Daveigh Chase, the former child star best known for voicing Lilo in Disney’s Lilo & Stitch and playing Samara Morgan in The Ring, was reportedly missing from the lives of friends and former industry colleagues for nearly a decade before her death.
Chase died Tuesday at age 35 after complications from meningitis and a blood infection that led to sepsis, according to her boyfriend, Roy Hernandez.
Now, new details about the years before her death are painting a heartbreaking picture of a once-famous child actor who seemingly vanished from the people who once knew her.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Chase’s former manager, John Ryan Jr., said the actress disappeared from the lives of friends and colleagues after 2015. He said alarm bells went off when Chase failed to show up for a meeting with filmmaker Rob Reiner.
After that, Ryan said, many of the people closest to her never heard from her again.
“At first, I thought she was kidnapped or something,” Ryan told the outlet.
According to Ryan, private investigators had been searching for Chase in recent years as concerns about her whereabouts grew.
Chase’s father, John David Schwallier, also spoke about her final years, telling The New York Times that the actress had struggled with substance abuse since her early teens. He said Chase had been homeless in Los Angeles with Hernandez before her death.
Chase became a familiar name to many movie fans in 2002, when she voiced Lilo Pelekai in Disney’s animated hit Lilo & Stitch. That same year, she terrified audiences as Samara Morgan in the horror classic The Ring.
Her work made her one of the most recognizable young performers of the early 2000s, especially for fans who grew up with both films.
But after years in the industry, Chase stepped away from acting after 2016.
Ryan said he had even begun developing a documentary about the search for the actress before learning of her death. The project was tentatively titled Finding Lilo.
The news has left fans heartbroken, especially as more details emerge about how far Chase’s life had drifted from the bright spotlight she once occupied.
For many, she will be remembered as the voice behind one of Disney’s most beloved characters and as the haunting face of one of horror’s most unforgettable films. Her death at just 35 has now turned an already sad story into an even more devastating one.