[siren wailing]
There was an individual standing at the door,
dressed in a clown suit, holding some balloons and flowers.
This case has everything -- sex, betrayal, money,
and an evil clown. -[gunshot blasts]
She suffered a single gunshot wound to the mouth.
[news broadcast] Police have no suspects or motives.
The victim really seemed to have no enemies.
She's like a sister to me.
But truth is stranger than fiction.
[Alicia] There are so many diabolical layers that it took nearly
30 years to solve this case.
[Joseph] And the whole time, I thought, "Is it somebody I know?"
Do I know the killer of my mother?
[theme music playing]
[theme music continues]
[music fades]
[Alicia] For us, at People, this case is especially troubling.
A close-knit family ripped apart by a violent crime,
and the realization that the people we love
and admire most...
have been hiding their true self behind a mask.
Wellington is a community that's in the western part of
Palm Beach County, Florida.
And in 1987, Wellington was just a new development,
and very sparsely occupied.
And the surrounding area is largely associated with
the equine industry.
[Liam] In 1987, 37-year-old Marlene Warren, her husband Michael,
and their two sons moved to the Aero Club in
Wellington, which was a private upscale neighborhood
with high repute.
[Joseph] My mother was a beautiful woman.
She had reddish hair and a beautiful smile.
Her intentions were just to love and to be caring
and discerning, and she was that.
I remember, as kids, when we had had to clean
the house, she would turn the radio on and just get us in
the groove, you know?
And she had that way about her, just see positive in
everything, even work.
[Aleathea] Marlene and Michael Warren owned multiple businesses,
including rental properties.
Marlene was the manager for the rental properties,
while Michael ran a business called Bargain Motors,
which was both car sales and rentals.
We lost our biological father when I was very young.
And me and my brother, John, looked up to
my stepfather, Michael Warren, because he was a person that
could get stuff done. And we did call him "Dad."
[Alicia] As Joe and John reach adulthood, Michael's able to
take advantage of their life in Wellington, owning a plane,
as well as investing in racehorses
and frequenting the track.
Meanwhile, Marlene uses her free time to explore
a lifelong passion.
My mother would paint anything that inspired her,
and she loved clowns.
She would tell me she thought clowns showed emotions
and feelings, and most people hide them.
She loved this, because they could express
happiness, sadness, sorrow with a mask.
[Aleathea] By all appearances, Michael and Marlene Warren were
a lovely couple that were working very hard to get where
they wanted to go.
[Liam] In 1988, just a year after moving to the Aero Club,
the Warrens were about to experience an insurmountable
tragedy that would permanently alter their family dynamic.
[Joseph] Me and my brother, John, were pretty close.
He was two years older than me, and we used to ride bikes
together, go out with friends together.
We had a lot of fun, and in 1988, when he was
22 years old, my brother got in a car accident,
and died of internal bleeding.
I was just so much in shock, I couldn't even --
I had no words.
It was very traumatic, but my mother, she was making
herself be strong, because she knew she had to
be strong for me.
[Alicia] The Warren family struggles to heal following John's death.
And less than two years later, on Memorial Day weekend 1990,
Marlene Warren is at home making breakfast for Joe,
and a few of his friends.
[Joseph] Some friends came up and stayed the night before.
And that morning, between 9 and 10 o'clock, we were eating
breakfast, watching TV on the couch in the living room,
close to the front door, which was a glass double door.
[slow knocking]
And my friend said, "Oh, there's somebody at
the door." And my mom said, "I'll get it."
[creaking]
[Alicia] Joe watches as Marlene opens the front door and is surprised
to see a clown standing on the doorstep.
I heard my mom say, "Oh, how pretty."
[loud pop]
And then I heard what I thought was a balloon pop,
and then I saw her fall.
My friends and I didn't understand what happened.
We were all confused.
At that point, the clown was over my mother,
looking out at us,
and then walked away.
I ran to my mother, and she was gurgling and trying to breathe.
And I could see her teeth all shattered.
And it was very terrible.
And at that time, it started registering that my mom just
got shot in the mouth.
That noise I heard was a bullet.
At that point, I saw the clown get in a white LeBaron.
He drove off without even squealing a tire.
The car was right there in the center of the driveway,
right at the staircase.
And after the fact, they jumped in like nothing
happened, drove off really casual.
At that time, I was on the phone in the kitchen right
here with 911.
I told them what had happened, dropped the phone.
The friend stayed with my mother, and I went to
catch the person.
I drove recklessly, running red lights, doing 360s.
I mean, I was full throttle.
I was gonna find this person and just run right into him.
[siren wailing]
[Liam] As Joe is chasing after the white LeBaron,
first responders make their way to the scene.
[Aleathea] Marlene had suffered a single gunshot wound to the mouth.
And, as a result of that, she was unresponsive.
[Liam] Still alive, Marlene is rushed to the hospital, as Joe is
still chasing after the white LeBaron.
[Joseph] I pursued the LeBaron up to Southern Boulevard,
and I didn't see the car anywhere.
I had to turn around and get back.
When I got back from the pursuit,
the investigators were all over the house, inside and out.
But my mom wasn't there.
And the sheriffs told me that she was stable, and they were
taking her to the hospital.
And they started asking questions.
Joey Ahrens and his friends agreed that it was a clown with
a multicolored clown costume, tall and thin, and appeared to
be manly in stature.
[Joseph] The clown appeared to be about six foot, had a big orange
nose, white painted face, with a reddish orange wig,
but the shoes weren't clown shoes.
They were like army boots.
-It happened so fast. -[gunshot blasts]
And I was so much in shock and confused, like, why?
And I had no idea who it could be.
Despite the white makeup and clown wig, there was one
detail that Joe noticed about the clown.
When my mom was shot and fell, the clown looked me
right in the eyes.
And I got a glimpse of those eyes.
They were big and brown.
[Aleathea] After speaking to the witnesses,
investigators learned that after Marlene was shot once in
the mouth, the clown left the scene and took the handgun
with him.
But at the scene, there were no shell casings located.
[Alicia] The lack of a shell casing makes investigators believe
that the firearm used was likely a revolver,
[gunshot blasts]
because unlike pistols,
revolvers don't expel casings when fired.
[Aleathea] Investigators collected a white wicker basket with multiple
colored flowers in it, and two balloons,
which one said, "You're the greatest."
Investigators collected the rug that was in the entry.
They swabbed everything, including the door handles.
Basically attempted as much as they could to recover
anything and everything.
[Joseph] While I was at the house, I called my father on
his car phone.
He was on the way to the racetrack to watch one of
our horses race.
I remember saying, "Mom was shot,
I think she's gonna die." He was confused.
"What? What do you mean?
What happened?"
I did not tell him any details, and I said, "Please come home."
[Alicia] With Marlene clinging to life, detectives let Joe and Mike
head to the hospital, where doctors are doing
everything in their power to save her.
[Aleathea] She had suffered a horrendous shot that entered her mouth
and traveled through teeth and the back of her throat.
They were able to operate, and they did recover a single
projectile that was lodged at the spinal column,
consistent with a .38 caliber weapon.
Doctors are able to save Marlene's life,
but unfortunately, she's unresponsive.
[Joseph] The only thing I remember when we got to the hospital is
I couldn't leave that room.
I held my mom's hand, trying to get something.
I wanted her to squeeze my hand, a blink of
an eye, something.
While they're at the hospital, police speak with
Michael Warren, Marlene's husband.
[Dave] Whenever there's a serious domestic crime,
investigators always look to the spouse.
But Michael Warren had an airtight alibi.
He was in a car with his friends on the way to
a racetrack about an hour away.
They know he wasn't in the clown costume.
But they ask him, "Who could have wanted to kill Marlene?"
He's not sure, but he says she managed a lot
of the properties that they owned, which was over 20.
And maybe there was an upset tenant, and maybe that was
a place to look.
[news broadcast] 40-year-old Marlene Warren is fighting for her life here at
this Palm Beach hospital.
Warren was shot at her home Saturday, by a person wearing
a clown suit.
Tenants say, even though she's had to oversee
a few evictions, Marlene Warren was very well-liked.
She's like a sister to me,
and I wanted her to be godmother of my kids.
Investigators learned that, by all accounts,
she was much loved by everybody.
[Alicia] Detectives are puzzled about the shooter's choice of a clown
costume, until Marlene's family tells them
about her love of clowns.
[Dave] It's more than a coincidence that the person who wanted to
kill her knew not only that Marlene would be home,
but that she liked clowns enough that she would open
the door to some clown on the doorstep.
So Marlene Warren was a specific target that day.
But Marlene had no known enemies.
So the investigators had no idea what was going on.
Despite doctor's best efforts, Marlene never
regains consciousness.
Two days after she was shot, Marlene Warren is taken off
life support and dies with her family surrounding her.
[Joseph] When my mother died, it made me feel lost.
It made me feel the best thing in my life is now leaving,
and I'll be here alone.
Marlene's death really panicked the entire community
in Wellington, and understandably so,
because you have a murderous clown who's already killed
a woman without clear motive.
So everyone is on edge, and people called into
the police, reporting sightings of clowns.
[Liam] Numerous tips come in, but none of them matching
the clown seen by Joe.
However, after four days, authorities get a call.
[Aleathea] The white Chrysler LeBaron had apparently been abandoned in
the parking lot of a South Florida grocery store chain.
[Alicia] Investigators believe this might be
the killer's getaway car.
It's been in the parking lot for a number of days,
and it's only eight miles away from the Warren house.
So the LeBaron is towed to the Sheriff's Office to
be processed.
In searching the vehicle, they collected the four
floor mats
that had debris in them,
including orange fibers.
It did occur to investigators that the orange fibers did look
like they could have come from a clown wig.
They also recovered long, brown hair.
[Liam] Police now start searching for the origins of
the clown costume.
They start calling costume shops to see if any of
the local ones sold the clown costume in the past few days.
And it comes up with a hit.
Back in the late '80s, I took a part-time job at a place
called Capezio Spotlight, which was pretty much the only
place in town where you could get an array of costumes.
On May 24, 1990, I had just finished closing up shop,
and there was a knock at the door.
[knocking]
I could see that it was a woman, long, chocolate brown
hair, big brown eyes.
And I said, "We're closed.
Can you come back tomorrow?" And she said, "Oh, no."
And very insistently said, "I need a clown costume."
And I let her in.
And I pulled out the suit that was almost like a hot pink on
one side.
And on the other side, it was yellow and orange,
and I chose an orange wig.
and she said that that was fine.
[Liam] In total, the customer bought white face paint,
a clown costume, a clown nose, a clown wig, and paid in cash,
meaning there was no way to track the transaction.
[Debbie] I noticed she was a very tall person.
She was dressed in jeans, and she had on, like,
a men's jean shirt and boots.
And when she was walking out the door, if it wasn't for
the really long hair, I would have thought it was a man.
[Liam] It's possible it's a coincidence that this woman
happened to buy a costume two days before the shooting.
But detectives have their eyebrows raised.
But now they need to find the origin of the flowers
and the balloons.
And they eventually land on a grocery store that sold
the exact same flowers and balloons,
Two employees reported a tall woman with long, dark brown
hair and dark brown eyes purchased that exact flower
arrangement and balloons,
the very morning of the shooting.
[gunshot blasts]
[Liam] When investigators put all the eyewitness accounts
together, it was very surprising.
The law enforcement realized that those manly features
that were describing this killer clown
may actually be attributable to a woman.
Four days after her death, Marlene's funeral is held.
At that time, I was in a survivor mode, and I remember
being very quiet then.
It was just devastating to know she was truly gone, and I just,
I lost a little bit of myself that day.
[Dave] Joe was a victim as well.
[gunshot blasts]
He was dramatically affected from seeing the clown shooting
to death his mother.
To see what happened to my mother --
I was so shocked.
My brain shut down, and I was very fearful.
I didn't even go back to the house.
I couldn't go back there.
For all I knew, my life could have been in danger as well.
-[gunshot blasts] -And I had a conversation with my dad that
it would be best to ship me out of there.
And I went to stay at my grandmother
and grandfather's house.
Joey basically, at this point, was by himself.
But he was still trying to help law enforcement.
And detectives interviewed him again to see whether or not
he remembered anything else relevant to the investigation.
I told the detectives that after my brother died,
we couldn't hardly do anything.
Get out of bed, brush your teeth, take a shower.
One morning before he went to work, my mom said,
"Mike, we need you home. We just lost a son."
But he pulled away and not got closer.
A week before she was shot, my mother sat me down.
She said, "I'm picking up your dad doesn't care anymore,
and I want to leave."
And I didn't want to believe any of that.
[Aleathea] This information was of high interest to investigators,
because if they were going to be ending the marriage,
this could support a financial motive to kill Marlene Warren,
rather than pay her a penny in a divorce.
The investigators discovered that the rental properties were
in Marlene's name.
And who stood financially to benefit from Marlene's death
was Michael Warren.
In fact, he was the sole beneficiary of
all of their assets.
[Alicia] While investigators are taking a closer look at
Michael Warren, they also learned pivotal information
about the abandoned white LeBaron that they believe is
the clown's getaway car.
That white LeBaron had been owned by Payless, car rental
agency in Palm Beach County.
A couple had rented the white Chrysler LeBaron, and to return
it, they opened the yellow pages and called what
they thought was Payless.
The car lot was closed, so the person that answered
the phone just instructed them to leave it parked on
the street near the lot, with the key to it
above the visor.
And they did as instructed and left.
But Payless never recovered their vehicle,
and they reported their car as stolen four weeks approximately
before the murder of Marlene Warren.
[Liam] What police find is that the couple called the number in
the yellow pages for what they believed was Payless,
when in fact, they were actually on the phone
with the rival rental car company, A Bargain Motors.
[Aleathea] Michael Warren had ads in the yellow pages that said,
"A Bargain Auto Rentals," in very small letters,
and deceptively, "Payless," in very large letters.
So pretty regularly, people would call them to
return cars that they had gotten from Payless,
and A Bargain Motors would benefit from that mistake
and steal them.
With Michael's company possibly linked to the stolen LeBaron,
investigators decide it's time to speak with the employees of
A Bargain Motors.
[Aleathea] When asked about the white Chrysler LeBaron, everyone at
A Bargain Motors, including Michael Warren,
denied having any information
and said that it wasn't us.
[Dave] Interestingly, when investigators sniffed around
Michael's business, they discovered that he had
an open affair
with a repossession agent.
Sheila Keen was a woman that ran an automobile repossession
company with her husband, Richard Keen, and they did work
with A Bargain Motors.
And it was well known to everyone at A Bargain Motors
that Sheila Keen and Michael Warren were having
a romantic affair.
[Liam] Not only is she having an affair with Marlene Warren's
husband, she is also a match for the description of
the person seen buying the clown costume,
and the flowers and balloons, a woman with long brown hair
and dark brown eyes.
[Dave] Not only that, but repossession is
a dangerous profession.
So she often carried a gun with her,
and she was known to wear combat boots.
[Aleathea] Investigators also learned that while they had a business
together, she and Richard were separated, and she was living
in an apartment on her own.
After gathering what seems to be a wealth of information,
investigators sit down with Michael Warren
and Sheila Keen separately.
Michael insists that their relationship is strictly
business, and Sheila says the same.
She also tries to give an alibi of where she was on the day
of the shooting.
She says she was out repossessing cars.
[Aleathea] When asked about specific areas or what cars she repossessed,
she was unwilling to give them any details.
[Alicia] Once detectives know that Sheila Keen had been in
possession of a .38 caliber revolver, the same caliber
weapon that Marlene was shot with, they confront her.
[Alicia] Once Sheila requests an attorney, the interview is
over, but between her weak alibi and her missing
.38 caliber revolver, detectives consider her
the primary suspect.
So they bring in the costume shop employee to see if
she might recognize Sheila Keen in a lineup.
What I'm holding here is what I was shown at
the Sheriff's Department.
And this actually is the picture of the person
that I chose.
These big brown eyes, I recognized those immediately.
And of course, that long, brown hair.
[Dave] She made a positive identification of Sheila Keen
as the person who bought the clown costume
at their store.
The big question of this case from the beginning was,
"Who would kill this mother who had no known enemies?"
But now it looked like someone who wanted
Marlene's husband for herself.
So law enforcement get a search warrant, and they search
Sheila Keen's apartment.
[Aleathea] Two weeks after the shooting, on June 11th, 1990,
the Sheriff's Department recovered combat boots, as well
as some orange fibers, consistent with a clown wig,
and looked to be consistent with the fibers
located in the car.
Along with the orange fibers, they found white clown makeup.
[Aleathea] So, at first glance, the Sheriff's Department now
have what seems to be great information and physical
evidence about the possibility that Sheila Keen had something
to do with this.
But with no actual costume and no murder weapon found,
they can't definitively tie her to the crime.
Investigators take biological samples, specifically hair from
Sheila Keen, and send them to the FBI to see if they'll match
the hair recovered from the white LeBaron.
At that time, the FBI could not conclusively determine that all
of the fibers recovered came from the same source or even
from a clown wig.
And they were only able to say that the hair found in
the white Chrysler LeBaron was consistent in appearance with
Sheila Keen's hair.
DNA technology did not really exist back then, which means
that the evidence is circumstantial.
The detectives told me they had a suspect, but they couldn't do
anything about it at this time, that there wasn't enough to
convict anyone, and they would have to do more research.
And the whole time, I thought, "Is it somebody I know?
Do I know the killer of my mother?"
And I would think about those eyes,
but I couldn't figure it out.
[Liam] At this point, it's now been about a year since the murder.
And the media eventually catch wind of the affair between
Sheila and Michael.
And they kind of run wild with it.
[Joseph] As time came to pass, I read in the newspaper about my dad
and Sheila having an affair, and that he had something to do
with my mom's murder.
But for me, it was just a puzzle
I couldn't put together.
I mean, that was my father, my only father that I knew for
20 years.
I thought, "Yeah, sure, my parents were having a rough
patch, but not murder. He wouldn't do that."
[Alicia] Then, just over a year after Marlene's murder,
a call comes in
that might eliminate both Michael and Sheila as suspects.
[Dave] In 1991, an inmate named Edward Bahr confessed to another
inmate that he was the clown who killed Marlene Warren.
[Alicia] A detective from Portland, Maine Police Department reaches
out to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office after
an inmate named Edward Bahr told his cellmate that
he murdered a woman in the Wellington area.
Edward Bahr had confessed that he had killed a woman while
dressed as a clown in West Palm Beach at the request,
and the hiring of the husband, because the husband was
interested in life insurance money,
and that a woman had bought the clown costume that he wore.
[Alicia] Records show Edward Bahr did live in Palm Beach County,
Florida, during the time of Marlene's murder, before he was
convicted and sentenced to prison in Portland, Maine,
for armed robbery.
West Palm Beach investigators go to Maine to interview Bahr
and see if his story is credible.
Edward Bahr said that he at one time worked at
A Bargain Motors, but when the Sheriff's Department tried to corroborate
that, they were unable to find that he had in fact done that.
He also doesn't correctly describe the clown costume,
saying that the wig had been green
when police knew it was orange.
And he doesn't match the description of the person
wearing the costume.
Edward Bahr was a large man, over 200 pounds,
and at the time of the homicide, had a full,
bushy beard.
[Liam] Eyewitnesses didn't see a beard, which obviously would
have been very difficult to conceal under the white makeup.
[Dave] When investigators asked additional questions,
he clammed up, said he wanted a lawyer, and then things
withered on the vine.
And it became clear Edward Bahr was not the person who killed
Marlene Warren.
He wanted to somehow cop to a crime he didn't commit,
so that he would get a better sentence for his armed robbery.
I asked the detectives, why the guy that said he did
it wasn't going to jail for my mom's murder, and they would
try to talk to me and tell me to be patient, and just try to
keep myself together, but the murder of my mother
made me a fearful person. I was very distraught.
I had post-traumatic stress disorder.
I was shut down.
I could not function, and my father promised me that
he would give me half the insurance policy so I could
carry on with my life,
but he kept telling me the insurance company
was not paying it.
I finally called the insurance company, and they told me,
"We paid that out 30 days after the murder."
I was appalled. I was shocked.
I was speechless.
That's when it really kicked in to me that Mike might have
had something to do with my mom's murder.
[Liam] Michael and Sheila never admit to having an affair,
and authorities could never officially link Michael Warren
to the murder of his wife.
But in the course of the investigation,
they discover that he has been committing a crime.
[Dave] In 1992, two years after his wife was murdered,
Michael Warren was arrested for fraud and racketeering.
Michael Warren had a pattern of rolling back odometers on cars
in order to get a higher sales price.
[Dave] Michael Warren was interested in making a quick buck.
And eventually, things caught up with him.
[Alicia] In 1994, Michael Warren is sentenced to
nine years in prison.
Meanwhile, Joe tries to move on with his life.
[Joseph] I started doing roofing work and carpentry work.
But I had so many issues, and I got into
drugs and alcohol.
Every year, I would call the Sheriff's Department,
drunk and belligerent, yelling and screaming.
I wanted something to happen.
I was reaching out for help, and I wasn't getting it.
[Alicia] Because of Florida's sentencing laws in the early '90s,
Michael Warren is released in 1997 after serving less than
four years in prison.
[Joseph] After Mike was released, I wanted nothing to do with
him, because I was afraid of him.
And I tried to go and live my life, but I was very fearful.
I lived with fear for a long time.
Authorities don't keep track of Michael Warren or Sheila Keen,
and the case becomes a distant memory for most.
Then over two decades after the case fizzled out,
things reopened when Palm Beach County authorities get a grant
to look into cold cases.
Until 2013, this case was circumstantial.
But now, the advances in DNA could change that.
[Mark] Physical evidence recovered from the Chrysler LeBaron
and the crime scene, along with the orange fibers and the hair,
was resubmitted to the FBI lab to attempt to establish,
by either through DNA or through trace evidence,
a link to the killer.
We asked the DNA lab, "Can you please examine in more
"detail all of the smallest portions of the basket
"and the ribbons and the balloons
to see, did we miss anything?"
[Mark] It took several years, because this was a cold case,
and the pressing cases that are coming in are going to
take priority.
[Alicia] In 2016, investigators received the results from
the forensic testing.
And they make a new discovery that could finally move
the case forward.
[Aleathea] Under a high-powered microscope,
the scientist located, tangled in the balloon ribbon,
orange fiber, consistent with the fiber that was found in
the car and in Sheila Keen's apartment.
[Mark] And it was found that all of those synthetic fibers,
chemical composition was a match.
[Dave] The hairs that were found in the car were now tested for
DNA, and it pointed to DNA from the chief suspect in this case,
Sheila Keen.
[Alicia] After 27 years, investigators have definitive
proof that ties Sheila Keen to the abandoned LeBaron
and the crime scene.
In August 2017, a warrant is issued for Sheila Keen's arrest
on charges of first-degree murder.
[Mark] Through the databases that we have, I was able to link
a home in Abingdon, Virginia, to which
the deed holder was Sheila Keen.
[Liam] Cold case investigators also find out that in the years that
they hadn't kept track, Sheila got married about
a decade after the murder of Marlene
to Michael Warren.
[Dave] Michael and Sheila married after Michael got
out of prison in 1997.
They moved to Virginia, and they opened up a restaurant
in nearby Tennessee.
[Aleathea] The fact that Sheila Keen and Michael Warren got married
affirmed everything that we had all suspicions of.
[Alicia] On September 26, 2017, authorities set out to
arrest Sheila Keen-Warren on charges of first-degree murder.
On that particular afternoon, the local authorities saw
her being driven by Mike Warren, and a traffic stop
was conducted.
And in no time, Sheila Keen-Warren was in handcuffs.
Her first question was, "Are you also arresting
my husband?"
[Dave] Why would you say that?
Unless you knew you were being charged for a potential
conspiracy to murder Marlene Warren.
She thought she got away with it for 27 years, and it gave us
some satisfaction to see her in the back of a police car.
With Sheila in handcuffs, authorities tried to talk to
Michael, but he had nothing to say.
I approached Mike Warren, and I just
remember his -- his coldness.
I told him that consideration for a lesser penalty for Sheila
could be discussed if he would be willing to tell us the truth
about what happened to Marlene Warren back in May of 1990.
He declined to give a statement,
and he walked away.
[Joseph] In 2017, detectives from West Palm Beach told me that
they had Sheila Keene in custody for the murder of
my mother. I was so shocked.
I didn't know how to think at that point.
I was excited, but yet confused.
At that point, one of the detectives told me that
Sheila married Mike.
And for me, it just put all the pieces together.
[Liam] Sheila Keen-Warren is denied bail and held in
Palm Beach County, as authorities prepare to
prosecute her on murder charges.
In the process, though,
they discover a potential issue with the evidence.
Over the decades, the bags of evidence had tears in them.
And because the orange fibers that were found tangled in
the ribbons of the balloons hadn't been found before,
the defense raised allegations of mishandling and tampering.
And they tried to exclude that evidence for trial.
[Dave] The lead prosecutor in the case came to me and said,
"We've got some issues.
"The defense has offered 10 years in prison for
a manslaughter conviction." I said, "No.
I said that I wanted a murder conviction, not manslaughter.
And so he took my counteroffer back to the defense,
and the defense accepted it.
[Alicia] On April 25, 2023,
Sheila Keen-Warren pleads guilty to the murder of
Marlene Warren and is sentenced to 12 years in prison,
the minimum in 1990.
[gunshot blasts]
I do not feel OK with the time that she got.
Sheila Keen feels no remorse for killing my mother.
I think they should have put that lady in prison for
the rest of her life.
[Dave] I would classify Sheila Keen-Warren as a sociopath,
as a cold blooded murderer.
I think what she did deserved the ultimate penalty,
but that's not the world we live in.
We live in the world of evidence and burdens of proof
and father time.
And all those things worked against us.
[Joseph] Right now, as of today, we have nothing on
Michael Warren, and I wish that would change.
I hope and pray it does.
What we put out, we get back.
And it seems like this guy hasn't paid yet, but his day
is coming.
My mom was truly an angel here on Earth,
and I know she is in heaven.
I'm grateful at the time I had with her.
It's been a rough road.
My brother, my dad, my mom, I lost my whole family.
But it comforts me that I have two angels,
my mother and my brother, watching over me,
guiding me home.
♪♪
I reach in, and I'm shaking her.
[over the phone] Sheriff's Department 9-1-1.
My sister-in-law is dead now.
How could this happen to her?
She says they have an affair.
I was like, "No. He wouldn't do something like that."
There is a divide in the family.
I...know what he did. You're not innocent.