D (14:51)

Take the exit turn right into the drive thru.

E (14:54)

Nope, I'm making dinner tonight.

D (14:56)

You don't have time.

C (14:57)

Josh has practice.

E (14:58)

Oh, that's right. I'll just get a salad and fries. No, just the salad.

D (15:02)

But salad cancels. Fries.

E (15:04)

Salad only. Fries. Salad, fries.

F (15:06)

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E (15:13)

Hey, can I get the fries? Salad? Sorry.

F (15:16)

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C (15:21)

The police obviously dive into the case, and they find their first major clue pretty quickly. They locate a white Chevy LeBaron in a parking lot about 10 miles away from Marlene's house. Now, to all appearances, at this point, it's abandoned. The investigators can't tell who owns it, and when they search the car, they find bright orange synthetic hairs inside it. This is the exact same color and texture as the curly orange wig the clown was wearing at the time of the murder. Now, there's no sign of the actual wig, the clown costume, or a murder weapon, but the officers assume this must be the same car the killer took to and from the crime scene. And more importantly, they find human hairs inside the LeBaron. So DNA testing is a very new technology in 1990. It'll be hard for them to identify a suspect from this sample, but it can still be useful. And more importantly, they get one step closer to finding their suspect when they hear from potential eyewitnesses. A woman named Deborah offered. Debra works for a costume shop, and according to her, just two nights before the murder. So on May 24, a woman walked into her store wanting to buy a clown outfit. Now, this woman actually arrived a few minutes before closing time, and Deborah was already tired. She wanted to go home. So she actually asked the woman, hey, can you just be willing to come back tomorrow? But the customer refused. She seemed very anxious, like she was in a hurry. She said she needed to buy a clown costume that day. So Deborah worked with her to pick out a suit that fit. Plus a wig, a red nose, white makeup. The woman paid in cash, so Debra didn't ever learn her name. But now, hearing that a clown murdered someone, she's able to provide a description to the police. The customer was 5 foot 11, white, slim, and she had long, straight dark hair and brown eyes. This obviously stands out to the police because it partially matches what Marlene's son Joe said. He also testified that the killer had brown eyes, but aside from that, the descriptions are. Aren't completely consistent. Joe had said the shooter was a bit taller, over six feet, and he thought the killer had a large frame and was probably a man. So the police aren't sure how seriously to take Deborah's tip. Maybe the woman who came in to buy the clown costume had nothing to do with Marlene's murder. I mean, it could have been a coincidence or perhaps. Maybe Joe or Deborah is misremembering. The point is, the detectives need to learn more. So they begin questioning Marlene's loved ones. And they soon learn that everyone thinks they already know who the murderer is. All of Marlene's friends and relatives tell the investigators about her own suspicions regarding her husband, Mike, in the time before her death. They say Marlene warned everyone that he would murder her, possibly so he'd be free to be with his mistress. You'll remember she had told her mother and her son exactly that. But someone else thinks Mike was planning to kill Marlene, his lawyer. See, about a year before the homicide, Mike and Marlene hired an attorney to help them deal with an unrelated legal matter. And one day the three of them were together. But Marlene had to step away for a bit. And the moment Mike was alone with their lawyer, he asked if it would be possible for a husband to inherit his wife's property to after he'd murdered her. This is obviously a shocking question to ask. However, the lawyer didn't think Mike was sincere. He had never given any indication that he disliked Marlene or that they were having marriage difficulties. At least none that a lawyer knew about. He figured Mike was just curious. Maybe he'd watched a True Crime TV episode recently or liked debating hypothetical legal situations. So the attorney actually answered that the husband would inherit everything if he got away with the murder. But if he was convicted, he would obviously get nothing. Now, Mike didn't ask any follow up questions. However, now that she's been murdered, the conversation is weighing on the lawyer's conscience. He tells the police to look at Mike's finances to see if he might have had a motive to kill Marlene for her money. Now, sure enough, there's a lot of evidence to support the lawyer's suspicions. I've already talked about how he and his wife co owned a used car lot together. But in addition, Marlene had a lot of property that was in her name only. This included some apartments and other rentals. She had tenants who paid rent regularly, so she and Mike always had a bit of income coming in. In total, all of that property was worth more than $1 million. If they'd divorced, Marlene could have kept it for herself. Mike probably wouldn't have had any claim to it. He could have fought it. However, now that Marlene is dead, Mike definitely inherits all of those valuable assets. This is enough for the police to pull him in for questioning, but he denies all of the accusations. First he's like, I was not having an affair. Marlene was just paranoid. He adds that he had no reason to want her dead because if he's not cheating and he's not thinking about divorce, there's no financial motive either. So long as their marriage was strong, he and Marlene were able to share their wealth. And more importantly, Mike had a pretty strong alibi on the day of the murder. He went to a racetrack with friends. He wasn't actually at the track when Marlene was shot, but he was still on his way. He was in a car with several friends, all of whom are like, yeah, he was definitely in the car with us. So the police don't think Mike actually pulled the trigger. He was not the one wearing the clown costume, the. But they still believe he could have been involved somehow. Maybe he planned the murder or hired someone else to commit it. So that's why the investigators keep digging, trying to find any kind of evidence against Marlene's husband. And eventually, they discover he's committed a crime. But it's not the crime they're looking for. See, it turns out that Mike is the stereotypical dishonest used car salesman you always hear warnings about. He tampers with his vehicles so they look like they have fewer miles on them than they actually do. And he'd also been mishandling his company's money and using doctored statements when filing his taxes. And he's lied to insurance companies about the vehicles he sells. Think Matilda's dad. Okay, so, so far, Mike's managed to fly under the radar. But with homicide detectives keeping a close eye on him, all of Mike's scams are coming to light. Eventually, he's actually charged with 43 separate counts of fraud. He's found guilty and sentenced to prison. Mike serves his time behind bars. And all the while, the police are still investigating him for murder and searching for a smoking gun. But they don't find any concrete proof that he was involved with his wife's homicide. So by the end of his fraud sentence, there still isn't a strong enough case to charge him. So instead, Mike is released, and Marlene's killer is on the run. Now, once Mike's free, he does what he can to begin rebuilding his life. This means, among other things, he begins dating a woman named Sheila Keene. Now, Mike and Sheila have known each other for years, since before his fraud conviction. She actually worked with him at the used car lot. She had been hired just five months before Marlene's murder. So she and Mike hadn't known each other for long before he was arrested. But apparently, she had been dating him in prison, like, standing by his side. And now that they're reconnecting in person, they really seem to hit it off. The two of them end up getting married in 2002, and then they move away from Florida to Tennessee. Sounds like Sheila and Mike want a fresh start. And now that Mike has served time and he was a suspect in his wife's murder, well, his reputation is pretty much at rock bottom. So, in Tennessee, nobody knows them, and he and Sheila are working hard to distance themselves from their former lives. After the wedding, Sheila changes her name. She dyes her hair blonde. It's like she's an entirely new person. And Mike is trying to put his old life of Crime and his wife's murder behind him, too. So at this point in this case, 12 long years have passed since Marlene's murder, and her husband has moved on. Now, meanwhile, the police aren't any closer to solving this now cold case. In fact, another decade and a half goes by before investigators make another break. By the year 2017, Marlene's homicide has been reassigned to a cold case unit at the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. And we've seen this happen so many times before now that 25 years have gone by. DNA technology has improved a lot. In fact, the cold case unit thinks they finally have the tools to even test the hairs that were recovered from the LeBaron back in 1990. Except when they compare the evidence to a sample from Mike, it's not a match. Obviously, this isn't a complete surprise. Like I mentioned before, police knew Mike had a solid alibi, so they didn't really believe he committed the murder himself. However, there's another suspect coming onto their radar now. All right, you guys, I'm getting into an ad, and we have New Year. We have big goals and no time to cook. And factor makes it easy with fully prepared meals designed by dietitians and crafted by chefs so you can eat well without the shopping or cooking. As you guys know, I really, really hate cooking. But I've also been trying to to focus on getting my protein, and factor has made that so easy. 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This offer is only valid for new factor customers with code and qualifying auto renewing subscription purchase. Make healthier eating easy with factor. Obviously, I think you know where this is going, but there were A lot of strange rumors going around about Mike's new wife, Sheila. As you know, she knew him and Marlene before the murder. And Marlene thought that Mike was having an affair and using work as an excuse. And Sheila worked at work. And people say that even back then, Sheila really hated Marlene, almost irrationally. Granted, she's her boss, but, of course, it's certainly odd that Sheila married Mike so soon after he was released from prison. And then it gets weirder. At some point after Sheila and Mike got married, they opened a business together. This time, it was a burger restaurant, okay? Not a used car lot. And each year, they would throw big Halloween party at this restaurant. And remember, like, years and years have gone by, and staff were encouraged to come in costume. And one year, Sheila attended this company party while dressed as a clown. This is, like, a really strange choice given the fact that Marlene was murdered by someone in a clown costume and that's her husband's murdered wife. It's insensitive. Now, I want to be clear. Sheila's employees don't immediately realize just how odd and inappropriate her costume is. She and Mike really never talk about Marlene. Most people have no idea that Mike had a former wife who was murdered by a clown. You know, but the police know the history. So, of course, when they hear people talking about this, you know, back home, they find the choice of costume odd. And if you're not convinced that Sheila seems suspicious, get this. Remember how Marlene believed her husband was cheating on her before the murder? Well, she also thought the other woman was Sheila. She just couldn't prove it. See, Sheila was the stereotypical younger, prettier woman when Marlene was 40 years old. Sheila was just 27. It may have made Marlene feel like she couldn't compete. And more importantly, Mike and Sheila were very flirty and inappropriate with one another at work. All of their colleagues thought it seemed like something was going on, not just Marlene. Plus, the investigators talked to the people who lived in Sheila's apartment complex back at the time, and many of them say they had seen Mike over at Sheila's place. Not just once or twice. Like, he came over a lot. He was at Sheila's home so often that a lot of people actually figured he was her boyfriend who lived there. The assumption was that he and Sheila were in a serious relationship or even married. They're all shocked when they learn that Mike actually had a wife and it was someone else, and she would eventually get murdered. So even though the pair still insists they never cheated, they were never together when Marlene was alive. A lot of People, including police, believe otherwise. Even evidence suggests otherwise. And once the police have Sheila on their radar, they start finding other evidence against her. Now, remember how I said the clown had balloons and flowers in their hands when they were approaching Marlene's house? Well, the balloons were still there by the time the crime scene investigators arrived. They were really unique. There was only one store in the entire region that sold this style of balloons, and that store was only half a mile away from Sheila's apartment. It was basically in her backyard. Finally, I have to acknowledge that before she dyed her hair and gave herself this makeover, when she married Mike, Sheila had dark brown hair and brown eyes. And she stands at 5 foot 7 inches, which matches the description the worker at the costume shop gave almost exactly. So this is all enough for the police to get a warrant to collect a DNA sample from Sheila in 2017. And when they compare her hair with the strands from the murder car, they get a perfect match. So on September 26, 2017, the officers actually arrest Sheila for a 1990 murder. They charge her with first degree. Except Sheila says she can explain all of this away first. She insists there could be a perfectly innocent explanation for how her hair ended up in the clown's getaway car. After all, when Sheila worked at the used car lot, one of her responsibilities was repossession. If someone stopped paying their bills, Sheila would sometimes go find the car that wasn't getting paid for and drive it back to the lot. So, naturally, if that particular Chevy ever got repossessed in the past, she could have at one point sat in the driver's seat and shed her hair. She also says she doesn't trust these DNA tests. After all, it had been 25 years since the murder. And since the hair was found in the Chevy, that's a long time for evidence to sit in police storage. And when her lawyer digs into the investigator's records, they say they're not convinced the detectives handled the samples correctly. There were several occasions where the DNA could have been cross contaminated or tampered with. The police do acknowledge this. Honestly, they admit they had made some mistakes over the years. They stored the hairs in evidence bags that weren't always properly sealed. It would be very easy for a hair from one bag to drift to another. But the state still says that even if you ignore the DNA, the circumstantial evidence against Sheila is still strong. She matches the description of the killer. She had a motive, given her possible or apparent affair with Mike, and she could have easily bought the costume, the balloons, and the Flowers and then shot Marlene. Now, in spite of this, Sheila and her lawyer are both clear. Okay? When all this is going down, they each say that she is innocent. In fact, they're like, she has no history of violent crime. They claim she doesn't have it in her to just show up and kill someone. And in particular, she wouldn't be able to act so calm and careful like the clown supposedly did. She wouldn't casually walk away from the scene of a shooting or drive away at normal speed. So Sheila fights the charges because she says she couldn't be convicted of a murder that she did not commit. But by April 25, 2023. So a while later, Sheila is singing a very different tune. And before I explain what has changed, I need to give you a bit of context and background. Now, remember, Sheila was charged with murder back in 2017, and now, six years later, she still hasn't been to trial. Obviously, Covid so did her lawyer's attempts at getting the DNA evidence thrown out. And this whole time, Sheila had been sitting in jail, and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight. She's sick of waiting behind bars to without the chance to defend herself at trial. And she gets an apparent lifeline when the prosecutors actually offer her a plea deal. The terms are that if Sheila pleads guilty to second degree murder of Marlene, her sentence will only be 12 years. And when you consider time served, that means she would only have to spend another six years behind bars, max. She'll be eligible for parole much earlier than that. So her lawyer tells her that so long as she doesn't cause any problems in prison, she might be released in just another year or two. And that has to be really appealing to Marlene. I mean, if she keeps fighting and resisting the charges, who knows how long it'll be before her trial actually begins. Not to mention that her sentence will probably be much longer if a jury did find her guilty. So Marlene accepts the deal, and just a year and a half later, In November of 2024, she's released early for good behavior, meaning she only spends a total of seven years in prison for her murder conviction because of time served. Now, I think it's important to say that although pleading guilty, Sheila still maintains to this day that she's innocent. And she served time in prison wrongfully. Like, wrongfully. So she's only accepted the deal because it was the quickest way for her to get out of prison. And some people actually believe what Sheila says. They think an innocent woman lost seven years of her life for a Crime she didn't commit. Many of these same people think Marlene's husband, Mike, was actually responsible. After all, he seemed to be thinking about murder long before he even met Sheila. You'll remember the conversation he had with his lawyer where he asked if a man could inherit his wife's property after murdering her. That conversation was an entire year before Marlene's homicide, and Sheila didn't start working for him until about seven months later. And I'll also note that Mike said something else during that conversation with his attorney that, again, was very strange. The lawyer mentioned that if the man had an accomplice and that accomplice took the fall, then the man could still inherit stuff. And Mike immediately speculated that the best way to get away with murder was would be to wear a costume. Specifically, a clown costume. The baggy jumpsuit and face makeup would make it difficult for any eyewitnesses to know who the killer was or even determine a gender. Now, I know I left this out earlier, but I bring it up now because that is suspiciously accurate to what would happen in his wife's murder. In spite of all of that, Mike had never been charged. He publicly maintains that he's innocent and that so is Sheila. Instead, Mike claims the killer must have been an angry customer or tenant from one of their businesses. Maybe someone blamed Marlene for selling them a junk car or for something that went wrong on one of the rental properties and shot her in revenge. Honestly, we will never know if the police ignored other credible suspects or if Sheila took the fall for Mike. Perhaps they even plotted this crime together. Or maybe she alone is guilty. She just wanted to get rid of the wife and got a slap on the wrist. Whatever stance you take, it's fair to say that a lot of people are unhappy with how this entire case played out. It's safe to note that Marlene never got justice either. She was gunned down in her own home. Her family fought for justice, and to all appearances, they didn't really get it. The killer either never got caught or served an extremely short sentence while maintaining their innocence. But the pain of this tragedy still lives on. And I have to note something. There is a level of cruelty to this crime. Because anyone who knows Marlene knew her love of clowns. Her mother collected them. She collected them. This had been, since childhood, a love of hers, a passion of hers. For someone to dress up as a clown and murder her, they had to have known. They knew Marlene. This was not an average murder, because that was on purpose. That decision was on purpose. And it feels bitter. It feels mean. It doesn't feel like you're just eliminating someone to make your life easier. It feels like hatred. It feels like a mistress who would be eliminating a wife that she absolutely despises. Obviously, I can say that because although Sheila maintains her innocence, she still was legally charged with this. She pled guilty. So on paper, she committed this murder. I also just have to believe, like, with all the evidence in this case, Mike didn't act alone. It makes most sense for him to have involved Sheila to and convince her to do this so they could run away and live their life. And then tack on the fact that Sheila absolutely hates Marlene because Marlene is married to a man that she wants to be with. That motive does not seem that far out. We see this all the time. Love triangles end in murder all the time. What I think is strange is that this murder hasn't unfolded, that there hasn't been a confession that we don't. It's still so confusing because that is unusual in love triangle murders. Usually we get a pretty clear answer of what happened. So let me know your thoughts on this either over on Instagram or in the comments. I would love to hear your thoughts about this case and what you think. And just remember that Marlene was shot in front of her own child and he had to go through the chaos of trying to chase the clown down, trying to keep his mother alive. This was destruction. This was vile. So please, please, please keep her surviving friends and family in your thoughts today. All right, you guys, thank you for listening to today's true crime case and I will see you next time as we go further into the dark together. Goodbye.

D (39:53)

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