The release of a Florida woman dubbed a "killer clown" for dressing up as a circus performer and killing the wife of a man she later went on to marry said they are shocked over her short-lived prison stint.
"There is no justice there," Joseph Ahrens, the son of 40-year-old victim Marlene Warren, told PEOPLE in an interview published Monday.
Ahrens was home when his mother was fatally shot in the face while she answered the door to a person dressed as a clown holding balloons on their Wellington, Florida, doorstep in 1990.
"It's not fair. It wasn't full closure," Ahrens said of his mom's killer's shocking release after 18 months in prison.
In 2017, authorities arrested Sheila Keen-Warren, 61, for Marlene's murder, 27 years after the slaying.
As part of a plea agreement reached with prosecutors in 2023, Keen-Warren pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 12 years behind bars. Having spent seven years detained and given credit for good behavior, the convicted killer was freed Saturday, according to the Associated Press.
But even after pleading guilty, Keen-Warren vowed her innocence.
"We are absolutely thrilled that Ms. Keen-Warren has been released from prison and is returning to her family. As we've stated from the beginning, she did not commit this crime," her defense attorney, Greg Rosenfeld, said Saturday in a statement to the AP.
Keen-Warren was a longtime suspect in Marlene's murder, but investigators with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said DNA technology at the time wasn't reliable enough to allow them to initiate an arrest.
Witnesses said Keen-Warren and Marlene's husband, Michael Warren, worked together at his used car lot and were having an affair, which they vehemently denied.
They married in 2002, according to NBC News.
Costume shop employees identified Keen-Warren as the person who purchased the clown costume days before the murder, and supermarket employees alleged she bought the balloons, the AP reported.
Michael was never charged in connection with his former wife's slaying and denied any involvement.
