Gary Coleman Will Contest: Shannon Price Vs. Anna Gray. Dion Mial Out of Picture

When last we left the Gary Coleman Will drama, ex-manager Dion Mial and his attorney, Kent Alderman, were feeling pretty secure that Mial would prevail as executor of Coleman's estate -- with good reason, it seemed, even when Shannon Price, ex-wife and live-in girlfriend of the "Diff'rent Strokes' star filed a handwritten Codicil from 2007 and an unsigned Will from 2006.

The unsigned Will wouldn't have any effect on the validity of the 1999 Will, that's for sure. The merits of the Codicil seem iffy indeed since it does not appear to be witnessed and, in most jurisdictions, a Codicil to any Will has to be executed with the same formality as a regular Will, whether handwritten or typed.

Now, a third person, a woman named Anna Gray who once lived with Gary Coleman as a roomie, has filed a Will dated February 3, 2005 in the Utah District Court (obtained by and online at ET.com) which names her both executor and sole beneficiary of Gary Coleman's assets. This Will also names two successor executors in the event of Anna Gray's inability or refusal to act as Executor, and neither of the successors are Dion Mial. Their names are Nick Barone and Kent Emmon.

That's pretty much the exit sign for Dion Mial.

It seems fairly obvious, based on the succession of executors in the 2005 Will, that Coleman considered the Dion Mial chapter of his life over for good. Anna Gray and Coleman were, according to reports. living together but occupying separate bedrooms, and she was also reportedly the CEO of a corporation formed by Gary Coleman. Their relationship ended when Gary met Shannon Price and married her in 2007. Robert Malcom, an agent for Coleman, told ET Gary Coleman asked Anna Gray to leave when he took up with Shannon Price.

Todd Bradford, attorney for Shannon Price, found it "despicable" that Anna Gray suddenly popped up and filed the 2005 Will in court, according to RadarOnline.com. In spite of this unexpected turn of events, Bradford said: "I will handle everything as I would have before, because the 2007 addendum names Shannon as the sole beneficiary."

Bradford also told Radar: "I don't think this would affect her legal rights because the codicil was written in 2007 and this new will is from two years earlier."

Well, remember Anna Nicole Smith and the battle she engaged in for a share in the estate of her 90-year old husband, J. Howard Marshall? Anna Nicole had nothing but a verbal promise from her elderly sugar daddy, but she was his legal wife when Marshall died.

Even though Shannon Price does not have a marriage certificate on her side, she may still have as good of a shot, if not better, than Anna Nicole did, especially if the court accepts her claim that she was Coleman's common law wife. Just the fact that Coleman wrote a new Will every time he formed a relationship tends to show he would not have wanted to leave his entire estate to someone he no longer had a relationship with.

I would expect Anna Gray's attorney to hire a handwriting expert to determine whether the handwritten Codicil is genuine, although I have about as much faith in handwriting experts as I do in the weatherman, and if you will forgive this small digression, I will tell you why.

Once when I was 21, someone stole my purse. It had my bankbook and ID. With that in hand, a girl went to the bank and withdrew over $500 of my money. The bank refused to return the money. When I sued, the bank hired a handwriting expert who swore it was my writing even though it didn't look a damned thing like it. What's more, the girl even spelled my first name wrong and wrote the address where I lived down wrong!

What happens then is the other side has to hire a handwriting expert whose report will disagree with the first one, and it becomes a matter of who is more believable. What should be a way to establish the truth is often just a total waste of time and money.

Whatever you want to believe about the Coleman case, here's one things you can bank on: the case will go on for a long time -- as long as there's money to pay the attorneys. The other lesson we can learn from this mess is to make sure to formally revoke any legal documents we no longer want to be valid as soon as we decide that we no longer want it to be valid. Death may come before the day we thought we'd get around to it.

The best way to do that is to see a lawyer. A lot of people don't want to pay the expense, but one attorney I know always says: "You can pay them now or your heirs can pay them later. And it costs more later."

Sources: Personal knowledge, embedded and
RadarOnline: Gary Coleman's Third Will Leaves Everything to Mystery Woman