A decades-old murder in one of the strangest clown-related mysteries in history may have been solved.

I wrote about this case in my 2016 book Bad Clowns…

It happened in West Palm Beach in the spring of 1990 when a woman named Marlene Warren heard a knock on her door at 10:45 in the morning on May 26. She opened the door to find a whitefaced clown wearing a bright red nose and an orange wig. The clown greeted Warren with a wordless nod and handed her a basket of red and white carnations, along with two silver balloons. As Warren looked down at the gifts she was receiving, the clown pulled out a gun and shot her once point-blank in the mouth with either a .38 or a .357.

According to Warren’s son Joseph, who saw the shooting, the clown had brown eyes and wore Army boots. The clown escaped in a white Chrysler LeBaron, which was later reported stolen and discovered abandoned. Warren died two days later in the hospital. Detectives at the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office suspected her estranged husband Michael Warren of plotting the murder, along with a brown-eyed, brown-haired woman who worked for him repossessing cars for Mr. Warren’s auto dealership.

According to The Gainesville Sun, “A woman matching the description of Sheila Keen, 27, bought a clown costume, makeup, an orange wig and a red clown nose two days before the murder, according to two West Palm Beach costume store clerks who tentatively identified Keen’s photo from police files. Then, on the morning of the murder, a woman fitting Keen’s description purchased two balloons and a floral arrangement at a Publix supermarket less than a mile from Keen’s apartment, according to sheriff’s documents… The balloons and flowers match those left at the scene of the murder, according to the documents. Neighbors at Keen’s apartment complex in suburban West Palm Beach said they frequently spotted Michael Warren, the dead woman’s husband, at the complex, according to police reports.”

Both Mr. Warren and Keen denied any involvement, either romantically with each other or in the death of Warren’s wife. Keen claimed that she was out looking for cars to repossess at the time Mrs. Warren was shot. News of the killer clown shook the West Palm Beach community, and a news report dated a month after the shooting noted that “local adults and children are now apprehensive of businesses that employ [clowns]. ‘Unfortunately, children are only hearing the negative side,’ said Yvonne (Sunshine the Clown) Zarza, owner of Balloons Above the Palm Beaches. ‘Normally, it’s Don’t go near a stranger. Now parents are saying, Don’t go near clowns.'”

Warren stood trial in 1992 on 66 criminal counts of fraud, racketeering, and grand theft related to his business; on August 8 of that year he was convicted on over three dozen counts of fraud, grand theft, and petty theft.

For decades no one was arrested or charged in the death, but earlier this week that changed: According to CBS News, “Police in Florida say they’ve arrested a woman accused of dressing up like a clown 27 years ago and fatally shooting the wife of her future husband. A Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office news release says 54-year-old Sheila Keen Warren was arrested Tuesday in Virginia. A Florida grand jury recently indicted her on a first-degree murder charge.” News reports suggest that DNA evidence led to Mrs. Warren’s arrest, though it’s not clear what items were recovered at the crime scene that would implicate Warren.

There are a few other clown-related killings, such as those by John Wayne Gacy and the 2002 assassination of Mexican drug lord Felix Arellano.