WHEN Marlene Warren’s doorbell rang one Saturday morning in May 1990, it sounded the beginnings of a blood-soaked nightmare that would haunt her family forever.
Outside stood a most bizarre sight: a clown, dressed in a colourful jumpsuit, with an orange wig and big, black shoes. But this was to be no celebration.
It was holding two balloons – one with a picture of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on it, another that read You’re the Greatest – along with a basket of red and white flowers.
“Oh, how pretty,” Marlene said as she opened the door.
Seconds later, there was a loud bang.
Marlene’s son Joe Ahrens says: “It echoed through the house. It seemed like slow motion. It happened so fast. It was wild. It was like another world.”
Marlene, 40, had been shot through the mouth at their home in Wellington Aero Club, Florida – an affluent flying community best known for having its own landing strip.
Just moments before she’d been whipping up a breakfast of eggs and toast for Joe, who was 21 at the time, and three pals.
Joe says: “Blood was coming out of her mouth, and she was gurgling. It was terrible – the worst day of my life.”
As if that wasn’t sickening enough, the clown left the gifts before casually driving off in a white Chrysler LeBaron car parked outside.
Joe says: “After the clown shot my mother they put the flowers down.
“The clown had thick white paint – you couldn’t see its skin. I tried. It had a jumpsuit on, a colourful orange wig and black boot shoes… When they got to the car, they looked around. I saw some big brown eyes.”
Speaking about his ordeal in a new Sky documentary series called Murder On The Doorstep: The Killer Clown, he adds: “All I could think of was to chase that vehicle. I jumped into the car, just driving like a maniac.”
It was too late. The clown was gone.
Marlene was rushed to Palms West Hospital in Loxahatchee, Florida.
Within days, her family made the devastating decision to turn off her life support machine.
Joe says: “It was hell. I kind of knew myself after the third day that we were going to lose my mother, and it was horrible. She was the best person ever. When I lost her, I lost a big part of me.”
Police, now investigating this most bizarre of murder enquiries, quickly turned their attention to Marlene’s husband and Joe’s step-dad, Michael Warren.
Michael, who was 38, had a solid alibi: he’d been travelling with friends to a horse race in Miami when Marlene had been shot.
He appeared to be grief-stricken.
In taped police interviews, featured in the upcoming three-part series, he told detectives: “I’ve never loved anybody as much as I loved my wife.
“We always got along well. You always have your ups and downs but you know, we’ve been together 20 years.”
But it soon became clear to investigators that Marlene was in a turbulent relationship and actually feared her husband.
According to Joe, Marlene intended to leave Michael just days before her death.
She’d threatened to leave him, and he’d threatened to kill her
Debra Hoisington
In June 1990, Marlene’s sister, Debra Hoisington, claimed: “About a year ago, she called me and she said that he beat her up and she’d threatened to leave him, and he’d threatened to kill her.”
Marlene’s step-sister Jamie Twing also told police: “She just kept telling me, if anything happens to me, get Joey out of the house.”
With Marlene out of the picture, Michael now stood to inherit a small fortune from their lucrative family business.
He and Marlene had jointly owned a cut-price, car rental business called Bargain Motors which often leased cars to shady characters, according to employees.
With the profits, the couple had bought several properties worth over $1million – a huge sum for the time. Michael even owned a plane and a racehorse.
Police also spoke to attorney Christopher DeSantis who’d represented the family in an unrelated case.
In a chilling twist, the attorney told how, in April 1989, he’d had a strange conversation with Michael after he’d asked: “Can a husband inherit from his wife if he murdered her?”
DeSantis told him no, unless, he joked, the killer couldn’t be identified because he was dressed like a clown.
DeSantis now believes that his flippant comment in some way led to Marlene’s death.
Killer clown revealed
Police were also tipped off that Mike had been having an affair with an employee called Sheila Keen. She denied the relationship.
But investigators discovered that just two days before the murder, on May 24, 1990, a woman matching her description bought a clown costume from a store called Spotlight Capezio. The owner later identified Sheila as the buyer.
Then the LeBaron car was found dumped at a shopping mall eight miles from Marlene’s house.
Hair and fibres inside matched those found on clown outfits – and were traced back to Bargain Motors.
Yet for all the circumstantial evidence linking Sheila to the crime, there was no concrete forensic evidence to prove her guilt.
The case stalled and the mystery surrounding Marlene’s murder remained.
The clown outfit or weapon were never found.
Michael Warren was arrested in October 1990 – but for 66 auto fraud charges linked to his business, not murder.
Michael Warren took everything. Mike ruined my life
Joe Ahrens
He was later sentenced to nine years in prison but served less than three.
After his 1997 release, Joe spoke to his step-dad for the last time.
Joe says: “When Mike got out of prison, it was a short phone call, but he called me just to say, ‘have a good life’,” he says. “It was just sickening to me. I tried to trace it to find out where he was at, but I never did.”
After Marlene’s death, Michael had promised to share the inheritance money with Joe. Yet Joe never saw a penny of it.
Joe says: “Michael Warren took everything. Mike ruined my life. I had abandonment issues, alcohol issues…
“Mike’s arrest made me feel glad that we did get something, but to not get total justice for my mother – this is not justice to me.
“It really eats me up inside, but I didn’t let it kill me.”
For years, the case was forgotten
Joe tried to move on with his life, moving over 1,300 miles away to Iowa.
It wasn’t until 2014, 24 years after Marlene’s murder, that, remarkably, the case was reopened thanks to a cold case funding grant and advancements in forensic science.
This time, a lab technician was able to go back over the original evidence from the case – including the balloons the clown had left – and was able to match fibres recovered from the crime scene to Sheila.
For prosecutors, it was the missing link that finally tied everything together.
It didn’t take too much digging for detectives to stumble across more surprising news, either.
They discovered that Michael and Sheila had married in Las Vegas in 2002 – 12 years after Marlene’s death.
Sheila had changed her name to “Debbie”, and the pair had moved to Abingdon, Virginia.
They were running a diner called The Purple Cow, just over the state line in Kingsport, Tennessee.
One former worker even told police that “Debbie” had once dressed up as a spooky clown for Halloween
From death penalty to plea deal
In September 2017, 27-and-a-half years after Marlene’s murder, Sheila was arrested for first-degree murder.
After she was extradited to Florida, where she potentially faced the death penalty, she pleaded not guilty.
“I didn’t do it, so that’s it,” she said in police interviews, while refusing to answer any questions.
In recorded jailhouse calls between Michael and Sheila, which air in the documentary, Sheila also tells an emotional Michael after her arrest:. “I’m alright. I’m fine. Quit crying.”
While Michael, who has always protested his innocence, replies: “You didn’t do nothing. Don’t worry about nothing.”
Joe moved from Iowa back to Florida expecting a quick trial. Instead, the case began to fall apart.
The one person that did not pay for this crime is Michael Warren. He didn’t do one day of jail
Joe Ahrens
Sheila’s defence team argued that over the decades, the evidence bags had been opened and examined so many times that the forensic material inside them could no longer be considered reliable.
Fearing the whole trial could collapse, prosecutors offered Sheila a plea bargain which, after years in prison awaiting trial, she accepted.
In April 2023, she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.
She was sentenced to 12 years – but under 1990 Florida law, and with nearly seven years already served since her arrest in 2017, she was freed just 18 months later, in May 2023.
Sheila, 61, moved back in with Michael.
For Joe, the thought of Sheila getting out was “overwhelming” but he admits: “There was a bit of justice for my mother because we did get the killer.”
He has felt the most anger towards his step-dad, who he still believes had his part to play in the murder, despite no charges ever being brought and Michael’s denials.
Joe says: “The one person that did not pay for this crime is Michael Warren. He didn’t do one day of jail.
“But really I have to let go. I have to let it go.”
Instead, Joe, now a dad himself, carries his mother’s spirit with him everyday.
He says: “I know she would be very proud of me today, because I’m proud of myself.
“You know, if I’m in a situation, I always think, ‘what would mum do?’.
“My son is at the age that I was at when I lost my mum. I want my son to grow up knowing his grandmother still lives within me, and I want him to see that through me.”
Murder On The Doorstep: The Killer Clown is available now on Now TV
