The cause of death for Daveigh Chase, the actress who voiced Lilo in Disney's Lilo & Stitch and crawled out of a television in horror film The Ring, has been revealed as Aids, according to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner.
The medical examiner also listed “chronic polysubstance use” under “other significant conditions”, ruling her death to be “natural”. Chase died in a Los Angeles hospital on 16 June, aged 35.
“Lilo & Stitch star Daveigh Chase died of Aids aged 35, medical examiner rules”
Her father, John David Schwallier, told the New York Times she was homeless and living in LA with her boyfriend before her death. Her manager, John Ryan Jr, had initially told the BBC she died from sepsis after suffering from meningitis. Her boyfriend, Roy Hernandez, who had launched a GoFundMe page for her treatment, told TMZ she died from meningitis and an infection in her blood.
Days before her death, Hernandez wrote on the fundraising page: “Daveigh was diagnosed with meningitis and several serious blood infections. Her condition has become critical, and the doctors have told me she may not have much time left.”
Chase’s mother, Cathy, told the Daily Mail she had spent years desperately searching for her daughter after she disappeared following stints in prison. Chase had been jailed in Los Angeles after being charged with two counts of burglary. When her mother visited her in prison, she noticed an extreme change. “She was completely gone, like, out of her mind,” Cathy said. “I honestly thought there was something wrong with her. My daughter was never diagnosed with mental health other than PTSD. But the drugs took hold of her.”
Cathy believed Chase became addicted to painkillers after injuring her back in a motorcycle accident in 2016, then moved on to other drugs while “partying with the wrong people”. Upon release from prison, Chase agreed to go home with her mother but was released a day early and fled. “When I got there, she never waited,” Cathy recalled. “She went back to the streets and I couldn’t find her.”
Chase, also known as Daveigh Schwallier, began acting at four years old, booking her first Hollywood job at seven in the sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Her breakthrough came in 2001 in Donnie Darko. In 2002, she starred as the long-haired ghost Samara Morgan in The Ring, a role that earned her a 2003 MTV Movie Award for best villain. That same year she voiced Lilo in Lilo & Stitch, winning an Annie Award for best voice acting. She continued to voice the character in spin-offs, and also voiced Chihiro in the English dub of Spirited Away. She retired from acting full time in 2015.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Chase had a slew of legal run-ins later in life, including being charged with drug possession and joyriding in a stolen car.