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Florida’s convicted killer clown released from prison for the murder of her husband’s then-wife
A woman who pleaded guilty to dressing as a clown and in 1990 murdering the wife of a man she later married was released from prison Saturday, ending a case that has been strange even by Florida standards.
Sheila Keen-Warren, 61, was released 18 months after she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for the shooting of Marlene Warren, Florida Department of Corrections records show. The plea deal came shortly before her trial would have started.
Keen-Warren, who has maintained her innocence even after her plea, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. But she had been in custody for seven years since her arrest in 2017, and Florida’s law in 1990 allowed significant credit for good behavior. It had been expected she would be released in about two years.
“Sheila Keen-Warren will always be an admitted convicted murderer and will wear that stain for every day for the rest of her life,” Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg said in a statement Saturday.
Greg Rosenfeld, Keen-Warren’s attorney, has said she only took the plea deal because she would be released in less than two years and had been facing a life sentence if convicted at trial.
“We are absolutely thrilled that Ms. Keen-Warren has been released from prison and is returning to her family. As we’ve stated from the beginning, she did not commit this crime,” he said Saturday in a text message.
Marlene Warren’s son, Joseph Ahrens, and his friends were at home when they said a person dressed as a clown rang the door bell. He said that when his mom answered, the clown handed her some balloons. After she responded, “How nice,” the clown pulled a gun and shot her in the face before fleeing.
Palm Beach County sheriff’s investigators had long suspected Keen-Warren in the slaying, but she wasn’t arrested until 27 years later when they said improved DNA testing tied her to evidence found in the getaway car. Rosenfeld has called that evidence weak.
At the time of the shooting, Keen-Warren was an employee of Marlene Warren’s husband, Michael, at his used car lot. Since 2002, she has been his wife — they eventually moved to Abington, Virginia, where they ran a restaurant just across the Tennessee border.
Witnesses told investigators in 1990 that the then-Sheila Keen and Michael Warren were having an affair, though both denied it.
Over the years, detectives said, costume shop employees identified Sheila Warren as the woman who had bought a clown suit a few days before the killing.
And one of the two balloons — a silver one that read, “You’re the Greatest” — was sold at only one store, a Publix supermarket near Keen-Warren’s home. Employees told detectives a woman who looked like Keen-Warren had bought the balloons an hour before the shooting.
The presumed getaway car was found abandoned with orange, hair-like fibers inside. The white Chrysler convertible had been reported stolen from Michael Warren’s car lot a month before the shooting. Keen-Warren and her then-husband repossessed cars for him.
Relatives told The Palm Beach Post in 2000 that Marlene Warren, who was 40 when she died, suspected her husband was having an affair and wanted to leave him. But the car lot and other properties were in her name, and she feared what might happen if she did.
She allegedly told her mother, “If anything happens to me, Mike done it.” He has never been charged and has denied involvement.
But Rosenfeld said last year that the state’s case was falling apart. One DNA sample somehow showed both male and female genes, he said, and the other could have come from one out of every 20 women.
And even if that hair did come from Keen-Warren, it could have been deposited before the car was reported stolen. He said Marlene Warren’s son and another witness also told detectives that the car deputies found wasn’t the killer’s, though investigators insisted it was.
Aronberg last year conceded that there were holes in the case, saying they were caused by the three decades it took to get it to trial, including the death of key witnesses.
Michael Warren was convicted in 1994 of grand theft, racketeering and odometer tampering. He served almost four years in prison — a punishment his then-attorneys said was disproportionately long because of suspicions he was involved in his wife’s death.
He did not respond to a phone message left for him Saturday.
Getty Images/iStockphoto
It’s not easy to find a cost-effective way to borrow $100,000.
Many credit card companies will prevent most borrowers from accessing a credit line anywhere close to that amount. And with the average credit card interest rate now just over 23%, a record high, it wouldn’t make sense for users to borrow that amount with a credit card even if they were allowed to. Meanwhile, personal loans come with their own set of restrictions, reducing the likelihood that many will be able to get a $100,000 personal loan right now. And while rates on these products are much better than credit cards, they’re still approaching 13% in today’s rate climate.
A $100,000 home equity loan for those who own homes, then, becomes the natural next recourse. In these borrowing circumstances, however, the home in question serves as collateral, so you’ll want to carefully consider borrowing this much money in advance before signing the formal loan application. But is a $100,000 home equity loan worth it now? For many borrowers, it may be. Below, we’ll explain why.
See what home equity loan interest rate you could qualify for here.
Is a $100,000 home equity loan worth it?
While borrowing from your home equity requires careful consideration, a $100,000 home equity loan could be worth it for you for all of the following reasons:
It won’t drain all of your equity: The average homeowner has around $330,000 worth of home equity right now. So if you decide to borrow $100,000 of it, you won’t have drained all of your equity, allowing you to then use it in the future, too. And considering that lenders typically limit borrowers to 80% of their equity, you may be able to borrow upwards of $200,000 right now. A $100,000 home equity loan, then, could provide a stable balance by covering a series of major expenses while still allowing you to maintain a healthy portion of the equity in your home.
Get started with a home equity loan online now.
It could improve your financial situation: A home equity loan interest rate of 8.35% may not seem like a bargain, particularly compared to what rates were in recent years. But take a step back and compare it to what you’re paying on some of your other existing debts.
In many circumstances, like with personal loans and credit card debt, you may be better off paying it off via home equity. Credit card interest rates are almost three times higher than home equity loans (on average) right now. So calculate the monthly costs of paying down that debt with a home equity loan versus continuing with a credit card. In many cases, it may be worth borrowing with a home equity loan.
But it’s not just useful for paying off debt. In some situations, a $100,000 home equity loan could help you start a business, pay for a college education or even buy a second home. In these instances, the long-term benefits of using a $100,000 home equity loan would easily outweigh any monthly costs.
The payments could soon become cheaper: Interest rates are on the decline again after the Federal Reserve issued a half a percentage point cut in September. And it’s poised to issue another cut this week. While this will affect all borrowing products, it will take a long time to get personal loan and credit card rates back into the single-digit range.
Home equity loans are already there, however, and they could soon become cheaper. Plus, a home equity loan rate is fixed, meaning that it will remain the same even if rates rise again in the future. This predictability is a major advantage for those looking to borrow a six-figure sum, allowing them to accurately budget their payments for the long term.
The bottom line
A $100,000 home equity loan could be valuable for a wide swath of homeowners. But it is a large amount of money withdrawn from one of your most important assets so it’s critical that you approach this borrowing circumstance cautiously and strategically. By doing so, you’ll improve your chances of success, both during the loan application process and over the full repayment period.
Have more questions? Learn more about your current home equity loan options here.
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Former police officer found guilty in shooting death of Black man who was holding cellphone and keys
A former Ohio police officer was convicted of murder Monday in the shooting of Andre Hill, a Black man who was holding a cellphone and keys when he was killed. Officer Adam Coy, who served nearly 20 years with the Columbus police force, shot Hill four times in a garage nearly four years ago. Coy, who is White, was fired after the shooting. He later told jurors that he thought Hill was holding a silver revolver.
“I thought I was going to die,” he testified. It was only after he rolled over Hill’s body and saw the keys that he realized there was no gun, Coy said. “I knew at that point I made a mistake. I was horrified.”
Coy, who was partially blocked from view by his grim-faced attorneys, did not visibly react to the verdict but muffled cries could be heard in the courtroom when it was announced. Prosecutors asked that the former officer be sentenced immediately, but Franklin County Judge Stephen McIntosh instead set a sentencing date of Nov. 25.
Police body camera footage showed Hill coming out of the garage of a friend’s house holding up a cellphone in his left hand, his right hand not visible, seconds before he was fatally shot by Coy. Almost 10 minutes passed before officers at the scene began to aid Hill, who lay bleeding on the garage floor. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Weeks after the December 2020 shooting, the mayor forced out the police chief after a series of fatal police shootings of Black men and children. Columbus later reached a $10 million settlement with Hill’s family, the largest in city history. The Columbus City Council also passed Andre’s Law, which requires police officers to render immediate medical attention to an injured suspect.
WBNS
Prosecutors said Hill, 47, had followed the officer’s commands and was never a threat to Coy, who now faces at least 15 years in prison.
“We’re taught do what the cops tell you to do and you can survive that encounter,” Franklin County assistant prosecutor Anthony Pierson said during closing arguments. “That’s not what happened here.”
The officer’s attorneys argued that Hill’s lack of a weapon did not matter because Coy thought his life was in danger. “He wasn’t reckless, he was reasonable,” said attorney Mark Collins.
Coy had gone to the neighborhood to investigate a complaint about someone inside a running vehicle when he first encountered Hill sitting in an SUV. Hill told Coy he was waiting on a friend to come outside.
The officer said he thought Hill seemed dismissive and then suspicious after Hill walked to a house and knocked on the door before entering the garage.
Prosecutors questioned Coy on why he didn’t ask Hill his name or call for backup if he was so concerned, CBS affiliate WBNS-TV reported. Coy said that Hill only partially obeyed his commands and was hiding his right hand.
“I thought he was going to draw. I drew my gun and fired four shots,” Coy said.
According to WBNS-TV, prosecutors asked Coy if Hill was obeying his commands, and Coy responded, “Partially, by hiding himself. He had his right hand behind his leg.”
Coy was questioned on whether he asked Hill to show his hands, the station reported.
Coy said, “It happened too fast, sir.”
/ AP
Coy said he lost sight of Hill and suspected he might be trying to break into the house. Coy used a flashlight to spot Hill in the garage and told him to come out, the officer testified.
When Hill walked toward him, Coy said he could not see the man’s right hand and then saw what he thought was a revolver. He said he yelled, “Gun! Gun!” and then fired at Hill.
Family and friends said Hill — a father and grandfather — was devoted to his family and was a skilled tradesman who dreamed of one day owning his own restaurant, after years of work as a chef and restaurant manager.
Coy had a lengthy history of complaints from residents, with more than three dozen filed against him since he joined the department in 2002, according to his personnel file. A dozen of the complaints were for use of force. All but a few were marked “unfounded” or “not sustained.”