Florida's convicted killer clown released from prison for the murder of her husband's then-wife

Sheila Kane Warren, the woman who pleaded guilty in 1990 to murdering another woman's husband, whom she later married, while dressed as a clown, was released from prison on Saturday. The case was bizarre even by Florida standards.

Kane Warren, 61, has been released from prison 18 months after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in the shooting death of Marlene Warren. This confession was made shortly before the start of his trial.

Kane Warren, who maintained his innocence even after pleading guilty, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. But he has been in custody for seven years since his arrest in 2017, and the 1990 Florida law included significant credit for good behavior. He was expected to be released in about two years.

"Sheila Kane Warren will always be a convicted murderer and will carry that stain with her forever," Palm Beach County District Attorney Dave Aronberg said in a statement Saturday.

Kane Warren's attorney, Greg Rosenfeld, said he only accepted the deal because he knew he would be released in less than two years and faced up to life in prison if convicted.

Sheila Kane Warren, left, speaks with her attorney, Richard Lubin, during her first court appearance Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2017, in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Adam Sakasa/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

"We are very happy that Ms. Kane Warren has been released from prison and is returning to her family," he said in a text message Saturday. As we have said from the beginning, he did not commit this crime."

Marlene Warren's son Joseph Ahrens and friends were at home when they said someone dressed as a clown rang the doorbell. When her mother answered, the clown gave her some balloons, she said. After she replied, "Good," the clown pulled out a gun, shot her in the face, and ran away.

Palm Beach County police officers had long considered Kane Warren the prime suspect in the slaying, but didn't make an arrest until 27 years later, when they said improved DNA tests linked him to evidence found in the getaway car. Rosenfeld called this evidence weak.

At the time of the shooting, Kane Warren was an employee of Marlene Warren's husband, Michael, at his used car dealership. 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 Sheila Kane and Michael Warren were having an affair, although both denied it.

Over the years, detectives said, clothing store employees identified Sheila Warren as the woman who bought a clown costume days before the murder.

And one of the two balloons — a silver one that read, "You're the best" — was sold at just one store, a Publix supermarket near Kane Warren's home. Employees told detectives that a woman who looked like Kane Warren bought the balloons an hour before the shooting.

The supposed getaway car was abandoned and orange hair-like fibers were found inside. The white Chrysler convertible was stolen from Michael Warren's car dealership a month before the shooting. Kane Warren and her husband at the time impounded her car.

Relatives told the Palm Beach Post in 2000 that Marlene Warren, who was 40 at the time of her death, suspected her husband was having an affair and wanted to leave him. But the car and other properties were in his name and he was afraid of what might happen.

"If anything happened to me, Mike did it," she allegedly told her mother. He has never been charged and has denied any involvement.

But Rosenfeld said last year that the government's case was falling apart. One DNA sample somehow showed male and female genes, and the other could be one in 20 women, he said.

And even if that hair is Kane Warren's, it may have been deposited before the car was reported stolen. He said Marlene Warren's son and another witness also told detectives that the car officers found was not the killer's, although investigators insisted it was.

Aronberg acknowledged last year that there were holes in the case, which he said were caused by the three decades it took for the case to go to trial, including the deaths of key witnesses.

Michael Warren was convicted in 1994 of grand theft, extortion and odometer tampering. He spent nearly four years in prison — a sentence his then-lawyers said was disproportionate to his suspected involvement in his wife's death.

He did not respond to a phone message left for him on Saturday.

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