The petition filed in 4th District Court in Provo said even though Coleman and Shannon Price were divorced in August 2008, she is still his common law wife and that she should be the one to make funeral arrangements. It wasn’t publicly known that the two were divorced until after his death.

The divorce papers were sealed in Utah courts. Price referred to Coleman as her husband when she called 911 on May 26, saying the actor had fallen and was bleeding severely from the back of his head. Coleman died May 28 after suffering a brain hemorrhage and his last-known will names friend and former manager Dion Mial as his estate’s executor.

Coleman said in the 1999 will that he wanted to be remembered in a wake conducted by people who had no financial ties to the star of the sitcom “Diff’rent Strokes.” However, documents filed by Price’s attorneys say they have an unsigned will drawn up in 2005 that names Price as the conservator of his estate.