Woman pleads guilty to 30-year old murder, but still claims innocence

Now that title might be a little difficult to interpret and requires a bit more explanation. The crime in question happened around 30 years ago but the suspect, Sheila Keen-Warren, evaded prosecution until 2017. The crime is a strange one in that it involves the murderer being dressed as a clown but then again, this took place in Florida so "normal" just kind of goes out the window.

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The story goes like this: In 1990, Marlene Warren answered her front door and there was someone dressed as a clown that had balloons and a gift for her. After taking the balloons and gift the clown then shot her. Marlene died two days later in the hospital. In the following years Sheila Keen ended up marrying Marlene's widower. There were rumors that Sheila and the widower Michael, were having an affair and the reasoning behind killing Marlene was to get her out of the picture so the two of them could be together. Both Sheila and Michael to this day maintain that they knew one another, but were not having an affair at the time. They both claim they have no idea who the clown on the porch was that day.

Sheila and her lawyers maintain that she is innocent of this crime but fear that if it went to trial that a jury would find her guilty and give her life in prison at the minimum. Therefore Sheila, who still claims innocence, decided to change her plea from not guilty to guilty since a plea deal was offered where she will only spend 12 years in prison that is adjusted for the time that she has already spent in prison up to now.

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Now there are a couple of reasons why this outcome should be upsetting to people. Let's just imagine for a second that Sheila actually IS innocent of this crime. She is electing to go to prison simply because of the fact that she realizes that if the jury finds her guilty, that she will languish away in prison for likely the rest of her life. Seeing as how she has already served some of her sentence, she and her lawyers feel as though she will get considerably less time behind bars if she just admits to a crime that she did not commit.

Like I said, let's just imagine that she is innocent as she claims. Our justice system is so broken that people will confess to things that they did not do just to spend less time in prison. We have all heard stories about how State prosecutors are interested in getting convictions regardless of how it is accomplished and there have been many cases of evidence tampering and even fake witnesses that have been introduced to court cases in the past.

Is she innocent? Is she guilty? It's anyone's guess and only Sheila knows for sure.

Another thing to get a bit upset about is the fact that this case sat cold for 24 years before anyone made a move to prosecute Sheila - so if she is in fact guilty, that's a lot of time to have a murderer running around. In that 24 years Sheila actually married the husband of the person she is now confessing to have murdered and well, that's kind of messed up, isn't it?

I have very little faith in the justice system that exists in the United States or really anywhere else in the world. In the meantime Sheila doesn't seem to be too distraught about this outcome and when asked if she agrees with the outcome she simply replied to the judge, "yes sir."

Another thing that you should be disturbed about is that Sheila has been detained since 2017, a full 6 years before this plea bargain has been made. What ever happened to your right to a speedy trial? Does the 6th amendment mean nothing? How can the judge that is overseeing this trial be "ok" with someone pleading guilty to a crime that they have insisted time and time again that they did not do?