WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Attorneys were in court Friday in the case of a woman accused of dressing up as a clown and killing her future husband's wife more than three decades ago in Wellington.
The suspect, Sheila Keen-Warren, was also in the courtroom for the hearing.
One of the issues discussed was a 25-page file of clown sightings put together by the original investigators of the case. Defense attorneys claim the file has roughly "40 credible leads" containing names, addresses and phone numbers.
Judge Scott Suskauer was clearly agitated by the delays in the case and the clown-sightings file suddenly turning up. Attorneys for both sides seemed to have different stories about the discovery of the file.
"Someone is not being forthright with the court," Suskauer said to both the defense and prosecution teams.
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Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office Detective Paige McCann later told the court that she found the file within a different file in her office last week.
Suskauer asked lead prosecutor Reid Scott about the discovery of the file.
"I assume that there have been repeated attempts, Mr. Scott, to look for this file. How is it possible then that the sheriff's [department] didn't see that file?" Suskauer asked. "It's ridiculous."
"Sir, I don't know," Scott said to the judge.
"This stuff should not happen," Suskauer said, also referencing Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, who was also in court. "It's incumbent upon prosecutors to be on top of the sheriff's office and other law enforcement agencies that this does not happen."
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Suskauer thanked Aronberg for being in court Friday but said "you need to be on top of this one ... this can't happen."
"When this case is set for trial the next time, I can't have this continued again," the judge told the court. "It's not fair to anyone."
Also on the agenda was the consideration of whether to sanction prosecutors and if Keen-Warren could be released and put on house arrest before the trial.
"We would argue that her mother is 83 years old, hasn't seen her in five years," defense attorney Greg Rosenfeld said. "She would like to at least get out and see her mom. You know this pre-trial delay is excessive and a lot of the pre-trial delay, aside from the discovery issues, was caused by the state waiting for 23 years to reopen this cold case."
"Unfortunately, we did have an 18-month COVID-19 delay, where we had travel issues and sickness issues that are beyond anybody’s control," Scott said.
No bond was set for Keen-Warren at the hearing. Also, no decision on sanctions was made Friday.
The next hearing will be on Dec. 22 as attorneys continue to comb through the newly-discovered file.
McCann said during a September 2017 news conference that Sheila Keen, as she was known at the time, was dressed like a clown when she fatally shot Marlene Warren in 1990.
Warren died at Palms West Hospital two days later.
Keen-Warren had long been considered a suspect in the shooting, but it took investigators 27 years to make an arrest. She eventually married Michael Warren in 2002 and moved to Tennessee, where the couple operated a restaurant.
She was arrested in Virginia in 2017 and has been in a Palm Beach County jail cell ever since. Her attorneys were denied a request to have her released from jail while she awaits trial.
