48 Hours - Post Mortem | Murder by Clown

Episode Date: October 31, 2023

Was a clown costume the perfect disguise to get away with murder? Correspondent Peter Van Sant and Producer Ruth Chenetz discuss the bizarre murder case that took investigators nearly 30 years to make an arrest. We’ll hear what it was like for Peter to stop by Mike Warren’s house for an interview, where the neighborhood dog decided to participate in the discussion. Plus, they talk about evidence that may have been mishandled and the risk that could have led to an acquittal for Sheila Keen-Warren.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Welcome to 48 Hours Postmortem. I'm CBS News correspondent Anne-Marie Green, and it's time to answer your biggest questions about our latest episode, Murder by Clown. And it's pretty appropriate. It is Halloween. There will be plenty of people knocking on your door dressed in costumes, some of them maybe clowns. Trick or treat. I know. So joining me today are 48 Hours correspondent Peter Van Cent, who you just heard, and producer Ruth Tennant, who reported on and produced this episode. Welcome. Hi. Will you be opening up your doors and giving out candy this Halloween?

Not to any clowns. I will not, but we're on the slab, ready for the postmortem. So before we get into postmortem, I want to ask you guys, are you afraid of clowns? Do you like clowns? I think it really depends whatever you are. You know, I grew up with like Bozo and Ronald McDonald. And I think younger people, it's the Joker. So there were clowns at birthday parties when I was a little kid.

You know, circuses. I was personally not scared were clowns at birthday parties when I was a little kid, you know, circuses. I was personally not scared of clowns. I noticed you looked at me when you said those. Um, I grew up in Seattle and the most popular show when I was a kid was called JP Patches. It was a clown show. So I loved clowns, but then my, my parents took me down to the annual seafair parade, which is a big summer celebration in Seattle. And a clown came over to me. And I have to admit, it freaked me out. Right? Particularly in this case, because

most of us think you see a clown, it's going to be fun and juggling and happiness. And in this case, just the opposite. Yeah. I really didn't think about whether or not I was afraid of clowns until I watched this episode. So obviously there's a lot to talk about with this case. It took nearly 30 years before we even saw an arrest. And it involves a killer clown, a clown or somebody in a clown costume. It's pretty much unforgettable. I want to just take a listen to an overview of this episode. It's pretty much unforgettable. I want to just take a listen to an overview of this episode.

The evil clowns you see in the movies, well, it came to life in this case. The 1990 murder of Marlene Warren, shot by someone dressed as a clown, haunted the public, as well as the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office. Now headed by Dave Ehrenberg, as the case went unsolved for decades. The unknowingness of this heinous crime, it was hell. Joe Ehrens was 21 when on May 26, 1990, he was at home with his mother, Marlene Warren, when they saw a clown approaching, carrying balloons and flowers. My mother opened the door and I heard bang. And I saw that she'd been shot in the face.

What does the clown do? Calmly walks right back to the car. Investigators immediately learned Marlene's husband, Michael Warren, was believed to be having an affair with a woman named Sheila Keene. The suspects became clear it was Sheila Keene and was Michael Warren, but Michael Warren had an alibi. Sheila Keene's alibi could not be verified, but despite quickly identifying a suspect, it would take decades to sort out the case and make an arrest. It would take decades to sort out the case and make an arrest.

And I don't know about you guys, but if a clown just showed up at my door, I don't think I would open the door. Well, this one, the victim's son was recovering from a broken leg and the clown was carrying balloons and flowers. So they're thinking, oh, perhaps someone's sending a get well gift. Isn't this nice? And they saw the reflection through the doors. They got there and then, then things went sour. And you got to remember too, the time period, you know, this murder was back in 1990 and they had all these companies back then that people hired to come over and sing happy birthday and stuff. I'm telling you, I would have opened that door. And remember Marlene's last words, she opens the door and says, oh, how pretty. Oh, oh my goodness. And the description that her son gave was of a pretty tall man, is what he thought.

Well, think of someone in a clown outfit. If you have a clown wig on and you have clown makeup, it's in some ways quite a brilliant disguise if you want to commit a crime. Really? I was also struck by the fact that this victim loved clowns. And I thought, was this on purpose? Marlene Warren loved clowns and that maybe a clown outfit would be a good disguise to get her to open the door. I mean, all of these things swirl around and they were swirling around back in 1990 and yet no arrest was made. And it's still to this day, just for me, just based on my professional experience on 48 Hours for several decades, I've seen a lot of cases go to court

with much less circumstantial evidence than this one had. But back in the day, they said, we don't got enough yet. I want to play some sound from the episode. These are paintings that Marlene had painted when she was about 14 years old. I kind of grin because I can almost see her doing this. Shirley Twing and her daughter Marlene shared a fascination with clowns. And over here. In Shirley's home,

she even kept a room full of clown art and figurines. This one says to me, things will get better. The sad, sometimes unsettling images brought comfort to Shirley, despite the fact that a clown had so brutally ended her daughter's life. Yeah, and she said she still likes clowns. She said, I don't hate clowns. I just hate one. After that. You've been covering the story since 2017. I'm just curious about sort of how you got onto it and what kept you on it when i first heard that

our research department was looking into a a case involving a clown who came to the front door with flowers and balloons this is an irresistible story because i thought what a brilliant scheme to get someone to open the door. And then, of course, you also wanted to know, what's the backstory on all of this? Why a clown? Why out in this, you know, upscale neighborhood in Wellington, Florida, a family that seemed to have it all, right? Successful. Her husband had Barg bargain motors, a car dealership. They owned some real estate investments. So I found the story irresistible. And I really did believe that if I find it irresistible, I figured a lot of other people would too. I mean, it's just,

you can't make this stuff up, right? That's so true, Ruth. I mean, we do plenty of spousal stories, but you're going to remember a clown. People can be like, oh, have I seen this one about the husband and the wife or the girlfriend? But a clown? I mean, people just don't think about a clown coming up and doing this. And this was a woman who did not seem to have enemies. As they dug deeper, there were people saying, oh, their marriage did have problems, but that was the inner circle. The vast, you know, the wider group of people

weren't aware of the marriage having problems. But, you know, this was a case filled with the unexpected, starting with a clown murdering someone. I don't know that I've ever worked on a story where one of the pieces of evidence is a clown sighting file that the police were collecting. My goodness. People calling with tips. Wait, because this was a huge story. You can imagine, especially back then when murder, you know, murders weren't as common and it's in this wealthy community and it's a clown. And so citizens are calling saying, hey, I saw a clown by the car dealership. I saw a clown here. So, you know, I can't think of any other story where there was clown sighting file that the police were keeping. Right. For years.

And the fact that it had been 30 years meant that, you know, memories were fading. But Marlene... Lives were ending, memories were fading. But Marlene... Lives were ending. Lives were ending. The lead detective died. That makes it very difficult to be able to put together a coherent case if your lead investigator, who can take you through the entire progression of this case,

passes away. I mean, they had enormous obstacles in this case. Marlene's son, his memory, I'm sure, was incredibly still vivid. Absolutely. Joe Ahrens, he breaks my heart. I felt like we had a great connection. All of us on the team had a great connection with Joe. He just has this enormous heart. He went through hell. Imagine he's sitting at a breakfast table, right? And his mom opens the door. Oh, how pretty. He hears this sound. I think he thought maybe it was a balloon. One of the balloons had popped or something. And he goes over there and finds his mother's been shot in the face with a 38 caliber bullet.

And she's on the ground struggling to survive, struggling to breathe. And this poor boy, he was 21 years old. He was learning how to fly. He had dreams of becoming an airline pilot. And so he had everything going for him. And after his mother's murder, he fell into despair. And he fell into it, which he talks openly about drugs, alcohol. And his life just went completely off the rails.

And just as the investigation did this journey for three decades, he eventually, his journey, he got back on the rails. And he ends up being such a powerful voice in the story and he chased after the clown i was just gonna ask you that question because it was sort of unclear whether or not anyone went after the clown because the image that i get is this clown walking away very slowly why would the clown having shot mar, not turn and run to the car? Right. Well, why? Because that clown perhaps knew that son Joe had a cast on.

He had a broken leg and couldn't run after him. To me, that was always part of these circumstances. Like, how would this person have known that Marlene was fascinated with clowns? Who could have told her that? Why would the shooter turn and walk away if not because that killer knew the son had a leg in a cast? Marlene did not die immediately. So first he would call 911 and he had some friends over and then he got into his mom's car and took off after the clown, but did not get anywhere near it. Couldn't catch up. Yeah. I'm curious about what Marlene's son

said about their marriage. Maybe it was rocky, but was it violent? He did not think that, although he was surprised that one time his mom said, if anything should happen to me, your father did it. And he said, oh, come on. She was like, no, I'm serious. But he really didn't believe it. This was a man who raised him from when he was a little child and really was the only father he knew. And so it wasn't that Marlene was saying this constantly. He wasn't really noticing bickering. He was noticing his father not spending as much time

at the house, but it wasn't one of these growing up where my parents are screaming and fighting and throwing things, which is why when his mother even said this to him, he was sort of dismissive of, oh, come on, you can't be serious. And keep in mind that Marlene had said that to her mother, Shirley, the same thing. If something ever happens to me, Mike did it. One of the really sort of interesting components of this hour is seeing you, Peter, stopped and talked to Mike by his home after Sheila's arrest in 2017 for an interview. I want to play some of that sound. Hey, Mike, I'm Peter Van Sant with CBS News.

He wouldn't open the door, but we spoke through it for several minutes, competing with a barking dog. Did you have anything to do with planning the murder of your wife, Marlene? You did not. He was adamant that neither he nor Sheila Keene Warren had anything to do with Marlene's murder. Did you suggest to Sheila that she dress in a clown outfit? outfit. Peter, you're sort of known, you know, in your episodes for walking right up to someone, asking them those direct questions. I'm curious about kind of your approach. I mean, you must have been shocked that he even came to the door. I was surprised that he came to the door, but I was more upset that we had a barking dog in the background and we were trapped.

I mean, we had to get this thing done at that moment. And we approached and that dog just barked and barked. I prefer to do approaches when people are in public spaces like a parking lot of a grocery store. People are in public spaces like a parking lot of a grocery store. We'd done some staking out back in the day and some hours hoping that he would come out because that's the best place to capture someone. When they're in their own home, you never know if he owns a firearm. I'm on his property. I just don't like doing them at people's homes.

But we ended up knocking on the door. And it's unsatisfying because you don't get to look him in the eyes and you don't get to really challenge him. But we wanted to at least give him some opportunity and at least he denied it and said he had no role in this. I do want to say one thing about Peter because this is the joke in the office is if Peter shows up at your front door, you're in trouble. I'll keep that in mind. Don't tell Peter where I live. Were there any questions that you were able to ask him, but it was sort of unusable for the episode?

Well, over the course of seven minutes, yeah, you couldn't understand much of what he had to say, but there are things that I, to this day, I'd love to sit down and interview him. And everyone has to keep in mind, Mike Warren has never been charged with a crime in this case. He never has. Prosecutors even today, and they told us in the interview, they believe he was involved. And we're not saying that he did do this. We're just saying there are circumstances that we would like to get clarified with him.

And the prosecution has said, if we get new information, because there's no statute of limitation on murder, they would move against Mike Warren, but they have not been able to clear that hurdle. Mike Warren had an alibi for the time of the murder. He was in a car with several friends heading to a racetrack. It took them so long to bring the circumstantial case

against Sheila. And the thing we should point out is by the time Peter went to the door, they were married. So in the beginning of the story, they're having an affair. And that is one of the things that made the case stronger to them is, gee, they're married. But you want to give someone a chance to respond. Yeah. someone a chance to respond. Yeah. Because the viewer at home might be wondering, gee, did he have anything to do with this? And at least other than saying prosecution never had a strong enough case, he had an alibi. You can hear it from himself. And you can tell I'm driven nuts by this case to this day because it was just three hours

after the shooting. There's an anonymous tip to police. Look at Mike Warren, Sheila Keene. They're having an affair. Mike told police that he wasn't having an affair with Sheila. And then in 2002, the two of them get married. Coincidence? And then she changes her first name to Debbie, at least socially changes it to Debbie. Which she claims is a childhood nickname. You look at motive, you know, if there was a love triangle, that's one of the classic motives for murder. Financial gain, who gained from her death? Mike Warren. You may have seen the house I approached him in was a beautiful palatial mansion.

And then the circumstances of where they went through their lives, you know, she was known to carry a.38 caliber gun when she worked as a person who had to repossess cars. The victim was shot with a.38 caliber bullet. That gun was never recovered. And they're frustrated as can be the prosecutors today. So when we get back, we're going to talk about evidence, the clown costume, hair fibers, the getaway car, that made it seem like Sheila was the obvious suspect until it was discovered that some evidence had been mishandled. Would that create enough reasonable doubt to exonerate her?

Well, we're going to get into all of that and more when we come back. Booster Juice is bringing back the classics, celebrating 25 years of Canada's favorite smoothies with the return of the Ornsticle, the original, and the Marathon. Download the Booster Rewards app today. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military, and when they do, the NCIS gets involved.

From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. So welcome back. Let us talk about Sheila and the evidence that pointed to her involvement in Marlene's murder. There was evidence that suggested that a female with brown hair had been to a costume store to purchase a clown costume. Let's play a little clip from the episode where we hear from the costume store clerk. She wanted to see the clown costumes. I said, can you come back tomorrow? And she said, no, I need something right now. I mean, come on.

I don't think it was end of circus sale days. Right. I mean, why do you need a clown costume right now? Right. So investigators went looking, as opposed to canvassing gun stores like one does in other murder stories, they canvassed costume stores and said, They canvassed costume stores and said, did anyone in these past few days fitting this description come in? And this one store said yes.

Again, it was tough for investigators because Joe Aarons and some of his friends who saw the clown gave different descriptions of the costume. But if you think about you see a clown costume, are you really noticing? Is it pink? Is it orange? Is it diamonds? Is it circles? So instead of a description of the clown costume, it was a description of the customer, brown hair, brown eyes, and Sheila Keene had brown hair and brown eyes. And as you said, somebody coming in closing time, it's in a rush. They paid by cash. So it's not that somebody could go back and check. And that was one of the pieces of evidence that they held onto, but they never found the original clown wig, clown costume. They never found that. And remember, this is back in 1990. Today, if this had happened, that shop would undoubtedly have a security camera inside.

That's what I was going to ask about. I mean, it's 1990, but it's not like 1960. I mean, you would think that maybe there would have been something, but I guess there wasn't. No, but there were other things, though, that implicated Sheila Kane. The Chrysler LeBaron that the shooter drove off was finally discovered. And authorities, when they checked the inside of that car, they found this synthetic fiber that the clown was wearing, right? And then inside Sheila Keene's apartment, they found another trace of that fiber. apartment, they found another trace of that fiber. But, you know, when we talked to the defense attorney, they said, well, that kind of fiber is used in various other things. And you

can't say definitively that that was from a clown wig. But, you know, I'm sure, Anne-Marie, at your apartment, like in my house, you know, we have your house, you have these fibers, these orange fibers all over the place. See, this is part of what drives me nuts about this case, because again, it's circumstantial, but it's another piece. Because it's not just about the single fiber. It's about all of this stuff that is so out of the ordinary. Exactly. And there was a brown hair found in the Chrysler LeBaron. Now, remember, Sheila was a repo woman. This car came from the car dealership. They obviously took a sample of Sheila's hair. And back then they didn't have exacting DNA and it was similar. But even if it had been Sheila's hair, there was a possible explanation. She was driving, you know, the car for business. And we should point out, Sheila said that she was

out working, repossessing cars at the time of the murder. And prosecutors could not verify that. And she said, well, you know, if you're repossessing cars you're hardly out knocking on people's door doing it in a very public way but that was when you talk about all the things adding up yeah and remember too the chrysler lebaron was a vehicle that had been reported stolen and yet her hair fiber is inside that car. And if you're plotting a murder and you need a getaway vehicle, do you use a stolen car so that you don't have to use one of your vehicles? The icing on the cake was when they got married. And the other part was there was a newly formed cold case unit.

And we find that a lot. A lot of these cases linger and linger because they're too busy. And then a cold case unit comes in and opens up files and starts looking at things. Right. And a lot of that has to do with the evolution of DNA evidence that now people can crack open these evidence files again because the testing is available. Except with this evidence file, as decades go on, there's components of it that people can't find. I mean, they treated the evidence badly. It's terrible. Does this create reasonable doubt to the reliability of their DNA evidence. You know, it was 27 years later, they felt they had this match and they thought, oh boy, we really now have got Sheila.

But then they discover how this evidence had been kept and some of these bags had actually torn open or exposed. It was terrible. Peter, let's play some of that sound. What are we looking at here? These are evidence bags at the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office Evidence Unit, torn open. Just gaping holes in these evidence bags. If there's gaping holes,

what can that do to the evidence inside? That's precisely how you have cross-contamination. So I have sort of a twofold question for you guys. Ruth, you know, what is the risk of presenting evidence like this? But I also want to know, I mean, how often do you see cases like this, where the evidence is treated in such a sort of cavalier manner? I think this one was particularly, and they say, Peter asked the state attorney, he says, gee, you know, you're asking a lot of police to be perfect and locations move and evidence rooms move. Yes. Yes. Is that too much to ask? But it, all it takes is one juror

and I'm sure, I'm sure the defense attorney would have held up the bag and said, look, if this is how they handled this, how can you trust anything in this case? So you just need one juror to say, gee, that's a good point. I don't know. Remember jurors look for what they call a CSI moment

in any case. And at one point they call a CSI moment in any case. And at one point, they had a CSI moment. But now with these torn bags, I swear, I think I could have on cross undermined the reliability of that evidence. They were in a terrible bind there. And so that's when I think the prosecution team said, we are in deep doo-doo and let's get a plea deal. But I think also the prosecution, they still were steadfast in they had the right person. It was whether they could prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. And they didn't want to roll the dice. And it was important to them that she plead guilty.

Let's talk about this plea deal. Sheila takes the plea deal, which means that she changed her not guilty plea to a guilty one. But Peter, I was particularly struck by your exchange with the defense attorney. I want to play some of that. Sheila did not commit this murder. It was very difficult for her to admit to committing a crime that she did not commit. But as a matter of law, she has admitted to committing the murder by saying yes. Correct. For the purpose of...

So she is a convicted murderer. Insofar as the law goes sure but when you're told you can be home or you know you can play russian roulette and risk spending the rest of your life in prison it's kind of a no-brainer i don't know is it a no-brainer i mean we talked about the fact that we're dealing with a lot of circumstantial evidence that the evidence that had been retained, there were problems with the way it was preserved or not preserved. It's 30 years later. People have crappy memories or are not around anymore.

I don't know if it's quite a no-brainer to admit to killing someone. Right. And if you are innocent, would you ever admit to a murder you did not commit and all of the ramifications that will have for you the rest of your life? I understand what the defense attorney was saying, his argument, and I'm sure he talked to his client with that. But my point in driving that home and the point that for Joe Ahrens has given him some peace is that she

admitted in open court that she had committed the murder. And it ties all of these circumstantial pieces together. And for Joe, it does make that puzzle fit. And so he has that satisfaction. And he went out to his mom's grave and he said, we did it. You know, we finally got justice, even though she's only going to be in prison. And this is still in dispute. She may be getting out as early as 2025 or it could be sooner. She was sentenced to 12 years, but it's something called game time. It's a formula for time served. So while it's a 12 year sentence, every month she's there, she gets time taken off.

So it's 2025, perhaps sooner. And we did get a statement from Mike Warren about this, where he said, regarding the plea, my wife did not commit this crime. It's difficult to see her plea to a crime she did not commit, but it was not worth the gamble when she was offered a deal that will have her home in 16 to 18 months. I got to tell you, I didn't know how I felt about the way this ended. Because usually when you have a case that sort of drags on for decades, there's some satisfaction when, you know, the guilty party has to pay the price, but there's justice. And even though she agreed to this plea deal, somehow it didn't feel as satisfying. It's just a bizarre, it's a bizarre ending. The circle hasn't been closed in this case.

That's it for this week's Postmortem. Peter, Ruth, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for letting us tell the story. It's been great, Anne-Marie. It has been great. Listen, everyone, be sure to join us next Tuesday for another Postmortem. Watch 48 Hours, Saturdays at 10, 9 Central on CBS and streaming on Paramount+. And be sure to follow 48 Hours wherever you get your podcasts.

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