The Tragic Downfall of Dana Plato _ Our History

Dana Plato, a TV star at 12. She died on Saturday of an overdose of prescription drugs. In the 80s, Dana Plato won the heart of America as Kimberly Drummond on TV's Different Strokes. Dana was one of the most beautiful girls on television. Bringing her star quality to the small screen. It's that X factor. She had it. But behind the Hollywood glamour lay a darker story. I think that everything spiraled. I went up and came crashing down. Dana led a life of substance abuse and addiction. We thought this was going to help our lives, not realizing it was destroying us and killing us. Bizarre scandal. Basically, I got drunk and I robbed a video store. It all just has the look of a sick, twisted nightmare fairy tale. And earth-shattering lows. I have a disease and it needs to be treated. In May 1999, Dana Plato died at the age of just 34 in Moore, Oklahoma. Her death shrouded in mystery. Dana Plato's death certificate concludes that she died from multi-drug intoxication. Officially, her overdose on drugs was recorded as suicide. But there are many who think Dana's death was accidental and question this verdict. I want to investigate Dana Plato's last days to find out if this young mother with seemingly so much to live for really meant to take her own life. World-renowned medical examiner and forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Hunter has conducted thousands of autopsies. Collaborating closely with law enforcement and other forensic specialists, his pivotal role in investigating suspicious cases has revealed the truth behind mysterious deaths for over 20 years. When Dana Plato died, it was widely reported in the press as an accidental overdose. But when the autopsy report became available, the verdict was suicide. Since then, a question mark has hung over what exactly happened. I'm going to investigate Dana's life in forensic detail using her autopsy report alongside personal testimonies to discover the truth about the 34-year-old star's death. November 6, 1997. CBS Studios, Los Angeles, California. 18 months before her death. Dana is preparing to appear on a TV talk show. She has been divorced for eight years and rarely sees her 13-year-old son, Tyler, who lives with his father. It's been 11 years since different strokes and Dana's hoping to reignite her failing career with a reunion appearance alongside her former co-stars Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges. When Dana met us, it was like she had two brothers. We all got along really well. She's a sister, she's a great friend. She was everything to me. Dana's trying to rebuild her career and has starred in two films this year and continues to look for work. She was planning on getting herself together, trying to get her career back going. Was there ever anything? Because y'all are two pretty close in age. Did you ever look like this? Dana, you look kind of nice. I did, I know you did too. Did he ever? Oh, I did too. No, I heard. Wait a minute. If I look at this talk show performance 18 months before her death, Dana appears upbeat, happy, and to outside observers, far from suicidal. She also looks physically well. Her autopsy report describes her vital organs in good condition, and other indicators suggest she's healthy. I need to find out if it was really possible that she wanted to kill herself. If Dana did indeed kill herself, as the autopsy states, I need to understand what happened over the next 18 months that caused her life to take such a tragic turn. Dana Michelle Plato was born in Maywood, California in 1964. Her birth mother, a 17-year-old unwed parent, was unable to care for her. Dana's birth father had nothing to do with her. Dana came into the world as she felt, unwanted, and was given away and adopted. Kay and Dean Plato took on Dana when she was just three days old. But less than three years later, Dana's new adoptive parents divorced, and her father left her life. Dana had a series of events that happened that no child should ever have to experience. After the breakup, adoptive mom Kay lavished the young Dana with affection. Kay didn't have to give birth to her to love her the way she did. They used to laugh together and play together and just do everything together. She was Dana's strength. The young Dana showed a love and talent for performing, and at just seven, Kay and Dana decided to attend an audition for a TV commercial. It was the beginning of her small-screen career. Dana did numerous commercials, and you can see why it's easy. I mean, she had that fresh-scrubbed, all-American look. If Dana walked into an audition, all the Hollywood mums would say, uh-oh, it's over. Dana had done a lot of work, a lot of commercials, a lot of movies. But Dana would soon face a tough choice. Dana, she was incredibly talented as a figure skater, too. There was some thinking that she was going to possibly go for the Olympics, and that was clashing with her acting. So her mother decided early on that she was going to concentrate on acting. In 1978, a 12-year-old Dana got the break that would change her life forever. She auditioned for the role of the teenage daughter Kimberly in a new sitcom called Different Strokes. I remember I saw a bunch of girls, and then Dana came in the room and lit the room up, and I was like, that's Kimberly. And they hired her. The hit show featured a wealthy widower It was the first time that there was a show with two black kids and two white people who were actually hugging each other and telling them they love each other. That wasn't seen on television before like that. Dana reigned supreme as America's favorite sister on one of the most iconic family shows of the 80s. It's that X factor that we talk about. She had it. November 6, 1997. Backstage at the Sinbad show. 18 months before Dana's death. The Different Strokes cast party after their successful talk show appearance. Celebratory drinks are handed round. I can see from reports that Dana was regularly exposed to alcohol as part of her Hollywood lifestyle. Alcohol affects brain chemistry by altering levels of neurotransmitters, the chemical messengers that transmit the signals that control thought processes, behavior, and emotion. Long-term alcohol dependency can increase the chances of both depression and suicide. So did Dana have a history of abusing alcohol? In 1991, Dana's alcohol addiction would contribute to one of the most notorious episodes in her life when the 26-year-old entered a Las Vegas video store. Dana produced a pellet gun and demanded money from the cash register. And she pulled the gun out from under her jacket and she goes, give me your money. And I knew who she was and I said, you've got to be kidding. And she goes, no, do I look like I'm kidding? Then she pointed it at me. Dana holds up a video store and gets $164 from the cash register. Dana was soon arrested. I mean, how hard was it, you know? Who robbed me? The girl from Different Strokes. Like, they don't know who that was. So that's how we all knew it was a crack for help. After the robbery, Dana went into alcohol rehabilitation. She maintained she remained sober for the remaining years of her life. But friends had their doubts. I don't think she was sober yet, and I think most producers knew that. Dana was claiming 10 years of sobriety. If you go back in her history, in those 10 years, there was a whole lot of things that didn't match up with 10 years of sobriety. I can see that Dana had been drinking heavily since she was a teenager and was a self-confessed alcoholic. However, looking at her toxicology report, I can see there was no alcohol in her system at the time of death. Even if she wasn't drinking towards the end of her life, Dana had periods of chronic alcohol consumption, and this increases the risk of a person developing depression. If I'm looking at suicide, it's something I have to take into account. Although drinking may have been a contributory factor, I don't believe this history of alcohol abuse alone would be enough to support a verdict of suicide. But Dr. Hunter has discovered shocking evidence in Dana's autopsy report that reveals a dark and troubled past. February 1999. Magnolia Beach RV Park, Florida. Less than three months before her death. Dana is living in a Winnebago with her new fiancé, Robert Menchaca. They got engaged after just six months. Robert Menchaca was a younger guy, worked in construction, was her whirlwind romance, swept her off her feet. Dana claims to be in a positive mental space and is lining up work, including a theater group tour. Dana was very hopeful, and as well myself, that she would have a big resurgence to her career and be back on top. According to personal accounts, Dana was planning for the future and not exhibiting any sense of the hopelessness associated with suicide. But there are warning signs that she may have battered dark suicidal thoughts in her past. In Dana's autopsy report, I can see the anterior view of her body details two scars on her right wrist. These could be a sign of self-harm, indicative of an attempt to cut her own wrist. There are two major arteries in the front of the wrist, and if cut, extensive bleeding and death can occur. I have no further details on what led to these scars, but I found evidence of a much clearer cry for help. In 1979, a 14-year-old Dana was about to embark on her different strokes career. But behind the smiles, all was not well. It was on a Sunday, and I had come over to visit with her. And Dana was downstairs with some of her school chums. Dana went into the spare bathroom. Dana got a whole handful of pills, swallowed them, glass of water. Dana had taken a dangerous amount of her mom Kaye's pills and collapsed in front of her friends. Her friends started screaming, Dana, Dana, help, help, she's taken all these pills. Friends and family called 911, and Dana was eventually rushed to the hospital. It was very hard. It was a horrible day. Horrible. The medical examiner noted that Dana had a history of past suicidal gestures, so her overdose attempt at the age of 14 was not an isolated incident. Previous suicide attempts are one of the strongest predictors for future suicidal behavior, and could indicate that Dana was much more likely to take her own life at the age of 34. I can also see that Dana's toxicology report reveals a drug that if abused could have increased her risk of suicide, and that's diazepam. Commonly sold as Valium, diazepam is a type of a benzodiazepine that acts on the central nervous system, producing sedation and lowering anxiety levels. However, long-term use of diazepam can lead to drug addiction and abuse. Of course, the higher doses a person takes, the greater the odds for both overdose and suicide. So did Dana have a long-term dependency on this addictive drug? And if so, why? In 1981, a 16-year-old Dana was riding high on different-stroke success. But the public scrutiny never let up, especially when the teenager started a new relationship. Dana marries Lanny Lambert, a rock and roll guitarist. They have this whirlwind romance. The couple married a year later, and in 1984, their only child, Tyler, was born. She loved her little boy. And do you know something? I honestly believe that he doted on her. He loved his mommy. When Dana got pregnant and was having a baby, I remember she says, yes, I'm finally going to have someone who really loves me. But the network decided that Dana's pregnancy didn't fit the show's wholesome image of Kimberly, and she was released from her contract. The show was a great way for Dana to escape, and when she was let go, that killed Dana. That destroyed Dana. That was her way to be happy and to stay happy, or to keep that fictitious happiness. Dana was no longer America's favorite, and as she desperately tried to rebuild her career, she suffered a major blow. Dana's mom, Kay, had been suffering with the disease scleroderma, which hardened her skin and blood vessels. When Dana was just 23, Kay died. When her mother passed away, that really got to Dana. Dana felt all alone. More tragedy was to follow. In the same week that her mother died, Dana's husband, Lanny, left her. Dana descended into alcohol and drug addiction, and after months of soul-searching, decided to give up custody of her son, Tyler, because she felt Lanny could offer more stability. So not only has she lost her mother, she lost her whole family. And you have to remember, at this point, different strokes is not around anymore, right? Her job, that one thing that she knew she was good at, well, that's over too. Personal reports tell me that by the time Dana was in her mid-20s, she had suffered a number of anxiety-causing events. Despite this, I can find no record of her being prescribed diazepam at this stage in her life. But I can see all this changed in the early 90s. By the time Dana was 27, with the success of different strokes far behind her, she was scratching out a living in dead-end jobs in Las Vegas. It's going to affect not only your self-esteem, your emotional standpoint. You feel like someone just took everything from you. And you start to go reckless. You know, and that's exactly what happened with her. It was at this point that Dana started to abuse diazepam, sold as Valium. So he sends me to a psychiatrist, which puts me on Valium. So I started taking these Valiums and quickly became addicted. Dana's addiction to the drug led to more drastic behavior. She ended up stealing a prescription pad, forging a doctor's signature, going to the pharmacy and getting a thousand Valium tablets. And that led to the arrest. I need help. I'm sick. I really need help. Dana was given a suspended sentence and re-entered a rehabilitation program. When you're addicted to something like drugs or alcohol, you do things that are not in your nature. And I really think that people that have an addiction problem should be able to get some help. But it seems Dana Plato could never fully give up her dependence on diazepam. Dana's autopsy report showed elevated levels of diazepam, suggesting she was still a user. Her long-term and high-level abuse of the drug could have increased her risk for overdose. So I can't rule it out as a factor in her death. And I've discovered something else in Dana's autopsy report that could have seriously impacted on her state of mind in the days before her death. Could a dangerous cocktail of drugs have altered her mind so considerably that she took her own life? Dana Plato's death was ruled as suicide, but some disagree with this verdict. Dana appeared to have much to live for, including her son, a fiancé, and new career prospects. So why and how did she take her own life? I can see her toxicology report test positive for benzoalecanine. Benzoalecanine is formed in the liver by the metabolism of cocaine and is detected during urine drug tests. Could cocaine have affected her frame of mind? And did this contribute to her reported suicide? May 6th, 1999. Novotel Hotel, Times Square, New York. It's two days before Dana's death. Having spent the last ten years dealing with a faltering career, Dana is trying for a relaunch. She's been flown to New York by an events promoter, Shane Bugbee, who has booked her to appear at an alternative arts event in two weeks. Did you read that contract? I'm sure whatever you write is fine, and I trust him completely anyway. Now he's asked Dana to promote it on the Howard Stern radio show tomorrow morning. To make a deal with Dana to get on the Howard Stern show just took money. I just offered her money to do that. Talking to her, though, about it, when I sold her on the idea, it was about being herself, trying to be more of an adult, and to maybe yield some opportunities for herself. Recent headlines in the National Enquirer have linked Dana to cocaine abuse, something she's keen to dispute. She was very scared at first of the Howard Stern show because of the National Enquirer drama. That was out there, and she felt was damaging her career, so to go on Howard Stern would have helped repair her career. We did plan her dress, her wardrobe, all this stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. Howard Stern's interview will be a tough test of Dana's emotional state. She had called me and said, Carly, I'm wanting to do the Howard Stern show. I said, don't you dare. And I would have called Howard Stern and said, do not, do not put this girl on. I would have done everything I can to stop it. Everything. There's no doubt the shock jock will quiz Dana about the cocaine rumors. You had to have a thick hide to go into Howard Stern and survive. Otherwise he could chew you up and spit you out. Cocaine allows the mood-enhancing dopamine to accumulate in the brain's synapses, causing the euphoria commonly experienced immediately after taking the drug. Depression can become a symptom of long-term cocaine use, as abusers become deficient in the neurotransmitter dopamine. And depression is a leading risk factor in suicidal thought. I need to find out more about Dana's reported cocaine use. By the time she reached her early 20s, Dana was abusing cocaine after being let go by different strokes. We'd do coke together, you know, because that's what I was still doing. And she was doing it. We were both trying to smash all the emotions and feelings that we were dealing with. And none of us knew how to deal with it correctly. She ended up descending into, you know, B-movies, posing for Playboy, soft-core porn. You know, pretty much everything that we would associate with people that are on the downward spiral of their career and their life. And wherever Dana went, so the cocaine rumors followed. May 7th, 1999. The Howard Stern Radio Show, New York. The day before Dana's death. I begged her not to do it. I go, Dana, you're sensitive. You don't know how to handle that show. Please don't do the show. Shock jock Howard wastes no time in quizzing Dana, asking her straight if she's been on any drugs or medication. Dana claims she's been clean and sober for over a decade and rejects rumored links with cocaine and crack cocaine use. She got on the show and she just denied it. Oh, I've never done cocaine. Oh, I've never done that. And that's when the calls came in and they started just rolling her. Dana does admit that she's recently taken prescription drugs for a wisdom tooth extraction. Howard demands complete honesty. She wasn't honest with him. It's not really Stern, it's his fans that are just monsters. If you're not honest, they know. And fans are skeptical of her claims when they start phoning in. The listeners certainly knew that she wasn't honest and attacked her as lying, that she hadn't been clean for 10 years, that she's done this and used that. And when you're this fragile flower, this doe in the headlights, that's toxic. One phone-in fan tells Howard to get Dana out of the studio, calling her an ex-druggie, an ex-con with unresolved mental health problems. She jumped into the lion's cage and I can hear her getting upset and more upset and upset. Dana calls me back and says, how was it, Shane? I said, I think you sounded great. She had been picked on throughout most of her adult life as being a loser or a drug addict or a porn person. So I don't think that anything that happened on the Howard Stern show was something that bothered Dana to the point of suicide. I actually do think Dana was so fragile that any negativity about her was hard for her to deal with. I can see that Dana was fragile after the events of the last 36 hours of her life. Cocaine could have offered a narcotic high to escape to, but despite her positive result for the byproduct benzolecanine in her blood, she had a negative result for cocaine in her urine, telling me that she had not resorted to the drug in the last hours of her life. However, Dana had used the drug for the larger part of her adult life, so I can't rule out cocaine as a factor in her death. And I've discovered more evidence that Dana took a pain-killing opiate that could provide answers to the question, did Dana Plato really mean to take her own life? Prominent forensic pathologist, Dr. Michael Hunter, is examining the medical evidence surrounding the reported suicide of Different Strokes actress, Dana Plato. In my investigation to discover if Dana Plato really meant to kill herself, I found that her body contained traces of the chemicals with links to cocaine and diazepam. Her toxicology report is full of more clues, and I can see one other drug that could be highly significant. The prescription painkiller, hydrocodone. Hydrocodone belongs to a class of drugs called opioids. They work by attaching to special receptors in the brain that control pain and emotion. But why was Dana taking the drug, and what impact did it have on her state of mind? 1 p.m., May 8th, 1999. Mother's Day weekend, Moore, Oklahoma. Less than nine hours before Dana's death. The day after the Howard Stern show, Dana is picked up from the airport by her fiancé, Robert Menchaca, who takes her to the house of his mother, Marcella. She was like, listen, I'm going to go down to Oklahoma for Mother's Day. Tomorrow, Dana plans to celebrate with her 14-year-old son, Tyler, who she's looking forward to seeing, but for now, she wants time alone. So she's tired and needs to relax in the RV, ends up taking a cocktail of meds and God knows whatever else, in order to sleep. She takes hydrocodone. According to Dana, the powerful painkiller has been prescribed for the recent extraction of her wisdom teeth. Hydrocodone is often prescribed to relieve pain that stems from injuries or surgery. Common side effects include confusion and slowed breathing, which could have an impact on Dana's last hours. That afternoon, after taking her drugs, Dana gets into bed. The events of the last 36 hours have taken their toll. I think given what happened on the Howard Stern show, I think Dana would have felt not just deflated, but I think very hopeless. Don't forget, one of the big issues for her was this need for acceptance. It's almost as if she needed others to accept her for her to accept herself. Later that afternoon, Dana's boyfriend, Robert, joins her in their RV. Dana was kind of cold and clammy. Robert covered her up with a blanket in the RV, and then snuggled up to go to sleep next to her. According to Robert Menchaca's accounts, Dana was already cold and sweating. This could have indicated low blood pressure and a slower respiratory rate. Around 8.30 p.m., Robert stirs in the bed after sleeping next to Dana. Robert awakens and finds Dana not breathing and unresponsive and cold to the touch. Has some vomit on the side of her mouth. And he screams for his mother. Marcella Menchaca is a nursing assistant and does all she can to combine chest compressions with artificial ventilation to save Dana. Okay, what's the problem? Emergency medical services are quickly on scene, but Dana is already unconscious and not breathing. The paramedics rush Dana by ambulance to the nearby Southwest Medical Center in Oklahoma City. On arrival, she is declared dead at 9.30 p.m. Dana Plato, a TV star at 12. She died on Saturday of an overdose of prescription drugs. Dana's passing absolutely devastated me. She shared her light with everybody. And at the end, a darkness that was just so, hit me right in the heart. It just still upsets me, you know? Her passing really got to me. It broke my heart. She was very special to me in my life. She didn't realize how many people loved her. She had no idea. Poor little Tyler was waiting by the phone on Mother's Day for hours, waiting for that phone call that never came. She did not have to go this way. Rumors circulate, and questions over Dana's passing immediately surface. Authorities call the death of the 34-year-old Plato an apparent accident. In the first 48 hours, Dana's death is widely reported not as suicide, but accidental overdose. It appears that the death is related to an accidental overdose of prescription medication. At the time of Dana's death, it was reported in the media as an accidental overdose due to a mix of hydrocodone and diazepam. Certainly, this toxic combination can slow breathing and has been responsible for many accidental polydrug overdose deaths. Dana claimed that she took the hydrocodone for pain from a wisdom teeth extraction. But this drug can also be mixed with other prescription medications to create a recreational high, opening up the possibility that Dana could have accidentally overdosed while intoxicated. And I've discovered something else in the toxicology report. Could Dr. Hunter's findings shed new light on exactly what happened on the night Dana Plato died? Dana Plato's death was recorded as suicide, but some maintain her death was an accident. So far, I've discovered that the 34-year-old had taken a mix of hydrocodone and diazepam. But I've also come across another drug in her system, carisoprodol. Could this solve the mystery of why her death was ruled a suicide? Just hours before passing out in her RV, Dana took pills containing carisoprodol, along with the many other drugs already in her system. Carisoprodol is a prescription drug that works by slowing activity in the brain and allowing muscles to relax. But establishing exactly whether Dana took this toxic mix on purpose to kill herself, or for some other reason, depends on establishing what state of mind she was in. In the hours after Dana's death, a police search of Dana's RV for clues finds no suicide note. And for many, the idea of Dana taking her life seems unlikely. Suicide, I don't believe, was even in the cards for her. It wasn't even plausible. Dana had everything to live for. She had a burgeoning career, and I don't believe she would take herself away from Tyler. The medical examiner's verdict of suicide had to be based on the evidence of the intent of Dana to take her own life. They note the cause of her death as toxic concentrations of carisoprodol and hydrocodone, with high levels of both of these drugs in her blood. However, for me, what is most telling is the contents of her stomach. I can see the equivalent of seven large carisoprodol tablets remain unabsorbed here, more than a daily intake, on top of the carisoprodol already in her system. With her breathing slowed by the hydrocodone and diazepam, by that time already taking effect, these dangerous levels of carisoprodol further enhanced their respiratory depressant effects, becoming lethal. The medical examiner reports this as an acute intentional overdose ingestion, and this would have played a major part in their final verdict of suicide. But for me, there's still the question of why Dana took these drugs. I definitely believe it was accidental. I think she was just trying to kill the pain that she was dealing with that day, and get some sleep and maybe wake up in the morning and do something different. One theory I need to consider is that Dana was trying to escape into a prescription drug high. In fact, her specific mix of carisoprodol, hydrocodone, and benzodiazepines became widely used by recreational abusers in the 90s, and later earned the nickname the Holy Trinity. Was Dana simply trying to get high using this combination of drugs, and in a confused state, just didn't know how much she was taking? Did she take one too many? Certainly. Being tired and forgetting she took something, those were my first thoughts. There was no way I ever thought suicide, and I wish I could have done more to fight that ruling. I can appreciate why the medical examiner concluded Dana committed suicide. Certainly, Dana had taken a deadly quantity of drugs in a short space of time. I can also see that her past history of suicidal gestures played a major part in this ruling, including events that remain private. But for me, I think the fact that the law enforcement officers originally on scene, who collected good information from first-hand witnesses, felt confident enough to state that it was an accidental overdose, raises some uncertainty. Dana left no suicide note, and many of those close to her maintain that taking her own life was not a possibility for her. That, alongside the fact that Dana, a woman with a long history of substance abuse, took such a specific mix of drugs associated with recreational highs, meant that the chance of her making a fatal error while intoxicated became a strong likelihood. Weighing up all the evidence, on balance, I think it's more probable that Dana accidentally overdosed rather than committed suicide. Whatever the verdict, Dr. Hunter believes there's more certainty about what was happening in Dana's body in the moments before her death. According to the autopsy report, Dana's drug overdose caused pulmonary edema and congestion. As the drugs filtered into her bloodstream, her respiration slowed. As the concentration of CO2 rose and oxygen decreased, Dana's heart and brain started to fail. As a result, Dana's lungs filled with fluid. Eventually, her heart stopped beating, leading to organ failure and finally death. There was simply no coming back for Dana. She had the love and the adoration and the career and the family, and then it felt like in a blink of an eye, all of that was gone. And don't forget, she was very self-aware of how she was seen, right? She would have had to have been. You can't be in the public eye as a kid without having an intense self-awareness of the perception of others. You're almost beholden to that identity that you start off with. She never had the sense of entitlement to establish the identity that was really her, which I think was really one of the biggest tragedies in this story. I miss her laugh, her giggle, her funniness, her corny jokes. You know, her coming up and going, Todd! You know, and giving me a kiss on the cheek. I miss all that about Dana. When Dana left us, a beautiful butterfly was gone. And I do remember at her memorial, a butterfly came down and landed on the urn. And I know that was Dana.