When asked their greatest fear, many people say the usual.

Some fear heights, others, spiders or snakes, creepy crawlies.

But overall, one fear that always charts high on the list is clowns. Since clowns first emerged

centuries ago, they've been met with mixed reviews. The character and nature of a clown is highly

unpredictable and often mischievous. Some folks view them as fun or silly and associate them with going to the circus.

But others find them to be odd and unsettling. Clowns simply put them on edge. Physically, their big red noses,

strangely shaped eyebrows and oversized lips, distort the face so the brain perceives it as human,

but just slightly off. There's something about not knowing what's going on in the mind of a

person behind all that face paint and a mask.

Who are they underneath it all?

And what are they capable of?

This brings us to today's case.

One morning in the affluent town of West Palm Beach, Florida, a 40-year-old mother named Marlene Warren was sitting down for breakfast with

her 21-year-old son and a couple of his friends, a very ordinary morning, when suddenly there

was a knock at the door. Marlene opened it up and found a clown standing on her front doorstep.

The clown was dressed in full get-up, makeup, red clown nose,

and was wearing an orange wig. In one hand, the clown had a basket of red and white flowers,

and in the other hand, two balloons, one of which read, you're the greatest. Marlene was excited to see what she thought was a gift from her husband.

She said out loud, oh, how pretty as she reached for the flowers.

And then, a bang.

Marlene's son and friends thought that maybe one of the balloons had just popped,

but it was far more sinister than that.

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