Case of the Killer Clown

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Disprushings. On the morning of May
twenty sixth, nineteen ninety, twenty one

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year old Joe Aarons was eating breakfast
with a few of his friends and his

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mother, Marlene Wren, when somebody
approached the front door. Through a window,

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Joe could see that it was somebody
wearing a clown costume. The clown

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was just over six feet tall,
with a skinny build and wearing a curly

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or wig, a red prosthetic nose, and face paint. At first,

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Joe didn't think anything of it.
He had recently broken his leg and he

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assumed one of his loved ones or
friends was dressed as a clown and showed

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up to brighten his day. The
clown knocked on the front door of the

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house and Marlene went to open it. There was a loud bang and Marlene

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crumpled to the ground. The clown
shot her. Joe and his friends panicked,

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running to call nine one one.
Marlene was still alive, but it

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was clear that she was having difficulty
breathing and she couldn't get back on to

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her feet. Meanwhile, the clown
turned and silently walked away, leaving the

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bunch of flowers and two balloons.
Sitting outside the front door. The clown

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climbed into the driver's seats of a
white car parked outside, and very calmly

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drove away. Joe left his friends
at the house waiting for the first responders

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to arrive, while he got into
his own car and tried to chase the

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clown down. However, he'd been
slowed down by his broken leg and he

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lost sight of the other vehicle.
Back at the house, Marlene was in

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trouble. She was in critical condition, and when she was transported to the

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intensive care unit of the hospital,
her condition showed no sign of improving.

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For two days, Joe sat by
his mother's bedside. Quote I kept telling

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her I love her, he said, and that I don't want her to

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go and please don't leave me.
But Marlene's injuries were too serious, and

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eventually she was taken off life support
and she passed away. Now all that

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Joe Erins had left was the only
father figure he'd ever known, his stepdad,

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Mike Warren. Marlene had married Mike
when Joe was a toddler, and

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the two of them had started to
use car business together. However, while

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their business was successful, they had
recently started having difficulties with their marriage,

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and Marlene had confessed to Joe that
she suspected did Mike was cheating on her.

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At around that same time, Marlene
had become increasingly paranoid that Mike would

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harm her. She told Joe and
her own mom, Shirley Twing the same

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thing, that if anything happened to
her, Mike would be the culprit.

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Shirley saw that Marlene was genuinely fearful, and when she heard the news of

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her daughter's death, she immediately believed
that Mike was the killer. As well

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as his suspected affair, Mike had
a lot to gain from her death.

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Most of the assets that the couple
co owned were in Marlene's name, so

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upon her death, he would gain
all of those assets, as well as

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their properties. Investigators were also quick
to look into Mike Warren, but they

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discovered that he had an alibi.
He'd been driving with friends at the time

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the clown had arrived at Marlene's door, and multiple people were able to confirm

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his whereabouts. However, there was
one name that kept cropping up in the

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early stages of the police investigation.
All of Marlene and Mike's coworkers at their

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company, Bargain Motors, suggested that
officers needed to talk to a woman named

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Sheila Keene. Marlene had been right
about Mike's infidelity, and as it turned

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out, a lot of people knew
that Mike was having an affair with Sheila,

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who also worked at Bargain Motors.
One of their coworkers, Dell Award,

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described Mike as someone who had a
lot of compassion and a lot of

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empathy, saying that this made him
very attractive to women. Della believed that

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Sheila had quickly developed feelings for Mike
and that the affair had become serious.

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Sheila might have had a soft spot
from Mike, but she was known for

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being a very tough lady. Her
job at Bargain Motors was to repossess cars,

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and she had to carry a gun
with her throughout the day in case

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any of the car's owners became violent. When investigators questioned Sheila about her alibi,

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she told them that she had been
working when Marlene was killed, but

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she was unable to provide any details
that would verify this. There was one

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thing that was consistent in Mike and
Sheila's interviews with police. Both suspects insisted

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that their relationship was purely platonic.
However, when investigators interviewed Shela's neighbors and

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showed them pictures of Mike, the
neighbors responded that they had been under the

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impression that Mike was Sheila's husband.
It didn't help the case that the killer

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had been extremely well disguised. The
only details that the authority had about the

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clown's appearance or its height, and
the fact that Joe had noticed that the

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clown had big brown eyes underneath the
white face paint. In an effort to

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identify the clown, investigators began searching
for anybody who had recently purchased a clown

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costume or a specific type of balloon. One of the balloons the clown had

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been holding was a metallic silver color
with lettering that said You're the Greatest.

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The silver balloon was only stalked by
one one retail outlet in Florida, a

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Public's supermarket. Supermarket employees remembered that
the balloons and a bunch of flowers had

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been bought by a white woman with
brown hair and brown eyes, a description

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that matched Sheila. A woman of
the same description had also purchased a clown

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costume from a local store two days
before the crime. One of the costumes

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stores workers, Deborah Offered, had
been annoyed when the woman arrived at the

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store right before it closed asking to
buy a clown costume. Deborah had asked

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her to come back the next day, but the woman had been insistent,

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saying, no, I need something
right now. Paying with cash, she

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had purchased the clown costume, as
well as the face paint, a curly

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orange wig, and a clown nose. There was now highly suspicious circumstantial evidence

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surrounding Shila, but none of it
was enough to convict her. Meanwhile,

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the local community was terrified by the
idea that a killer clown was on the

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loose, and Joe needed closure about
what had happened to his mother. The

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next break in the case took place
four days after Marlene was murdered, when

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an abandoned car was located. It
was a Chrysler le baron the same vehicle

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that Joe had seen the clown drive
away in. Inside the car, investigators

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found synthetic orange fibers that appeared to
come from a wig, as well as

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a single long brown hair. During
a search of Sheila's apartment, they found

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the same two things, long brown
hairs and orange wig fibers. But you

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know, it was the nineteen nineties, and while the hairs were found to

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be consistent under a microscope, DNA
technology wasn't able to confirm that the hare

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definitely belonged to Shila or that the
fibers were from the same clown wig.

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So Sheila was out there free living
her best life, but there was widespread

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public belief that she was the killer. Despite always maintaining that they'd never had

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an fair Mike and Sheila entered a
public relationship. In two thousand and two,

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they got married and Sheila became Sheila
Keen Warren. For more than two

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decades, the case remained unsolved.
Then in twenty seventeen, there was an

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update. Sheila Keen Warren was arrested
for Marlene's murder after advanced DNA testing confirmed

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that the long brown hair inside the
killer clown's vehicle belonged to Sheila. In

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twenty twenty three, six years after
that, the case went to trial,

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and although Sheila continued to insist that
she had not killed Marlene Warren, she

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decided to plead guilty to second degree
murder in exchange for a plea deal that

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would result in a reduced sentence.
The deal calls for a twelve year sentence,

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but Keen Warren has already served six
years awaiting trial. Also, Florida

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law in nineteen ninety, which is
what they're going by, allowed significant time

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off for good behavior, so her
attorney expects her to be released sometime later

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this year. The attorney on the
other side, Dave Ehrenberg, gave a

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statement about the deal, saying,
Sheila Keen Warren has finally been forced to

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admit that she was the one who
dressed as a clown and took the life

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of an innocent victim. She will
be a convicted murderer for the rest of

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her days. Joe Erins had only
been twenty one years old when his mother

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was killed in front of him,
but by the time Sheila pleaded guilty,

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he was in his early fifties.
He watched the court proceedings via an online

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video feed, and when asked to
give a message to Sheila and the court,

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he simply said, may God be
with her. That's ten minute murder

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