woman objecting He was found guilty of dressing as a clown and killing his wife A man she later married was released from prison, according to Florida Department of Corrections records.

Sheila Keen-Warren, 61, was released Saturday, Nov. 2, after serving nearly 18 months, according to state records. He filed the second-degree murder plea in April 2023, 30 years after investigators found Marlene Warren shot at her home at the Wellington Aero Club near West Palm Beach, Florida.

The fatal shooting on May 26, 1990 is one of Palm Beach County’s highlights. most famous murder casesattracts international attention. Authorities said Warren opened the door and was greeted by Keen-Warren, who was dressed in a clown suit and carrying balloons, flowers and a gun.

Keen-Warren was arrested at his Virginia home in 2017, nearly three decades after investigators brought forward new evidence linking him to the crime. In return for his confession, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison, in return for the five and a half years he spent in prison while awaiting trial.

Although Keen-Warren accepted the plea, he maintained his innocence; His lawyer said at the time that he chose to accept the state’s offer rather than risk a potential life sentence if the case went to trial.

“We are absolutely thrilled that Ms. Keen-Warren has been released from prison and returned to her family,” her attorney Greg Rosenfeld said in a statement to The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Network. he said. “As we have stated from the beginning, he did not commit this crime.”

But Palm Beach County State’s Attorney Dave Aronberg said Keen-Warren will forever be linked to the murder of Marlene Warren.

“Sheila Keen-Warren will always be an admitted murderer, and she will carry that stain every day for the rest of her life,” he said in a statement to The Post.

Rosenfeld told The Post in 2023 that Keen-Warren would likely spend about 16 months in prison, citing timing of earnings and Florida sentencing laws that existed at the time of Marlene Warren’s murder.

Time-saving encourages good behavior among inmates and promises a shortened sentence for each month a person remains in prison without incident. Current state law requires people to serve at least 85% of their sentence, which limits the amount of earnings a person can make, but Keen-Warren was not subject to laws enacted after the crime.

New evidence links Sheila Keen-Warren to 1990 Wellington ‘clown’ murder, investigators say

Investigators suspected Keen-Warren of murder early on, and co-workers tipped her off to having an affair with Marlene Warren’s husband, Michael. Keen-Warren worked at a car dealership owned by Michael Warren and handled rental properties owned by Michael and Marlene.

She denied rumors that she was having an affair with Michael but married him years later. The couple was living in Virginia at the time of Keen-Warren’s arrest.

Keen-Warren was officially linked to the murder of Marlene Warren after a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office detective who took over the case in 2013 discovered a previously unseen 6- to 8-inch fiber among crime scene evidence. Prosecutors later argued the fiber linked Keen-Warren to the murder.

The murder was the subject of ABC’s two-hour “20/20” documentary in May 2023, a month after Warren entered her plea.

Julius Whigham II is the criminal justice and public safety reporter for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at: [email protected] and follow him on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: @JuliusWhigham. Help support our work: Subscribe today.

This article was first published in the Palm Beach Post: Florida’s ‘clown’ killer Sheila Warren is released from prison