FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ After U.S. Marshals arrested Sheila Keen Warren in Virginia during a traffic stop last year, she had no idea yet that she had become the accused shooter in South Florida's killer clown case from 27 years earlier.
"Where are we going?" "Am I under arrest and what for?" "Is my husband under arrest?" were some of the 54-year-old woman's questions, after she was taken out of her Cadillac Escalade and placed in the back of a sheriff's cruiser.
Once inside the sheriff's headquarters, Keen Warren initially agreed to answer questions. She told police her nickname of "Debbie" and where she lived. But as soon as she was told she was under arrest for the May 26, 1990, slaying of Marlene Warren, 40, in Wellington, she put her head down on a desk and declined to say another word.
This glimpse of Keen Warren's Sept. 26 capture, and the renewed investigation that led to it after all these years, is detailed in files released Thursday by the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office, in response to public records requests.
The records explain how recent testing of DNA evidence was the key to cracking a case that had long gone cold but is now the center of a death penalty prosecution.
Sheila Keen Warren is facing charges in the death of Marlene Warren in 1990. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for the 54-year-old woman accused of wearing a clown disguise during the May 26, 1990, slaying of Marlene Warren, 40, in Wellington.
Keen Warren has pleaded not guilty to a first-degree murder charge, and is being held at Palm Beach County Jail without bond. Her husband, Michael, was married to Marlene Warren, who was gunned down in her front doorway by a killer dressed in a clown suit, holding two balloons and flowers in one hand and a pistol in the other.
The 2,847 pages of documents released Thursday include all of the original investigative reports that made the case so remarkable: Detectives say Marlene Warren answered the door to her home in the Aero Club community and marveled at the clown wearing an orange wig, a red bulb nose, gloves and a smile painted on its white face. But immediately, the clown fired at Warren's face. She died within two days.
The clown fled in a white Chrysler LeBaron, which was found four days later abandoned at a shopping center parking lot.
Sheila Keen and Michael Warren were original suspects in the killing, but were never charged.
Keen, then 27, had been working for Michael Warren's used car dealership, Bargain Motors Inc. of West Palm Beach, helping to repossess cars.
Warren, who has long denied any role, was en route to Calder Race Track with friends at the time his wife was shot. Authorities have said it remains to be seen if anyone else will be charged, but that the case remains open.
During the original murder investigation, detectives discovered Warren was rolling back odometers on vehicles at his used car lot. He was convicted of racketeering and multiple other felonies and served nearly four years in a minimum-security state prison at the Homestead Correctional Institution. He was released on New Year's Eve 1997.
Five years, later he and Sheila Keen wed in Las Vegas, Nev., a fact that investigators didn't know until they reopened the case in 2014. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said used a $125,000 federal grant, and formed a task force with members of the state attorney's office and the FBI. They interviewed numerous witnesses, reviewed evidence, and had new DNA testing done, leading to an Aug. 31 grand jury indictment.
"Sometimes justice can be delayed but, justice eventually arrives," State Attorney Dave Aronberg said.
For the past 15 years, the Warrens lived in small, historic Abingdon, Va., within the Blue Ridge Mountains. They had a reputation as a hardworking, sociable couple who until last year operated a popular fast-food restaurant in nearby Kingsport, Tenn.
Here are some of the revelations from the document release:
_Detectives collected samples of Sheila Keen's hair and vials of her blood through a June 1990 search warrant. In the reopened investigation, those samples were sent to an FBI crime lab and some matches were made to fibers collected from the getaway car.
_Michael Warren's friends told police that he "did not act very upset" after his wife's death.
_Marlene's son Joseph Ahrens and another person, Jean Pratt, got into a car and chased the clown.
_Detectives wrote that Jean Pratt told investigators in a June 27, 1991, statement that "the clown suspect was definitely a man ... It wasn't a woman."
_An attorney Christopher DeSantis gave investigators a statement in 1991 concerning his conversation two years earlier with Michael Warren as they left the courthouse. Warren "asked me what the ramifications would be if a husband killed his wife on her estate," DeSantis said. The lawyer advised that if the husband had a friend who did it and they couldn't tie the husband to the friend, he'd get away Scott free.
After the killing, detectives told reporters that a search of Sheila Keen's home yielded fibers from a bright orange wig. And similar fibers were found in the getaway car.
Defense attorney Richard Lubin has said it's a "complicated" case because it's so old. He did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
The next hearing in the case is set for May 9; Keen Warren has waived her right to a speedy trial and most court appearances.
