the outlet this is a new phenomenon.

"There is no ancient fear of clowns," he said while tracing the fear back to pop culture like Pennywise the Clown in Stephen King's IT.

In 2016's Bad Clowns, author Benjamin Radford writes that historically, clowns have never been good, so they couldn't have turned bad. Unfortunately, examples like John Wayne Gacy's Pogo the Clown make it tough to love those painted jesters. Believe it or not, Gacy isn't the only murderous clown in history.

Let's take a look at the story of Sheila Keen-Warren, whose jealousy turned deadly, all while wearing a red foam nose.

In November 2024, Keen-Warren was released from a Florida prison 18 months after she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, reported CNN. The 61-year-old had actually been behind bars since her arrest in 2017. She had managed to escape justice for 27 years. While she was incarcerated, Keen-Warren wrote letters to her husband, Michael, whom she married in 2002.

"I'm confident my innocence will be proven," she said. "It's difficult not to have hatred for these people who have done this to me."

These letters were discovered in 2019, two years into Keen-Warren's custody, per WPBF. She was waiting for a trial that never came, and described what life was like in jail.

"Being locked in this little you (sic) 23 hours a day all alone with no one to talk to is hard," she wrote. Keen-Warren found religion and was baptized behind bars. In some of her writings, she expressed shock over the idea that anyone could think she was capable of murder.

It's a tale as old as time. A man has an affair with a woman who desperately wants him to leave his wife. Impatient, the other woman kills the wife in order to pave the way for their new life. On the morning of May 26, 1990, Marlene Warren was eating breakfast with her young son and his friends at her home in West Palm Beach, Fla., per CNN.

A white Chrysler LeBaron pulled up, and out jumped a clown carrying a handful of balloons as well as a flower arrangement. The clown knocked on the door, and when Marlene answered, she was heard saying, "How nice," before being shot in the face.

More than two decades later, authorities confirmed that the clown was Keen-Warren, the woman who had reportedly been having an affair with Marlene's husband, Michael.

Although Michael and Keen-Warren told authorities they were not having an affair, the couple married in 2002. Police long-suspected Keen-Warren was behind the murder, but they couldn't gather enough evidence to prove it — until DNA technology caught up.

In 2014, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office cold case unit reopened the investigation. They revisited the entire case, spoke with witnesses, and examined DNA evidence using new technology. Keen-Warren was arrested in 2017.