The entertainment industry is mourning the loss of Daveigh Chase, the versatile former child star whose career spanned beloved horror, animation and television projects, who passed away on June 16 at the age of 35. Conflicting details around her cause of death have emerged from official records and official statements, alongside disclosures about the struggles she faced in her later years.
According to a Los Angeles County Medical Examiner report obtained by media outlets, Chase’s death was attributed to complications from AIDS, with chronic polysubstance use listed as an additional significant underlying condition. The case is currently marked as open by the examiner’s office. However, Chase’s long-time manager John Ryan Jr. previously told BBC News last week that the star died from sepsis following a battle with meningitis while receiving care at a Los Angeles hospital.
Further context about Chase’s life before her passing was shared by her father, John David Schwallier, who told *The New York Times* that Chase had been experiencing homelessness and living in Los Angeles with her boyfriend in the period leading up to her death.
Chase’s entertainment career began exceptionally early: she started performing at age four, and landed her first credited Hollywood role at seven, a small guest spot on the hit 1990s sitcom *Sabrina the Teenage Witch* led by Melissa Joan Hart. She stepped away from full-time acting in 2015, closing out a three-decade career that included many iconic pop culture roles.
Her breakthrough came in 2001, when she was cast as Samantha Darko in the cult classic psychological drama *Donnie Darko*, a role she reprised in the 2009 standalone follow-up *S Darko*. Two years later, she cemented her place in horror film history as Samara Morgan, the menacing long-haired ghost at the center of *The Ring* — the American remake of the iconic Japanese horror classic about a cursed videotape that kills all who watch it within seven days. Chase’s haunting performance, which featured the iconic scene of Samara crawling out of a television screen, earned her the 2003 MTV Movie Award for Best Villain.
The same year *The Ring* hit theaters, Chase took on another career-defining role: voicing Lilo Pelekai, the adventure-loving Hawaiian girl obsessed with Elvis Presley, in Disney’s animated blockbuster *Lilo & Stitch*. Her warm, heartfelt performance earned her an Annie Award for Outstanding Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production, and she returned to voice the character in multiple subsequent franchise spin-offs. Chase also added another major animated credit to her resume, voicing the lead character Chihiro in the English-language dub of Hayao Miyazaki’s Oscar-winning Studio Ghibli classic *Spirited Away*, and later had a multi-season recurring role on the hit HBO cable drama *Big Love*.