Dana Plato — Bizarre Final Days Of ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ Star

The ENQUIRER published its shocking interview with Jennifer Wejbe just weeks before the troubled child star was found dead — with her lover turning to the public to help find her girlfriend in March 1999. "Dana is missing in action," Jennifer said from the L.A. apartment that she used to share with the troubled actress. "I have no idea where she is!"

Jennifer revealed how she had taken in Dana, who had gone from being a rising star to a jailbird with convictions for faking Valium prescriptions and robbing a video store. The stagehand met Dana on the set of the low-budget horror movie "Silent Scream." "One night at her apartment," Jennifer recalled, "Dana suddenly approached me on the couch. She just started kissing me."

"It was a shock," Jennifer continued. "I'm gay, but I didn't expect this from her at all. Dana told me that she was never going back to men, that she hated their whole mentality. From that point on, we were lovers." But, Jennifer continued, things soon went bad after Dana moved in with her new love.

"As soon as she moved in," said Jennifer. "it became clear that Dana had no intention of doing anything but hanging out. I was working every day...Dana would be lying around, gazing at filthy dishes piling up in the sink. She would never pitch in. Then I found little pebbles of rock cocaine littering the floor of my bathroom. I was forced to accept the truth: She was a drug addict, a freebaser."

Jennifer, a recovered addict herself, said that Dana refused to give up her drug habit — even after she persuaded the star to participate in an E! Network documentary about her hit show: "After the show was broadcast, Dana started getting offers to audition for movies again. But as far as I know, she blew them all off."

Then, said Jennifer, Dana finally left their apartment after she stole $700 from her lover. "The last time I saw her was right before Christmas at a fleabag hotel in central Hollywood," she recalled. "Dana begged for money, and I gave her all I could — $200. I haven't heard from her since!"

Sadly, Dana would never get the help she needed. Instead, she spent her final days trying to cover up her humiliating drug habit. The disgraced star made her final showbiz appearance guesting on Howard Stern's radio show on May 7, 1999 — the day before her death.

Dana insisted to Howard that she had been sober for 10 years, and claimed that Jennifer lied to The ENQUIRER about her drug habit. She also boasted that she was willing to take a drug test, and gave up a lock of her hair. Howard later admitted that Dana demanded it back after the interview.

Dana's body was found in Moore, Okla., the next day — inside her Winnebago motor home parked outside the house of her new boyfriend's mother. They had been traveling together back to Hollywood. A medical examiner later ruled that Dana had committed suicide with an overdose of painkillers and muscle-relaxants.

In a final ugly twist, Dana's manager — former "Family Affair" child star Johnny Whitaker — declared after Dana's death that he would help her son fulfill his own showbiz dreams. Instead, Tyler Plato would put a gun to his own head on May 6, 2010. Whitaker said Tyler died during what was always "a difficult time — not only because it was Mother's Day, but the anniversary of Dana's death."