“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes,
A pair of star-cross’d lovers go see Maury”
One of the greatest guilty pleasures this fine country has to offer is indulging in an episode of Maury. Day in and day out, carnival barker Maury Povich trots out a parade of unfortunate yet highly entertaining people, all searching for answers to the never-ending question: “Is he the father?”
When not doling out schadenfreude in the form of paternity tests, Maury’s other specialty just so happens to be lie detector tests, you know, based on the science that pretty much no court allows as admissible evidence?
Luckly for Judge Maury and the Lower Court of Public Opinion, no such restriction exists, and frankly we’re all the better for it. Every Lie Detector episode proves pretty much one thing: very rarely is anyone ever telling the truth, and if there’s ever any doubt to that notion, Maury usually settles it by using fake decoys to essentially cocktease the accused into infidelity on national syndicated television. Just like God intended.
While this cavalcade of the affected and abused usually make for good TV, sometimes, certain couples represent a bridge too far, as in “If you put these animals in the same room, they’ll fucking kill each other!”
Case in point: a Chicago couple, who traveled to be on Maury was arrested late Tuesday night after getting into a fight that began when the woman found out her boyfriend was sleeping with her mother. Yes, her mother.
John Coley, 46, and Shantae McGhee-Brown, 25, were initially charged with disorderly conduct and third-degree criminal mischief. McGhee-Brown was additionally charged with interfering with an officer.
Although shows like Maury try to keep guests separated (you know, because if they’re going to fight, for Christ’s sake…let it be on camera!), Coley and McGhee-Brown were booked at the same hotel and ran into each other the night before the show.
So how could we sweeten this pot any further? It sees that Coley was convicted of murder in 1998 and released from prison in January 2010; State’s Attorney Nichol Peco added that Coley also had a 2012 arrest for murder, and the arrest did not show up on the bail commissioner’s background study of Coley. I wonder if it would’ve come out on Maury’s lie detectors.
Call me an insensitive prick, but sleeping with your girlfriend’s mother is one thing (shit happens), but dating a girl nearly half your age with a tattoo on her neck that says, “Cutthroat” will almost always end in a court appearance.