Daveigh Chase, the former child actress who gave voice to Disney's Lilo and terrified audiences as Samara in "The Ring," died June 17 in a Los Angeles hospital at age 35. She was homeless, malnourished, and deep in addiction. Her mother, Cathy Chase, broke her silence days later in a grief-stricken interview that traces the collapse of a once-promising career to a single motorcycle accident, a bottle of oxycodone, and a city that swallowed her daughter whole.
The cause of death was bacterial meningitis and a blood infection, AP News reported, citing confirmation from Chase's father, John David Schwallier. Chase had been admitted to the hospital earlier in June for severe malnutrition. She had been living on the streets of Los Angeles with her boyfriend, Roy Hernandez, near the very hospital where she would die.
Cathy Chase's account, published Saturday by the Daily Mail and covered by USA Today, is the fullest picture yet of how a child star who landed her first major role at age 10 ended up dying on Skid Row's doorstep, with millions of dollars in unclaimed residuals sitting untouched in an account she never collected from.
Chase appeared in the cult classic "Donnie Darko" in 2001, playing Jake Gyllenhaal's younger sister. A year later, she voiced Lilo in Disney's animated hit "Lilo & Stitch" and Chihiro in the English-language dub of Hayao Miyazaki's "Spirited Away." She was barely a teenager, and she was already a recognizable name in Hollywood.
In a 2009 interview with Interview Magazine, Chase said something that reads differently now. The Washington Times quoted her:
"I just want to make something that I love and people will respect. I want to do things that will change someone's life, not something they'll forget about tomorrow."
Her father told the New York Times that Chase had struggled with drugs since she was thirteen years old. But her mother's account points to a sharper turning point: a 2016 motorcycle accident that injured her back. Doctors prescribed oxycodone and other painkillers. What followed was a familiar American story, one that has played out in hundreds of thousands of families since the opioid crisis began.
Cathy Chase told the Daily Mail that the prescription painkillers opened a door her daughter could not close. The wrong crowd followed. The drugs escalated.
"She was seeking drugs and was partying with the wrong people. I never kicked my daughter out. She wanted freedom and these people got her hooked on some drugs. That was the beginning."
Chase's mother said her daughter was never diagnosed with mental health problems aside from PTSD stemming from the crash itself. But the addiction consumed everything. The Hollywood ecosystem that once employed her offered no visible safety net as she spiraled.
Cathy Chase described a daughter who became unrecognizable:
"She was completely gone, like, out of her mind. The drugs took hold of her."
The last time Cathy Chase saw her daughter was October 2019, more than six years before her death. She searched for Daveigh in downtown Los Angeles' Skid Row neighborhood, a stretch of blocks known for its high concentration of homeless people. She never found her.
While Chase was living on the streets, her SAG-AFTRA residuals account held millions of dollars. The New York Post reported that Chase's deal for "Lilo & Stitch" included merchandise, theme park, and voice royalties, a stream of income that kept growing as Disney continued to profit from the franchise. Her former manager, John Ryan, described Chase as "too far gone" to collect the money.
That detail alone captures the scale of the wreckage. A woman with millions sitting in an account was starving on the sidewalk, addicted to heroin and fentanyl, according to her manager's account. A disturbing video surfaced in late 2025 showing Chase living on Skid Row. Ryan and Chase's stepsister attempted to locate and help her after seeing the footage.
They could not reach her in time.
Cathy Chase described one moment that still haunts her. At some point after their estrangement, Daveigh agreed to be picked up from jail. Her mother drove to get her. But Chase had already been released, Cathy says she was given the wrong time.
"I am a mother who loved her daughter so much. But when I got there, she never waited. She went back to the streets and I couldn't find her."
The specific jail, the charges, and the date remain unclear. Cathy Chase said her daughter had several run-ins with law enforcement over the years but did not detail them further. The gap between that missed pickup and Chase's death represents years of silence, a mother searching, a daughter unreachable.
Los Angeles, a city whose leadership has faced mounting scrutiny over homelessness and public safety, served as the backdrop for the final chapter. Skid Row is not a secret. The encampments are visible. The suffering is documented. And yet a woman whose voice millions of children recognized could disappear into it for years without anyone in a position of authority intervening effectively.
The aftermath of Chase's death brought its own complications. Fox News reported that Chase's former manager, John Ryan Jr., raised concerns about a GoFundMe campaign launched by someone claiming to be her boyfriend. Ryan warned that the fundraiser may not have been authorized by the family.
"This man making these claims brought her into the hospital in terrible condition and didn't let any of the family know until she passed so he can control the dialogue," Ryan said. Chase's father, Schwallier, confirmed the cause of death independently, and the family appeared to be at odds with Hernandez over the public narrative.
None of this changes the core facts. Chase was homeless. She was addicted. She was malnourished. She died of an infection that her weakened body could not fight. The people closest to her, family, former colleagues, knew she was in trouble and could not pull her back.
Daveigh Chase's story is not unique in its mechanics. A legitimate injury. A prescription for powerful painkillers. An escalation to street drugs. Homelessness. Death. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration maintains a helpline, 1-800-662-HELP, for people struggling with addiction. How many families have dialed it too late is a number no one publishes.
What makes Chase's case distinct is the contrast. She was not anonymous. She had resources, literal millions, sitting in an account. She had family members who wanted to help. She had a name that could have opened doors to treatment programs that most addicts never see. And still, the drugs won.
Cathy Chase went to the hospital to identify her daughter's remains. She prayed over the body. A hospital chaplain told her not to blame herself.
"I was devastated. It felt like something inside of me squeezing all of the air out of me, and at the same time, It felt like I was exploding outwardly."
She also said something quieter, and harder to hear:
"I will live forever feeling I failed her because they told me the wrong time when she was released [from jail] all those years ago."
A mother blames herself for arriving at a jailhouse at the wrong hour. Meanwhile, the doctors who wrote the prescriptions, the city that warehouses its homeless population on open sidewalks, and the institutions that watched a known young woman vanish into addiction, none of them appear to be losing sleep.
The celebrity culture that chews people up and moves on to the next name will do exactly that here. Daveigh Chase's face will trend for a few days. The algorithms will serve up clips of Lilo. And then Los Angeles will go back to stepping over the people sleeping on its sidewalks, some of whom, like Chase, had every resource except the one that mattered.
When a woman with millions in the bank starves on Skid Row and dies of an infection at 35, the system didn't fail at one point. It failed at every point.
