Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - Killed By a Clown - The Marlene Warren story

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

This is the story of Marlene Warren and Sheila Keen-Warren, who dressed up like a clown to commit murder

The wrongs we must write. The fights we must win. The future we must secure together for our nation. This is what's in front of us. This determines what's next for all of us. We are Marines. We were made for this. It's tax season, and at LifeLock, we know you're tired of numbers.

But here's a big one you need to hear. Billions. That's the amount of money and refunds the IRS has flagged for possible. identity fraud. Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com slash podcast for the threats you can't control. Terms apply. So one day this woman's chilling at home and she hears a knock at the door. So she walks over to answer it and she opens it up. And there on her porch is a circus client.

wearing like the full outfit and the clown is carrying balloons and flowers and then the clown hands the woman the balloons and flowers and then they pull out a pew-poo and they pointed at the woman's face and they pull the trigger So why was this woman just unalived by a clown? Well the story doesn't actually start there the story starts with this other woman Sheila and Sheila's 27 she works at a used car dealership and she's the one who repossesses the cars because she's apparently a tough lady and she's good at her job. In fact, she's so good at her job, at some point she catches the eye of the owner, this guy, Mike. And Mike and Sheila, they hit it off and they start flirting at work, and eventually they start smashing, like a lot. And Mike and Sheila, they are crazy about each other. Mike even starts paying rent on Sheila's apartment for her. That's how much he likes her. And these two want nothing more than to keep this relationship going so that they can live happily ever after.

Except there's one thing standing in their way. Mike is actually married. And of course, he doesn't want to just get a divorce like a normal human being, because apparently half his assets are in his wife's name, which means if they split up, she's going to get a big check. So he doesn't want to get a divorce. So then Sheila comes up with a plan to get rid of Mike's wife for good. One night, Sheila goes to a costume store,

and there she buys a clown costume. Orange wig, makeup, red nose, the whole thing. Two days later, Mike's wife, her name's Marlene, Marlene is chilling at home with her adult son, and suddenly they hear a knock at the door. So Marlene walks over to answer it, and sure enough, there's a whole ass circus clown standing on her porch. Like in the full outfit, and the clown is carrying balloons and flowers,

but then the clown hands the balloons and flowers to Marlene. And then they pull out a pew-poo, and they pointed at Marlene's face, and they pull the trigger. Then the clown calmly walks back to their car and they drive away. So immediately Marlene's son calls 911, and paramedics come and they rush her to the hospital. And there, doctors put her on life support.

But unfortunately, it's not enough. Two days later, they take Marlene off the life support and she passes away. And pretty quickly, police start to investigate this. They're looking at possible suspects and who could be involved. And all they know is that the suspect, is a six-foot clown. So they're thinking, maybe the murdering clown is Marlene's husband, Mike. But as it turns out, Mike has a solid alibi. He was with a bunch of friends on their way

to the racetrack. But as police are asking around about this, they learn that Mike had been having an affair with Sheila from work. So police change tactics, and they start looking around for costume shops in the area. And they end up finding one that had recently sold a clown costume. So they interview the employee who was working that day, and the employee, describes the customer as a woman who just happens to fit the description of Sheila. Then they find the clown's getaway car, abandoned in a parking lot. And in that car, they find orange hair fibers from a clown wig, as well as some brown human hair. So they get a search warrant, and they go search Sheila's apartment.

And there, guess what they find? Orange hairs from a clown wig and brown human hairs. But unfortunately, the hairs alone aren't enough to make a connection, so they can't arrest Sheila and they can't charge her with anything involving the murder. Here's what's crazy though. During this investigation, police look into Mike because of course he's the husband. And while they don't find any evidence that he's involved in Marlene's death, they do find evidence that he's been committing serious fraud at his used car dealership, rolling back odometers, manipulating the titles of vehicles, stuff like that. So Mike is arrested for this and he's convicted and he goes to prison. While

Sheila, the person who actually committed the murder, doesn't. She's free. Three years later, Mike gets out. He served his time. And he and Sheila, they end up getting married. And they finally live happily ever after like they always wanted. Until... 15 years go by.

And Marlene's death is still unresolved. But one day, the local sheriff's office gets some grant money to open unsolved cases from the past. So they opened some cases, and one of those cases, is this clown murder case. So they form a task force, and they re-interview witnesses, and they look at all the old evidence. And most importantly,

they submit those brown human hairs that they found in the clown's getaway car for DNA testing. Which DNA testing wasn't as widely available decades before when this case first started, but it is available now, so they submit it. And of course, boom, they get a match.

It's Sheila. So finally, 27 years after Marlene's murder, They arrest Sheila. Here's her mugshot. And she goes to trial, she ends up taking a plea deal, and she's sentenced to 12 years in prison. Now, one more thing. There is speculation that Sheila didn't act alone in all this,

that Mike was also involved in the planning of his wife's unaliving. But in their investigation, police were not able to find any hard evidence of that. So he was never charged nor convicted. Shout out to Florida.