Gary Coleman Tried to Restrain Ex Shannon Price

Attorney for late actor says he filed restraining order against ex but duo reconciled before he had a chance to serve her

The woman taking over Gary Coleman's death seems to be the exact woman he wanted out of his life. Welcome to the club.

The late actor's lawyer Randy Kester confirms to E! News that Coleman had attempted to file a restraining order against former wife Shannon Price just a few months before his passing.

His reason for launching the game of legal keep-away? He learned his ex had been "looting" his house while he was recovering from a seizure.

"He was in poor health and he had been told while he was in the hospital that she was sort of looting the house and he wanted it stopped," Kester said. "He had reached a point where he didn't want to have any contact with her and he wanted her to stop taking his things."

It's unclear what, exactly, Price allegedly took from Casa Coleman, but so determined was the actor to restrain his ex that Kester went through with filing the restraining order in court on Feb. 19—a week before Coleman suffered a second seizure and less than a month after he was arrested for a "civil disturbance" at his home. The documents took so long to come to light as Kester filed the papers under seal and through false aliases in order to ensure the actor's privacy.

However, the order never got further than that, as multiple attempts to serve Price proved unsuccessful.

"The timing wasn't well," Kester said. "She was actually out of the house already and she would never make herself available for service. She kept dodging service. She knew about it, it went to her dad's house, but she would always dodge the people that were trying to serve her."

Eventually, after Coleman left the hospital for the second time, the duo's tempestuous relationship smoothed out, they reconciled, and the forgotten paperwork languished in the courts. As the papers were neither signed nor served, the restraining order was never valid.

"She never got served with the papers. And then I kind of backed off and Gary didn't push it after another six weeks. She got back with him. I don't think she ever moved back in there permanently…off and on."

A rep for Price, who's currently in an uncharacteristic bout of silence, tells E! News that Coleman wanted to be with Price until the end and probably "just wanted to see how much Shannon loved him."