Homelessness and jail release shadow Chase’s final days

Daveigh Chase’s – Daveigh Chase, the “The Ring” and “Lilo & Stitch” star, died at 35 on Tuesday, June 16, from meningitis and an infection in her blood. Her mother, Cathy Chase, says a 2016 motorcycle crash led to prescription oxycodone use and that she hadn’t seen her daughter

On Tuesday, June 16, Daveigh Chase was taken from a life that her mother says had already slipped far from reach. Her boyfriend, Roy Hernandez, told TMZ that she died at 35 from meningitis and an infection in her blood. Her father. John Schwallier. confirmed the cause of death and said she was homeless and living in Los Angeles with Hernandez near the hospital where she died.

Hernandez also said Chase had been admitted to a Los Angeles hospital earlier this month for malnutrition. Schwallier’s remarks placed homelessness at the center of the final stretch, while the details around how she ended up there were traced back to her years of substance abuse.

In an interview published Saturday. June 20. Cathy Chase described the path that led her daughter away from stability. beginning after a 2016 motorcycle accident. She said doctors prescribed oxycodone and other painkillers after the crash injured her daughter’s back. and that the medication and the environment around it contributed to a slide into addiction. “She was seeking drugs and was partying with the wrong people,” Cathy Chase told the outlet. “I never kicked my daughter out. She wanted freedom and these people got her hooked on some drugs. That was the beginning.”.

Cathy Chase said she hadn’t seen her daughter since October 2019. a break that dated back to after “run-ins with law enforcement.” She said the only mental health issue she knew of was PTSD from the crash. but that she had suspected something was wrong long before she had proof. “I honestly thought there was something wrong with her,” she said. “She was completely gone, like, out of her mind. The drugs took hold of her.”.

The most painful detail came from a moment she said she thought would reunite them. Cathy Chase said Daveigh agreed to be picked up from jail at a certain time. and that when Cathy arrived. her daughter had already left. She said she blamed herself anyway. She recalled a hospital chaplain telling her not to. but she continued to feel responsible. saying. “I am a mother who loved her daughter so much.”.

She described the aftermath in plain terms: “But when I got there, she never waited. She went back to the streets and I couldn’t find her,” she added. “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.”

When she searched for her daughter in Los Angeles, Cathy Chase focused on downtown’s Skid Row neighborhood, known for its high concentration of unhoused people. She said that despite looking there, she couldn’t locate Daveigh.

When she eventually learned of her daughter’s death, Cathy Chase said she didn’t believe it at first. Only as more reports surfaced did it sink in. She then went to the hospital to identify Daveigh’s remains, where she said she prayed over her body.

“I was devastated,” Cathy Chase said. “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.”

Chase’s family account is set against a career that began early. She landed her first big Hollywood role at age 10. playing Jake Gyllenhaal’s younger sister. Samantha. in the 2001 psychological thriller “Donnie Darko.” She later continued to work as a voice actress. including playing the young heroine Chihiro in the English-language dub of Hayao Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away. ” and voicing the Hawaiian misfit Lilo in Disney’s 2002 animated hit “Lilo & Stitch.”.

The final days. as described by her boyfriend and confirmed by her father. were marked by illness after a hospital admission for malnutrition—yet the mother’s account insists the deeper struggle had been building long before. The reporting around Chase’s death leaves readers with the same question threaded through Cathy Chase’s words: how could a mother’s attempt to reach her daughter after jail release end in loss instead of reunion?.

Daveigh Chase Cathy Chase Roy Hernandez John Schwallier Lilo & Stitch The Ring meningitis malnutrition oxycodone substance abuse homelessness Skid Row