Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Young mom answers doorbell, gunned down by Killer Clown

Episode Date: December 21, 2020

Marlene Warren opened the door to flowers and balloons, delivered by a clown, but no one expected the gunshots that followed. Now the woman who investigators say dressed as that clown, killing the wife of her now-husband, is headed to trial.Joining Nancy Grace today: Kirk Nurmi - Jodi Arias former attorney & author of "Trapped with Ms. Arias"  Dr. Angela Arnold - Psychiatrist, Atlanta Jeff Cortese - Former FBI Special Agent Dr. Katherine Maloney - Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, Erie County Medical Examiners office, Buffalo, New York Levi Page - Investigative reporter, CrimeOnline  George Schiro - Lab director at Scales Biological Laboratory Inc.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Let me set the stage for this. A quiet residential neighborhood. A mom goes to the door and opens the door. Standing there is a clown with balloons. She thinks she's getting some kind of a fun delivery. Instead, she gets shot dead. What happened? Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. What happened to Marlene Warren? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Let's kick it off, Jackie. Take a listen. What do you remember of May 26, 1990? I remember that being one of the most terrible days of my life. You're in the house with your mom, right?

Yes. What's going on? Well, typical morning. She and I were cooking breakfast that morning, joking, carrying on. Did Marlene have any enemies in this world? None. Everybody loved her. She was my everything.

My mom, my friend, she was my everything. I was in the living room. I sat down to eat. There was a balloon with some clowns coming at the door. Look at that clown. She was going to that door. She was excited. When your mother opened the door, did she say something?

Oh, how pretty. At first, we thought maybe it was a balloon pop, but when we saw her fall, we knew something was definitely seriously wrong. We had no clue what was going on. It was like the whole world was in slow motion. Did the clown say anything? Nothing. Not a word. The clown slowly walked back to the car,

like no care in the world. The clown slowly walked back to the car, not a care in the world. The clown didn't speak. The voice was never heard. I was just listening to this son talk about his mother. And immediately I thought of just last night, my daughter, Lucy, wanted me to sleep with her. And I said, sure, and jumped in the bed and yelled goodnight to John David. A few minutes later, John David came up to the bed where I was going to sleep with Lucy and went, night mom, again, and came over and hugged me really tight.

I was just thinking about you grow up with your mother and him saying goodnight twice and getting another hug. And then to think your mother, essentially your world at a young age, goes to the door and gets shot dead. Again, I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thanks for being with us here at Fox Nation Series XM. With me, an all-star panel. And boy, do we need a panel on

this one. Kirk Nermy is with me, renowned trial lawyer who represented Jody Arias at trial, author of Trapped with Ms. Arias on Amazon. Dr. Angela Arnold, well-known psychiatrist joining us from the Atlanta jurisdiction. Jeff Cortese, former FBI special agent. Dr. Catherine Maloney, deputy chief medical examiner joining us from Erie County ME's office. That's Buffalo. George Sciro, DNA technical leader, lab director at Scales Biological Laboratory, Inc. But right now to CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter Levi Page. Levi, I want to start at the beginning when Marlene Warren goes to the door. Tell me what happened.

So, Nancy, this is in Wellington, Florida, Palm Beach County. And it's 1990. It's Memorial Day weekend. And 40-year-old Marlene Warren, she was eating breakfast with her son and his friends. They were in their early 20s. And the doorbell rings. She got up to answer it. And she opened the door. And there was a clown that had a flower arrangement and balloons. And that's not all he had. He had a gun, pulled it out, and I say he, meaning a clown, you think of a he, and shot Marlene Warren dead, shot her in the face. Then got into a white Chrysler convertible and left the scene. Marlene Warren died two days later in the hospital.

There's so many questions just ricocheting off the inside of my mind right now because, you know, if you look at this Jeff Cortese former FBI she's so clearly targeted because the person walks up to the door rings the doorbell she answers they shoot her and then walk back to the car this isn't a drive-by shooting. It's not a rape. It's not a burglary. It's not a robbery. She is targeted. Not only that, the killer clown takes great efforts to cover their identity. They never utter a word, which means they don't want their voice to be heard. This has to be someone that knows her or is obsessed with her or has been watching her. And my guess would be she knows them, too.

Agree or disagree? No, I absolutely agree. This is cold, calculated, and well thought out. I mean, the steps that were taken to shield the identity of the shooter from anybody around were very well planned out. And all indications are that these two people would know each other. First thing I would be doing is trying to get the make and model of that vehicle that the killer was driving and going to every grocery store in about a 10 to 15 mile vicinity that sells balloons or flowers. You know, there's always that balloon and flower section typically in grocery stores.

Definitely flowers. First move and looking for forensics. For all I know, the clown was wearing gloves. Take a listen. Now, you are hearing Peter Van Zandt at 48 hours. This is Alexandra Stone at KETV. Listen. Marlene Warren was in her Aero Club

community home with her adult son and some of his friends. They were eating breakfast when they noticed someone at their front door. Marlene answered it, revealing a person dressed as a clown holding two balloons and a basket of flowers. A witness who was present at the time recalled what happened next in a police interview, saying, Marlene made a remark like, you know, oh, how nice, you know, and everything. She was happy about it. And when she went to reach and grab for it, he just shot her in the mouth twice. The witnesses at the scene said that the clown just turned around, walked back to the car,

got into the white Chrysler LeBaron and just drove away very calmly. white Chrysler LeBaron, and just drove away very calmly. A Chrysler LeBaron, color white. Dr. Angela Arnold, psychiatrist, joining me out of the Atlanta jurisdiction. Dr. Angela, the fact that this woman, this mother, was shot twice in the mouth. Now, I know a lot of people think that that's just, let me just say by accident, not that the shooting is by accident, but that the shooting in the mouth, I think it's on purpose that she was shot, not just shot, but shot in the mouth. It was very much on purpose.

The clown wanted to disfigure her. The clown wanted to make sure that she was dead. It was very thought out and calculated. It always is when someone shoots. Well, I'm talking about the fact that she was shot in the mouth, not just shot in the chest or the head, but she was shot twice in the mouth. And I find that very, very significant.

Kirk, ignore me. You represented Jodi Arias. She shot Travis Alexander. I know you said she didn't. Fine. Have, ignore me. You represented Jodi Arias. She shot Travis Alexander. I know you said she didn't. Fine. Have it your way. But he was stabbed 29 times, I think, and shot in the head. It's significant when the shooter picks the head, the face, in this case the mouth,

in which they shoot the victim. And I think in your case, Arias was at close range to Travis Alexander. She knew she was shooting him in the head. In this case, the clown was at close range. She knew when she went to the door, she opened the door up. There's a clown. The clown takes the gun and points right at her mouth crime stories with Nancy grace guys we're talking about a mom that goes to the door of her home.

She's having breakfast with her son and one of his friends. She thinks she's getting a surprise, flowers and balloons. What she gets is a surprise, all right? She gets shot dead twice in the mouth. Nermy, don't you think? Your client, Jodi Arias, aside, it is significant when someone is shot close range, specifically in the mouth. That is a deep psychological, it's a neon sign to me. Well, it certainly adds a personal anger element to it, right?

It's not just a matter of killing. It's a matter of disfiguring, maiming, and making sure that person's life and their death will never be the same. It is an intensely personal way of shooting someone. Well, another thing, pointing at the mouth, you want to make sure she, Marlene Warren, never says another word. But why? To Dr. Catherine Maloney, Deputy Medical Examiner, joining me out of Erie County, Buffalo. Is there any way a person could live if they've been shot front to back in the mouth? It would really depend on the trajectory of the bullet. So if the bullet goes straight front to back, such that it hits the base of the brain,

then the person will definitely die because you require the bottom part of your brain to stay alive. If instead, however, the bullet manages to either go to the right or the left, you know, sort of towards through the side of the head, it's possible that the person could survive, but it would be a very long and prolonged process to kind of put them back together again. To Levi Page, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, do we know whether the clown was wearing gloves? We don't know that for sure, Nancy. So to George Skiro, DNA, really on the forefront of DNA, forensic scientists, lab directors, scales, biological labs,

George Skiro, if she's, when Marlene goes to the door, she opens the door. If the clown is wearing gloves, what's the likelihood we're going to get any DNA off the balloons or the flowers?

Well, Nancy, it depends on the person who was dressed as the clown, handled the items beforehand without gloves, then there may be some DNA present. But, of course, in order to do that, you have to find the gloves, and you need to find the person so that you can then compare the DNA to that person. Well, another issue is if the clown went and bought the flowers and the balloons, say, in the grocery store, would they have been wearing the gloves at the time of the purchase? Their DNA could be on the balloons, could be on the flowers. What would that be, touch DNA?

Yes, that would be touch DNA where someone's DNA is transferred basically from the skin on their hands to the items that they're handling. Guys, take a listen now to Peter Van Zandt at 48 Hours. Joe was living at home and his friends were over that morning, including Jeannie Pratt, who helped tend to Marlene. A neighbor called 911. I was right next to her and I rolled her to her side. There was a big hole in her cheek and upper lip. Joe, hobbled by a broken leg and cast, followed the clown outside.

The shooter's car, a white Chrysler LeBaron, was parked in the driveway. The car was right here. The door was open. The car was running. I tried to get the clown to turn around. I called him every word in the book. The shooter looked back.

Joe saw white and red clown makeup, a fuzzy orange wig, and the eyes of the person who had just shot his mother. Just really dark brown eyes. The shooter calmly got in the car and drove away. Didn't even squeal a tire, just drove off like nothing happened. What does that tell you to Jeff Cortese, a former FBI special agent? I mean, it tells me that there was a lot of thought that was put into this. I mean, when you put yourself in a high-stress situation, the world starts to shrink around you, the heart rate starts going, you get tunnel vision, et cetera.

In order to overcome that, it takes either a great amount of training in high-stress situations and a great amount of planning. So this was somebody who did not allow the event taking place to change or manipulate the behavior beyond what they had intended to do. And that was remain calm and cool and get in and out. And it's cold to the theory. I find that pretty bold, pretty bracing not to even run. If I just murdered somebody, I would at least run to get away. Here's Peter Van Sant. Listen. Investigators had very little to work with initially. Daphne Durette of the Palm Beach Post.

They knew that the shooter sped off in a white Chrysler LeBaron. What they also knew was that the shooter had brown eyes. Because of all the makeup and the costume, Joe couldn't even be sure if the shooter was a man or a woman, which left police with a problem. There's a thing called a BOLO. What is a BOLO? A BOLO is an acronym for be on the lookout. And in this case, the BOLO was for someone dressed in a clown costume.

It was not a lot to go on. Man, you're not kidding. A BOLO, be on the lookout for a person dressed in a clown costume. So let me ask you this. Levi Page, CrimeOnline.com. Tell me who was in the home at the time of the shooting. So there was Marlene Warren, her son, and some of his friends, a girlfriend and some of his friends. A neighbor said that after the shooting, some of his friends were running out of the house, frantic and scared. On one of the balloons, it was written, you're the greatest, while the other had

snow white painted on it. The clown was wearing one of those wigs, the fuzzy haired wigs, bright orange. So the only identifier is that the killer has brown eyes. I would immediately begin canvassing the area for who may have sold those balloons and flowers. Take a listen to this. Other investigators continued trying to find where the flower arrangement and balloons were purchased. One said, you're the greatest, and the other one had Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on it.

Right, so they had these two very distinctive balloons. Police learned that those balloons were distinctive enough that they could link them back to a specific supermarket. The balloons and flowers left at the doorstep of the murder scene were purchased at this Publix. The buyer described as a white female with dark brown hair. Dark brown hair. Police discovered that purchase was made at 9.22 a.m., an hour and a half before the shooting, and the store's location caught their attention.

Sheila Keene's home is about a little more than half a mile over here. Who is Sheila Keene? And it's very interesting, and I don't doubt it for one minute, that the clerk remembered selling those particular balloons to a woman, a white female with long brown hair. That's what the clerk remembers. Why? Because one was a snow white balloon and one said, you're the greatest. Very ironical that the recipient of the balloons, you're the greatest, ends up dead. I want to go to Jeff Cortese, FBI, former special agent.

Jeff, how do you go about tracking down who sold those balloons? I mean, I don't think there was video at the time. So you have to go to every single clerk at every single grocery store. Yeah, absolutely. This is 1990. You know, CCTV wasn't then what it is now. So it does take getting out and going from shop to shop and asking the right questions. And that is a huge resource drain.

But that's what it takes sometimes to get the lead you need to take you to the next step. Levi Page, CrimeOnline.com. Where is the husband in this scenario? Her husband is Michael Warren, and he ran a used car lot, car rental agency, and car reposition business. So he had a car lot and a repo business. Isn't it true that he had already been in trouble with the law for rolling back odometers.

Yes. Which is actually a federal offense. He served about four years in prison for that and financial crimes related to his business. crime stories with nancy grace who is sheila keen cut to cut 10 please take a listen to this what police did find in the apartment was hair from the bathroom trash and a stunner, more orange fibers on clothing inside Sheila's home. Detectives aren't saying if Keen is actually a suspect in the murder. What they will say is that they are waiting

for test results on samples of hair and fibers taken from search warrants. A police criminologist compared the samples of human hair and the orange fibers from the car and the apartment, and in both cases concluded the samples were similar. So this sounds like something, boy, you could put this in front of a jury and potentially get a conviction.

You could, or maybe you couldn't. Similar is not the same. Man, you are so right about that. Similar is not the same. Take a listen to our friend Peter Van Zandt. Four days after the shooting, police got a huge break. They found a white Barron. Maybe this was the getaway car.

They find it in the parking lot of a Winn-Dixie supermarket. That supermarket is eight miles from the crime scene and nine miles from Sheila Keen's apartment. Inside the car, police found two important clues. They find this orange synthetic hair. Like the fibers from a clown wig. They also find strands of brown human hair. Brown hair, like Sheila Keene's.

Within hours, police had a warrant to search her apartment. Investigation is turned to the woman who lives here at the Pine Ridge Apartments off Haverhill Road. They didn't find a gun. Sheila's estranged husband told police they owned a.38 revolver, but that Sheila told him she misplaced it about a month before the murder. Misplaced your gun?

Uh, remind me to circle back to misplacing your gun. But there's so much right here. Stop everything. This woman has a whitelist saber. It's abandoned in a Winn-Dixie parking lot. And it's got orange fibers in it and long brown hair in it. That's a coincidence?

I don't think so. So Levi Page, why would a completely unknown woman suddenly dress up like a clown, not say a word, and gun down Marlene? Who is Sheila Keene? So Sheila Keene was 26 years old in 1990. She was married, but she worked for Michael Warren. And Michael Warren's co-workers, people that worked for him, say that they were having an affair. And that she had an apartment that he was paying the rent for. You know what? Can you just surprise me one time? A co-worker, they have an affair, according to co-workers. And, you know, you can't keep that kind of thing a secret. Kirk Nermy, could you just one time surprise me and it not be a love triangle with your co-worker?

Well, I guess not, because that's clearly what the case was here. And we saw, we talked about that personalization element before, and we can kind of see that correlation and that puzzle come together. Dr. Angela Arnold, do they really think the co-workers don't notice they're sitting in each other's laps and going out for lunch every day together you think they don't see that there's got to be some sort of i don't think that they care i think that they are so into what they're doing that they have convinced themselves that other people around them do not see this behavior you know another issue right here to Jeff Cortese, FBI former special agent. Office workers always know what's happening. They always know. You can't keep that kind of

thing a secret. You can't. And just like in other situations similar to this, the first place that anybody's going to look is close to the home and then work out so investigators are going to start close and work out so when they start close and they identify something like this uh you know a marital infidelity boy that's going to grab their attention right away and there's no way to hide that stuff from people marital infidelity and the the whitelist saber was actually stolen. So in the stolen whitelist saber found abandoned at a Wendigsey parking lot. What is the likelihood, George Esquiro, the lab director of Scales Biological Lab, Inc., that you're going to find orange hair from a wig and long brown hair that they say is similar to what was used.

But without the wig, how can they make a comparison, George Giro? Well, Nancy, what they can do is they can take those fibers, those orange fibers, and run a series of chemical and microscopic analyses on them to determine what their chemical makeup is, what's the structure of the fiber, what type of dye was used, and that can give investigative information. And also the hair itself can also provide some forensic information that might be of value. If that hair is still in evidence, couldn't it be compared, even without a root, couldn't you get mitochondrial DNA from the hair found in the stolen LeSabre and try to match it up to the mistress? That's correct, Nancy. Mitochondrial DNA

would be the type of analysis that would be used to make that type of comparison. So isn't this true, Levi Page, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, that the neighbors that live near Sheila King actually thought that Warren, the husband, was her husband because he was there all the time? Yeah, you are correct, and they spent a lot of time together. Well, you know, you call it spending time together. I call it something else. But for all the neighbors to think that was Sheila King's husband,

the killer clown, is it the mistress, the love rival? What happens after that, guys? Let's take a listen to Unmasked, the killer clown. 27 years after Marlene Warren is gunned down in the doorway of her Florida home, the Palm Beach Post uncovers a salacious secret. We're coming up on the 27th anniversary of Marlene Warren's death, so my editor and I decided that I should look into it. What she found out was that Mike Warren and Sheila Keene, the same people who denied having an affair shortly after Marlene Warren was killed, were now husband and wife. Michael gets out of prison early, and what does he do?

He seeks out the same woman who was investigated for killing his wife. Think about it. You don't marry a woman that you suspect that might have killed your wife. Mike Warren married Sheila Keene in Las Vegas in 2002, 12 years after his wife's murder. So he does time on that odometer charge. Remember, he works at a used car lot, convicted of rolling

back the odometers and tricking customers, gets out, goes straight to Sheila King and marries her. That's pretty strong circumstantial evidence to you, Kirk Nermy. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. You have motive. You have, you know, evidence of maybe they got married to cover up after the fact. They thought they were bringing on privilege or marital privilege. Who knows? Who knows if the husband even knew? But yes, the circumstantial evidence is piling up in their actions after the fact. Her actions in particular show a consciousness of guilt.

Let me understand something. Levi Page, the husband, was not in jail on the odometer charge at the time of the shooting, was he? No, he wasn't. That was years later, Nancy. And he served time for that. And he actually got out of prison and married Sheila Keene in 2002. And then they moved to Southern Virginia, a community right outside of Kingsport, Tennessee, a very upscale community known for retirees moving there in the mountains, very beautiful. And they lived there in Shewitt by the name Debbie, and they started a restaurant together called The Purple Cow, and apparently they were very well liked. She changed her name? She started going by an alias? Yes, Debbie. She was not going by Sheila. So they move away from the jurisdiction.

She changes her name. He gets rid of the car lot, and they start a restaurant called The Purple Cow, far, far away from the murder. Wow, sounds a little bit like they're on the run. Now, there's another report that at the time of the shooting, he was, in fact, in a car with a group of guys on the interstate. But long story short, he was nowhere near the home at the time of the shooting. It's very hard for me to believe, since these two then get married after the murder,

that he knew nothing about it. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Law show right now, this case, over 27 years later, is going to trial. I'm just wondering if there's any way they got a DNA match on that hair found in the stolen LeSabre. The white LeSabre, identical to the one that left the scene of the murder. Take a listen now to Unmask the Killer Clown. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office and the Washington County Sheriff's Office of Virginia tracked Michael and Sheila. They were headed to Vermont for a vacation. They pulled a car over and arrest Sheila, who's sitting in the passenger seat.

While Sheila was in the police car, she asked officers questions. Why are you arresting me? Are you arresting my husband? Where are you taking me? Are you taking my husband somewhere too? Once police get her into an interrogation room and tell her what the case is about, she tells them that she doesn't want to answer any more questions and she puts her head down. Sheila Keene is charged with first degree murder and extradited to Palm Beach County.

This is what we know. According to the detectives on the case, they say DNA advances since the time of Marlene's murder, combined with other evidence, have made this case viable at trial. To George Skiro, a special guest joining us, a DNA expert, lab director at the Scales Biological Lab, Inc. George Skiro, what do they mean by advancements in DNA technology? Well, Nancy, there's been a lot of advancements in the last several years as far as DNA analysis goes. However, in this case, mitochondrial DNA analysis for forensic cases has probably been around since the mid-'90s.

So unless they use some of the newer genetic genealogy technologies in this case, it seems like it's pretty much standard mitochondrial DNA. What we are learning is that the killer clown investigators use DNA from hair samples to make a cold case arrest. Because at one moment, the alleged killer, the mistress, Sheila Keene Warren, is on her way to visit her mom in Vermont. The next minute, she has been handcuffed and placed in the back of a Virginia Sheriff's cruiser. She's saying, where am I going? Why am I under arrest? She's sitting back there in her jeans and flip-flops when she's told she's under arrest because of a murder. She immediately puts her head down and refuses to answer any further questions. Now, this is what we know. DNA based on hair samples. Again, to George Skiro, the lab director, Skills Biological Labs, Inc., try to explain that to me and regular people

talk. When we say hair samples have managed to solve a 27-year-old cold case murder by a killer clown of all things. What are they saying? Well, Nancy, what they're saying is that this mitochondrial DNA that was found in the hair samples in the vehicle matched the mitochondrial DNA profile of Sheila Keen-Warren. And this is not like the normal type of DNA that we hear about every day. This one isn't as specific because it's passed along maternal lines within the family. We also know now that the clown was absolutely wearing gloves, a bulb nose, and a painted smile over a white face. We also know that a pistol was the murder weapon. I don't know about you guys, but if I had a gun, I don't think I would misplace it. The only person I've ever heard of misplacing, not that it was stolen, but misplaced a gun was Robert Blake,

who was acquitted by a jury in the murder of his wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley. Well, he killed her. I hope the jury hears that. But I've never heard of another case where a weapon was misplaced. That's what she says. We know detectives collected samples of Sheila Keene's hair, vials of her blood, and a search warrant because she was a suspect at the time. Now, when her apartment was searched, Levi Page, what was found in the apartment? They can help me out on this DNA comparison. So, they found fibers that were red

that was consistent with the red part of a wig of a clown inside of her apartment. We know that there was a court-ordered search of her home. In the apartment, there were fibers from a bright orange wig, not the wig, but fibers, and clothing that police were checking for bloodstains. Similar bright red-orange fibers were found in the stolen saber. In the reopened case, this may be the key, the FBI crime lab, that's where you come in, Jeff Cortese, the FBI crime lab say matches were made to fibers collected from the getaway car through a precise DNA connection that Sheila Keene is a possible source of the hairs. What does that mean to you? That means that they are,

you know, connecting the car to the suspect and the weight to the suspect. It is one more piece in a chain of evidence that more completely tells a story that gives the prosecutors a little bit more confidence to take to a grand jury and then subsequently to a jury. Is it true, Levi Page, that almost $54,000 life insurance policy was paid to Michael Warren at the death of his wife. And is he also going to be indicted? That is true, Nancy, that there was a life insurance, about $50,000, that was awarded to him after she was murdered, Nancy. But so far, he has not faced any charges in the murder of his wife, just Sheila King. We wait as justice unfolds.

Delayed? Yes. Denied? No. Nancy Grace Crime Story signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.