Episode 52: Killer Clown at the Door: The Murder of Marlene Warren

Today we are flipping open our true crime case files to one that might make those among you with Coulrophobia squirm in your seats. A mother in Florida who answers the door to a bouquet of flowers and balloon courtesy of a red-nosed, big-shoed suitor is suddenly gunned down in broad daylight. The case goes cold for many years before a breakthrough and some neon orange hair finally points a finger at the killer. Today on The Odder, we are talking about the murder of Marlene Warren and the wild way her killer almost got away with it. Was that your doorbell? Better not answer it and let’s go!

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Music Credit
"Cryptic Sorrow" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

"Earnest" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

"Morning" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Main Theme:
"Dream Catcher" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Transcript

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1. Hello and welcome to The Odder Podcast. I’m your host Madison Paige and today we are flipping open our true crime case files to one that might make those among you with Coulrophobia squirm in your seats. A mother in Florida who answers the door to a bouquet of flowers and balloon coquesty of a red-nosed, big-shoed suitor is suddenly gunned down in broad daylight. The case goes cold for many years before a breakthrough and some neon orange hair finally points a finger at the killer. Today on The Odder, we are talking about the murder of Marlene Warren and the wild way her killer almost got away with it. Was that your doorbell? Better not answer it and let’s go!
2. Hey there Odders, how are we all doing on this fine and lovely day? I mean I think it’s lovely, I don’t know when you guys are listening to this. Anyway, how did we enjoy that episode about the south pole murder of Rodney Marks? Did we also enjoy the little comeback of the Oddee update? It has certainly been awhile since we had one of those. if you really enjoyed it or if you didn’t, please leave a rating and review, they really do help! For the returning listeners, welcome back, for the new listeners, welcome welcome to The Odder podcast where we are a trail mix of all things unknown, unsolved, and just plain odd. If you have an idea for an episode you think would be fun, good news! I do listener requests so if you want your own personalized episode, you can send me an email at theodderpod@gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you and know what you want to hear from me! I kind of want to back track for a second and just say really quickly that I can’t believe we have finally made it past 50 episodes! Yay, go team! Go odders! We did it! We officially passed 50 episodes with our glide along the mothman so I wanted to say a quick thank you to all those who have been with us from the beginning, all those who joined along the way, and those who are new. We thank you, we love you, and we look forward to many many more episodes for your listening pleasure. And without further ado, today we are looking at a very interesting murder today involving clown makeup, a convertible, and a love triangle that will leave one person dead and one behind bars. Let’s talk about the murder of Marlene Warren.
3. On May 26th, 1990, 40 year old Marlene Warren was in her Palm Beach, Florida home finishing up breakfast with her son and some of his friends. The area they lived in was called the Arrow Club. This was a well-to-do suburbia and it had gained this name because of the private airstrip in the back of the neighborhood where residents could land their private planes. Marlene and her husband Mike had been married for twenty years and maintained a comfortable life with several businesses including a used car dealership called Bargain Motors, some rental properties, and Mike even owned a few race horses. 
4. Marlene had been married previously when she was pretty young. She had done so in an effort to avoid having to move around with her family due to her fathers work in the air force. Her first marriage had resulted in two sons, Joe and Johnny, but the marriage did not last and she would later meet and marry Mike when the boys were still kids. For the majority of their lives, they had looked to him as a father figure. 
5. Tragedy had struck the family, two years earlier, when Johnny had died in a car accident. Another recent accident had left Joe confined to a bulky leg cast but Mother, son, and some friends were enjoying themselves on the sunny morning until the ringing of the doorbell at 11 am sent Marlene away from the breakfast table. 
6. When she opened the door, Marlene was met with the sight of a clown dressed in billowing costume with an orange wig and big white gloves. The clown had a face of white makeup with a red smile painted on and a big red nose. It handed a bouquet of carnations and two balloons to Marlene. One of the Balloons stated “You’re the Greatest!” and the other depicted Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. 
7. “Oh, how pretty” Marlene was heard to remark by those still in the kitchen. Marlene may have thought the clown was a telegram sent from her husband who was away at the time. The two had been having some difficulties and he had been especially distant. Maybe he was trying to make it up to her. 
8. Unfortunately, any thought of this was quickly pushed away. As the clown drew a gun and point blank shot Marlene in the face. 
9. Joe had thought what he heard was a balloon popping until he saw his mother collapse. Managing on the cast as well as he could, he and his friends rushed over and attempted to help her as the clown calmly turned and began to slowly walk away. Joe, realizing what had happened tried to chase the clown down but his injury prevented him from catching the perpetrator. 
10. The clown continued an eerie, calm walk to a white Chrysler LeBaron convertible parked nearby. At one point, the clown even turned and looked back at Joe in his attempts to catch them. Joe stated that he looked them in the eye and he remembered they were brown. Before continuing on, climbing into the LeBaron and methodically driving away. 
11. A friend gathered up Joe and the two got in a car and attempted to chase after the clown in their own vehicle but were unable to locate the car again. 
12. Neighbors had already called the police and when they arrived Joe and his friends did their best to describe the clown to them as his mother was loaded into an ambulance to be taken to the hospital. They described the shooter as having an orange wig, all white makeup, a big red clown nose, wearing a clown costume, with brown eyes and regular high top shoes. They also reported that they believed it to be a man. 
13. Marlene was transported to the hospital and immediately put on life support. She had a bullet lodged in her sternum and not much could be done to save her. 
14. Police immediately began to investigate as you can imagine, it is not common that they are called to the scene to investigate the shooting of someone at the hands of a clown. They begin with the obvious suspect; the husband. This was bolstered by the fact that according to Marlene’s mom, Shirley, shortly before the shooting, she had confided to her that if anything were to happen to her, Mike had done it. Shirley had been trying to talk Marlene into moving in with her and Marlene’s father but this was not yet the case. 
15. If you have ever watched any true crime show, you know the old saying, if someone dies, the first suspect is the spouse. Mike had not been present at the house and since Joe thought the clown might have been a man, police quickly searched him out. They found him miles away on a trip. He had apparently been traveling with friends to a Miami racetrack at the time of the shooting. It was quickly determined it was not possible for him to commit the crime, clean up, and cover the necessary distance. 
16. This left them back to square one. The next place they turned to was the available evidence left behind by the attacker. 
17. They started by attempting to track down the stores where the balloons, flowers, and the clown costumes could have been purchased. They tracked down a costume store where a sales woman named Deborah Offerman reported a strange incident with a customer. 
18. Deborah reported that a woman had come into the store recently demanding to buy a clown costume. When Deborah asked if she could come back tomorrow since the store was closing, The woman refused and stated “No, I really need this tonight. I need to get a costume tonight”. Deborah stated the woman was so insistent that she went ahead and checked her out for a clown costume, an orange wig, a red nose, and some white makeup. They took a description of the woman and then moved on to follow up on the flowers and balloons. 
19. They were able to narrow this down because the balloon which the clown had presented and stated “You’re the Greatest!” was only available at nearby Publix grocery stores. They canvased the stores until they found the exact one that sold the two balloons and bouquet of carnations to a woman who matched the same description of the customer who bought a clown costume from Deborah Offerman. The employees at the store provided the investigators with a copy of the receipt showing the purchase had been made at 9:22 am on the morning of the shooting which is roughly an hour and a half before the incident. 
20. It is quickly becoming apparent that it was a woman who not only badgered the costume store employee into selling her a clown ensemble but also collected the same flowers and balloons that were handed to Marlene right before she was shot. And thanks to some tip offs by family and friends, the police already had an idea of exactly who this woman might be. 
21. Mike and Marlene’s marriage had been in rocky waters for a bit before the incident. In fact, since the death of Johnny, Marlene had told her mother Shirley who lived in vegas at the time that Mike was hardly home anymore. After the shooting, it was quickly revealed to police that the reason for Mike’s absence was the possibility of an affair. 
22. Apparently Mike was suspected of sleeping with Sheila Keen, a 26 year old woman who worked for him as a repossession agent at Bargain Motors. Keen had a son from a previous marriage and had taken the job because she was quite “perfect for it” as she was aggressive, fearless, and known to carry a 38 caliber pistol that she had taken with her in her divorce for protection. Employees of Bargain Motors apparently regarded the affair between Sheila and Mike as an open secret and had stumbled upon the pair in compromising entanglements at the office on more than one occasion. 
23. The police began to take a hard look at Sheila Keen as a possible suspect. 
24. Sheila Keen lived only a half a mile away from the Publix where the balloons and flowers were purchased, she also matched the description of the woman given by both the costume store and grocery store employees. 
25. Before the police head over to go talk to her however, the case takes a turn as on May 28th, two days following the shooting, Marlene Warren is taken off life support and passes away with her son, husband and parents present. This was especially upsetting for her mother who did not feel Mike should have been there in the first place. 
26. The shooting case has just been upgraded into a murder investigation. 
27. When the bullet is removed from Marlene’s spinal cord, further speculation is thrown on Sheila Keen as it is determined to either be from a 38 pistol, which is the gun she is known to carry around in her repossession job, or a 357 magnum. 
28. Police go to Sheila’s home to speak to her and when they ask about an alibi, she states that she was out all morning working on the day of Marlene’s shooting. The police probed further asking about the specifics behind the repossessions and she suddenly couldn’t remember any of the details of the cars she was reported to have repossessed that day. When they asked to see her 38, she brushed them off and claimed to have lost that gun a month before the shooting. She also denied any kind of relationship with Mike and stated they were nothing more than friends. 
29. The lady doth protest too much however as her neighbors were quick to grab the police and let them know that they had seen Mike coming and going from her home so often that they assumed he was her husband. 
30.  On May 30th, four days after the shooting of Marlene Warren, the Crystler LeBaron was finally located. It was found abandoned in a parking lot of a Winn Dixie, another chain of grocery stores, and when police checked the registration they found that it had actually been stolen from a payless car rental. 
31. And the story of this particular theft actually ties back into the case in an almost spooky way. 
32. You see, Mike Warren was not the most honest of business men. He was known to be a bit shady and underhanded. Payless Car Rental Company was a competitor of his and had run an ad for their company specifically emphasizing their name as “PAYLESS” well Mike followed up with an ad for Bargain Motors that looked suspiciously similar to the Payless ad and featured the words Pay Less with a very tiny space in between. A space so small that Payless sued him claimed that the word choice and spacing was purposeful and deceitful in order to trick people into calling Bargain Motors when they were actually trying to reach Payless. 
33. This particular Crystler LeBaron was rented by a couple from Payless. When they wanted to return the vehicle, they called what they thought was the correct company to inquire how. However, Mike’s ad scheme worked and the couple accidentally called Bargain Motors instead. Whoever they talked to told them to leave the car on the street with the keys in the visor. The couple thought this was odd but did as they were told. The car was then stolen. 
34. Now who would we know who works at Bargain Motors who could take advantage of an obvious wrong call to steal a car that belongs to a competitor in order to use it in a murder plot? 
35. Sheila Keen. 
36. Inside of the LeBaron, Police found strands of long brown hair as well as orange fibers resembling those of a clown wig. 
37. Sheila Keen has long brown hair. 
38. The Winn Dixie was also located only 9 miles from her apartment complex. 
39. Using this evidence, the police petitioned the court for a search warrant of Sheila’s apartment and were granted one. Inside her home, they took samples of her hair and found more orange fibers consistent with those found in the LEbaron on clothing present in the apartment. 
40. Now you might be hearing all this and think, ah ha! They got her! But as damning as this all sounds to us, unfortunately, it is a lot of circumstantial evidence. DNA testing was not advanced enough to carry any weight at the time so the hairs in the car couldn't be compared to the ones found in Sheila's apartment. 
41. The risk of taking it to court only for it to be dismissed and Sheila to walk was too much of a risk for investigators to take. 
42. They did execute a search warrant on Bargain Motors and while they found nothing their to help Marlene Warrens case, they did end up arresting and charging Mike for Racketeering, Grand Theft Auto, Odometer Clearing, and Insurance Fraud which landed him in the slammer for a total of four years. 
43. Marlene Warren's case unfortunately was relegated to the shelves of cold cases for several years. 
44. Sheila would take her son and move away from Florida before taking a quick trip to Vegas in 2002 to marry to newly released Mike Warren who she had sworn up, down, and forward that she had never been more than friends with. The couple then settled down in Virginia and opened a fast food restaurant right across the border in Tennessee called the Purple Cow. 
45. Employees at the restaurant stated that the couple were difficult to work for as they constantly complained and ridiculed their employees. Sheila was also going by the name Debbie at this time as she claimed that that was what her dad had called her when she was younger. She had also dyed her hair blonde. 
46. A popular rumor around the Purple Cow was to be careful around Mike because Debbie had killed his previous wife dressed as a clown. The staff would dress up for halloween at the restaurant every year and one year “Debbie” even dressed up like a clown. 
47. Yes, there is a picture and I will be posting it. 
48. Mike and Sheila-Debbie may have felt nice and safe in their space in Tennessee thinking that the death of his first wife had gotten well and truly brushed under the rug but in 2013, prosecutor Reid Scott dragged it back out with a revisit to the forensic evidence of the case. Science had finally come far enough to test the hair using mitochondrial DNA analysis. This specific form of testing is typically conducted on older samples. 
49. The case had gone cold for 30 years but finally they were able to prove that the hairs found in the Chrysler LeBaron driven by the Clown that shot Marlene Warren were a match to the hair taken from the apartment of Sheila Keen. 
50. In 2016, Mike and Debbie sold the Purple Cow and retired to their home in Tennessee. In September of 2017, the police set up a roadblock and arrested Sheila “Debbie” Keen Warren as they did not think she would go willingly. 
51. When the couple pulled up the roadblock and she handed her license over to the police officer, he politely asked her to step out of the vehicle and placed her under arrest for the murder of Marlene Warren. 
52. Sheila is booked into Virginia and then Extradited back to Florida in October of 2017. Mike was not charged with anything and told investigators “ If I thought she had anything to do with this, I wouldn’t have been with her” 
53. Sheila waited in jail for her trial to begin for five years. This was largely due to Covid continuously pushing it back .She was not idle during her time though. She got baptized and found god, wrote letters to her mother and Mike proclaiming her innocence and what not. She got set up with an attorney named Greg Rosenfeld who questioned the validity of the DNA evidence and analysis given that the hairs had remained in storage for so long. He also brought up that initial reports from witnesses of the shooting claimed the clown to be a man. 
54. He stated “"A clown costume does not disguise your gender. You can tell if a clown's a man or a woman, even with makeup on,"
55. However, his complaints were overwhelmed by the amount of evidence against Sheila and although Rosenfeld swore they would fight this, a few weeks before trial was set to begin, a plea deal with the prosecution was announced. 
56. In the plea agreement Sheila ``Debbie” Keen Warren pleads guilty to the charges of Murder in exchange for a 12 year sentence rather than the likelihood of the life sentence she would have earned if she faced a jury. This plea deal was made with the approval of her surviving son Joe who stated that he accepted the conditions but never saw any remorse from Keen Warren. 
57. And I’ll be honest, every picture I found of her, she is smiling. 
58. Sheila’s five and a half years in custody do count towards her sentence and with good behavior, it is believed she will be released on September 18th, 2025. 
59. Mike Warren was never charged with any part of Marlene’s shooting although speculation about his influence has run rampant in online forums. The clown wig, costume, and gun was never found. 
60. Well, that’s all for this episode. So what do you think? Who do you think was the mastermind behind Marlene’s death? Do you think the evidence should have been enough before DNA testing? Would you answer the door to a clown? Let us know what you think on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and leave a review. The Odder Pod is also on TikTok. Come follow us there! Have a suggestion for a show? Send me an email at theodderpod@gmail.com with your request and whether you’d like me to mention your name, your alias, or nothing at all. Remember this is The Odder Side so give me something cool, creepy, or confusing to deep dive for you. If you liked the show, leave us a review! They really help! Coulrophobia is the fear of clowns by the way. The Odder Podcast posts every other Thursday. Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time on The Odder side.