David Allan Coe Estate Enters Dispute as Forgotten Son Emerges

It probably comes as no surprise to anyone that the David Allan Coe estate is embroiled in legal fights and verbal arguments in the aftermath of his death on April 29th. Beyond multiple ex-wives with multiple children between them, David Allan Coe’s affairs were generally a mess heading in to his death at 86. Coe was fined $1 million in 2016 by the IRS, and narrowly avoided jail time due to back taxes. He was a notorious gambler, and later in his career often demanded payment up from before performing gigs.

Now Coe’s fourth wife Jody is seeing money from the David Allan Coe estate and its executor, David’s widow Kimberly Coe, for back child support and alimony.

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David Allan Coe was married six times, and had a total of eight children, including multiple offspring who at times have played numerous roles in the music business. This includes:

Carla (with first wife Betty)

Shelli (from second wife Debbie)

Tyler Mahan, Tanya, Shaynne, and Carson (from fourth wife Jody)

Dustin (from sixth wife Kimberly)

Josh Pruitt (recently discovered, born out of wedlock)

David Allan Coe is also recognized as the father of Debra Ann, whose mother is also Jody, and who Coe gave his last name to and helped raise. Incidentally, Jody is also the woman that David Allan Coe’s song “Jody Like a Melody” (1975) is about.

Tyler Mahan Coe played guitar for his father for numerous years, and is best know for his Cocaine & Rhinestones country history podcast. Shelli Coe is a singer who now considers herself retired. Tanya Montana Coe released albums in 2015 and 2019, and continues to perform upon occasion.

But none of these offspring were included in David Allan Coe’s will. According to reports and documents, all of David Allan Coe’s assets were left to his widow and sixth wife, Kimberly.

To understand how David Allan Coe’s children became estranged from their father, you have to go back to an automobile accident he was involved in on March 19th, 2013 in Ocala, Florida. As Saving Country Music reported at the time, Coe’s 2011 black Chevrolet Suburban was broadsided by a semi-truck at an intersection, and Coe was rushed to the Ocala Regional Medical Center. The accident was determined to be Coe’s fault when he ran a red light.

David Allan Coe suffered cracked ribs and bruised kidneys, but was eventually able to make a full recovery. However, according to multiple of David Allan Coe’s children at the time, the accident was used by wife Kimberly Coe to basically remove all of David’s children from previous marriages from his life. This was confirmed in part when Saving Country Music saw Coe at Willie Nelson’s 4th of July Picnic later in 2013, and he told the audience,

“I’ve got to tell you that everybody quit me, except my wife. She’s the only one that didn’t quit. My road manager of 35 years, he quit me. My band quit me.”

Coe also published a letter online at that time through his wife Kimberly that also said, “There was a lot lost in the wreck. There was friendships and family and people I thought were in my corner that let me down.”

But according to numerous Coe children, they tried to reach out to their father in the aftermath of the accident. They had all been in communication with him before, and son Tyler Mahan Coe had been his father’s regular guitar player. The accusation is that David’s wife Kimberly Hastings Coe, who married David in April of 2010, used the distraction of David’s accident and hospitalization to fire the band, cut off the children from previous marriages, and consolidate power over all things David Allan Coe to herself. This is what Tanya Montana and Tyler Mahan Coe have both claimed in numerous statements.

In November of 2013, Tyler Mahan Coe said on his Baby Black Windows blog:

To be fair, I don’t like her. So I’ve told you that up front…

There is a photocopy of a letter being posted throughout cyberspace. A letter written in my father’s hand. The implication is that every person in his life, except his wife, abandoned him after his recent auto accident. Certainly, it doesn’t make sense to me that every person in someone’s life would take a hike because that person had a little accident. Must be something else going on there…

A Lesson in Subterfuge – The first thing you want to do is get in close with the target. Then you do everything you can to erode the stability of every standing relationship the target had previous to your arrival. First, lower employees, pawns. They’re easy. A small maneuver and they’re history. Then, you’re chipping away at the back row. Anyone who has decision making capabilities has to go. Anyone who controls money has to go. Friends who may take it upon themselves to offer advice to the target have to go. Family? This may prove difficult, as some family will no doubt see what you’re doing, but family absolutely must go. The target has to believe that you are the only person who has their interest at heart. Never relent and you will succeed in your task.

Tanya Montana Coe also said in a statement recently,

“When the 2013 wreck happened, I was texting my dad’s phone and Kim’s phone. I was wanting to come to the hospital and trying to get details of where it was. Kim told me not to come to the hospital, that it was too hectic with all the nurses and that they would be checking out soon and that I could come stay with them at the house once they got dad home and I could help take care of him in his recovery.I was ready and waiting on standby. I never heard from them again. READ THAT AGAIN. I NEVER HEARD FROM THEM AGAIN. My texts and calls went unanswered, unreturned.”

Now, former wife Jodi and the children of David Allan Coe are going after the David Allan Coe estate represented by Kimberly Hastings Coe for unpaid child support and unpaid spousal support totaling  $540,820.72 and $194,882.10 respectively. This is for Jodi’s four children with Coe, and for herself for unpaid alimony.

“ATTENTION ALL MUSICIANS, VENUES, AND BUSINESS ASSOCIATES OF DAVID ALLAN COE: Priority court judgments for long-overdue, unpaid family and child support have already been officially filed by us against our father’s estate,” reads a recent post on Facebook. “While some people have attacked us for holding him accountable to the family obligations he walked away from during his life, our priority is transparency and family honor. We want to ensure that everyone he owed money to has the exact same opportunity to be made whole.”

On August 13th, Kimberly Coe, who is the executor of the David Allan Coe estate, officially rejected those claims, but Jody can and likely will object in the probate court, or officially sue the Coe estate, which is likely in the offing.

David Allan Coe’s Lost Son Josh Pruitt

In a rather remarkable interview recently with Dillon Weldon of the Drifting Cowboy Podcast, it was officially revealed that Georgia resident Josh Pruitt was a long lost son of David Allan Coe that was conceived during Coe’s era of polygamy when Coe claimed to be a Mormon. Both Pruitt’s grandmother and mother traveled around with Coe at that time as fans of his, and were part of Coe’s extended “family.”

Pruitt said his mother first told him that David Allan Coe was his father right after he had to make the decision to end life support for the man who he thought was his father since Josh Pruitt was the only next-of-kin for the man. That’s also where Josh gets his last name of “Pruitt.” Josh then started Googling photos of David Allan Coe, and specifically seeing Coe’s face on the cover of the album Matter of Life and Death, Pruitt concluded, “That’s me.” Pruitt later confirmed David Allan Coe was his father through Ancestry.com and a genealogist.

Josh Pruitt actually worked at a club in Georgia where David Allan Coe performed numerous times, and even interacted with him, not knowing he was his father until later. He did try to connect to David Allan Coe through Kimberly, but was unable to. So he reached out to Carla and Tanya Coe, who all started communicating with each other.

“It created a group of siblings that had the same questions, the same concerns, and the same heartbreak that none of us were able to get to him,” Josh Pruitt says. “And so we started going deeper, to the point where we did wellness checks on this man, but it all came back dead ends for us. Every turn we turned, we were not able to get to him. And I was still on this mission to meet him face to face as his son. To speak to him, to get wisdom out of him. That’s all that I wanted.”

Having hit a dead end, Josh Pruitt then started trying to reach out to Johnny Knoxville and the director of an ongoing documentary about David Allan Coe to see if they could help. The plan was hatched to perhaps have Pruitt unite with his father as part of the documentary. But they never got that chance.

“Two weeks later, [I] open Facebook, and I saw it. I saw that he was gone,” Pruitt says. “And that killed me man, because I had all that hope.”

Puritt goes on to explain about his father, “I knew him. I met him. I shook his hand. I took photos of him. I MC’d events that he did. Every show that he’s played in Georgia since 2013 was at the bar I worked at, that I was the event coordinator of. The last time David Allan Coe played in Georgia, there was one patched biker between me and David walking him on stage. In fact, that’s the one photo that exists of me and my father. I have listened to David my entire life. I was a fan before I knew he was my dad. Still am a fan.”

But it wasn’t until the final show that David Allan Coe played in Georgia that Josh Pruitt knew for sure David Allan Coe was his father. But the promoter of the show said to him, “‘I need you to make me a promise. I’m going to book this show, because I think this might be the last time you get to see him. But I need to make sure you won’t saying nothing. Because if you do, and it causes drama, he might cancel the show.’ So I kept it professional.”

In the interview, Josh Pruitt also gives specific details of how the children of David Allan Coe were handled at David’s funeral. They were allowed to attend the funeral, but weren’t given the same visitation privileges as the family members in Kimberly’s inner circle. Much of the burial was handled by the motorcycle club that Coe was part of.

Pruitt then goes on to explain how he knew that Kimberly Coe knew about him before the funeral because they had sent a certified letter to David Allan Coe’s residence, and Kimberly’s mother mentioned the letter at the funeral. But when Pruitt met with Kimberly briefly at the funeral, Kim herself intimated that she never knew about him. That is when Pruitt felt the most betrayed, because Kim allegedly lied to him in-person.

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It’s likely the saga of the David Allan Coe estate and legacy is just beginning. But it feels like a classic story of a late-in-life wife edging out the adult children like we’ve seen with other country performers such as George Jones and Conway Twitty.

For preservation and legacy purposes, the hope is the estates of country legends can remain vibrant and active to make sure catalogs stay in print, archives are preserved, etc. Coe’s fourth wife Jody appears to be taking the lead to make sure Kimberly Coe’s power grab is at least challenged, and Coe’s children from all of his marriages, including Josh Pruitt, feel like they are part of a greater family.

But there might be years of tumult to come. Stay tuned.

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