The Day of the Murder
Marlene was cooking breakfast for her son, Joseph Ahrens, and his friends, when the doorbell rang the morning of Saturday, May 26, 1990.
Ahrens, who was 21 at the time, was at home recovering from a broken leg when his mom went to answer the front door.
Immediately after, the clown walked “calmly back to a late model white Chrysler LeBaron convertible parked in the driveway” and drove off, per court documents.
After calling 911, Ahrens’s attempt to chase down his mother’s shooter proved unsuccessful.
At her hospital bedside, “I kept telling her I love her, and I don't want her to go, and please don't leave me,” Ahrens told 48 Hours.
Two days later, Marlene was taken off life support and died.
Who Was Marlene Warren?
Marlene and Michael married in April 1972, and Michael became stepfather to Ahrens when the boy was 3 years old.
Marlene went on to become a successful businesswoman who owned several rental properties. She also helped Michael operate their used car lot, Bargain Motors, in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Their thriving businesses allowed the couple to live an affluent life in the exclusive Aero Club community in Wellington, Fla.
But it didn’t guarantee the couple’s marital bliss, and Marlene suspected Michael was having an affair, prompting her to mull over the idea of divorce.
Friends and family later told police they believed Michael was cheating on his wife with Sheila, who worked with Michael as a car repo woman.
At the time she was killed, Marlene was reportedly concerned about her safety and what would happen to their businesses if she split from her husband.
Marlene said, "If anything happens to me, Mike did it,” her late mother, Shirley Twing, told 48 Hours in 2017.
Why Would Anyone Want Marlene Warren Dead?
“The ‘why’ is as old as time itself,” Aronberg explains. “You have a lover who wants the wife's life, and she stole it.”
Michael and Sheila, who were both married to other people at the time, denied their relationship went beyond work. But detectives learned that the pair would go on long lunch dates, and Michael paid the rent on Sheila’s apartment after she left her husband.
Della Ward, who previously worked with Michael and Sheila at Bargain Motors, said it was obvious the two were having an affair.
“You knew the way she looked at Michael… she loved him, you could see it,” she said, according to 48 Hours.
When Marlene died, he was granted sole ownership of their properties and assets.
The Evidence
The costume shop employee told police a woman with brown hair purchased the clown costume, orange wig, red nose and makeup right before closing, two nights before the murder.
The bouquet and balloons—one which read “You’re the Greatest”—were bought at a Publix supermarket less than a mile away from Sheila’s home the morning of the shooting, police determined.
As for the getaway vehicle, the white LeBaron was found abandoned in a parking lot a few days later with evidence of orange fibers believed to have come from a wig, along with brown human hair. DNA technology at the time didn’t allow investigators to make a solid connection to a suspect.
However, they were able to tie the clown’s car to Bargain Motors. Police discovered it was stolen from another dealership by one of Michael’s employees weeks before Marlene’s killing, according to investigators.
Suspicion Turns to Michael Warren
Although detectives suspected Michael was involved in her death, it was confirmed he was on his way to a Miami racetrack with some friends when she was fatally shot, and he maintained his innocence.
Further investigation into Michael led authorities to charge him with racketeering, odometer tampering and grand theft auto in connection with his car business. He was convicted on 43 charges and served nearly four years in prison, and that was the end of Ahrens’s relationship with his stepdad.
Authorities insisted there still wasn’t enough evidence to charge anyone in Marlene’s murder, and her case eventually went cold.
When Michael was released, Sheila was waiting for him, and the pair tied the knot in August 2002 in Las Vegas.
“The evidence grew stronger when we learned that Michael Warren married his wife’s killer,” Aronberg says. "They were living together for decades in Virginia, opened a little restaurant in Tennessee, [Sheila] changed her name to ‘Debbie,’ changed her hair color, and she thought she got away with it.”
The Killer Clown Is Captured
In 2014, the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office reopened Marlene’s case, reanalyzing DNA evidence with breakthrough technology and re-conducting interviews.
The DNA proved to be a match for Sheila, and in September 2017, prosecutors finally had the proof they needed to charge her with Marlene’s murder.
“We had bags of evidence coming apart, the seams opening up and spoiling, and fibers being exposed to the air, and we were at risk that a judge could just throw out the case,” Aronberg explains. “We were worried.”
Sheila was arrested near her home in Abingdon, Va., while driving back from a trip with Michael.
While Aronberg initially wanted to pursue the death penalty, he says the amount of time that passed added levels of complexity to the case.
“The older cases are difficult because memories fade, witnesses die or grow incapacitated, evidence spoils,” he says.
Before Sheila was set to stand trial, both sides came to a plea agreement, and she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in April 2023.
Michael was never charged in connection with Marlene’s murder.
Upon her release in 2024, Sheila reunited with Michael.
Marlene did not return A&E Crime + Investigation’s request for comment.
“They're back together, living as a convicted murderer and a convicted murderer's husband in Virginia,” Aronberg says.
Although it wasn’t the ending he had hoped for, he says Sheila is branded for life.
“That's a scarlet letter that will never be washed away,” Aronberg points out. “She had to go back to her community in a case that is nationally known and try to explain why she pleaded guilty to a vicious murder.”
The former prosecutor summed it up as, “Imperfect justice, because Sheila thought she got away with it. So, the fact that we were able to lock her up and change the trajectory of her life forever and make her admit to what she did, is a bittersweet verdict. But I'd rather have bittersweet than bitter.”
