Former actress Shannon Price is speaking out about the controversial final days of her ex-husband, Gary Coleman. In a new A&E special, Lie Detector: Truth or Deception, Price claims she was forced to make the decision to take the Diff’rent Strokes star off life support, a move that contradicted his living will. This comes after it was revealed she failed a polygraph test when asked if she was responsible for the fall that led to his death.
In May 2010, Gary Coleman was placed in a medically-induced coma after suffering a fall that caused an intracranial hemorrhage. Though his living will stipulated he be kept on life support for 15 days, Price instructed the hospital to end his treatment just two days later.
“I had no choice,” Price claims in the A&E special. “He had gone into cardiac arrest, and that is ultimately what took his life.” She recounts a hospital visit where doctors told her he was not expected to survive. “They are like, ‘Shannon, we do not think that he is going to make it until Friday,’” she recalls. Confident that his condition would not improve, she claims to have seen his dilated pupils and “just knew” that he was “basically already gone.”
The report also reveals a crucial detail: the couple had been secretly divorced the year prior. Despite this, Price presented a document at the hospital that named her as the decision-maker on Coleman’s advanced medical directive, giving her the authority to act on his end-of-life care. Price, who initiated the divorce, now calls it “a mistake,” stating, “It was my decision, he did not want the divorce,” and that they were still living together. She now confesses her two regrets are “divorcing him, and not being able to save his life.”
The documentary also delves into the 911 call she made after allegedly discovering Coleman in a pool of blood, in which she can be heard refusing to follow the operator’s instructions to render aid. While she maintained her innocence, admitting only that she “could have helped him a little bit more,” a lie detector test she voluntarily took produced a different result.
When directly asked if she had physically caused Coleman’s fall, the polygraph showed “deception indicated.” Polygraph examiner George Olivo concluded, “Sadly, my professional opinion is the truth is not on your side today.” To this, Price responded, “And I figured it wouldn’t be,” to which Olivo replied, “Because you already knew you were gonna fail, and you know why you did.”
Thoughts?