Former child actor Daveigh Chase’s cause of death has been revealed just weeks after the actress died at 35 following years of struggles with drug addiction and homelessness.
Chase, best known for playing Samara in the 2002 horror hit The Ring and for voicing Lilo Pelekai in Disney’s Lilo & Stitch, died on June 16.
Her boyfriend, Roy Hernandez, previously told TMZ that Chase had died from meningitis and a blood infection that led to septic complications and caused her body to shut down.
Now, TMZ reports that the L.A. County Medical Examiner listed Chase’s official cause of death as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, commonly known as AIDS. Chronic polysubstance use was listed as a significant contributing factor.
Polysubstance use refers to the repeated use of two or more drugs at the same time.
AIDS is the most advanced stage of HIV, a virus that attacks the body’s immune system. According to the World Health Organization, HIV can be spread through the exchange of certain body fluids, including blood, breast milk, semen and vaginal secretions. HIV is treatable, but if left untreated, it can progress to AIDS, which can become life-threatening.
Days before Chase’s death, Hernandez launched a GoFundMe to help raise money for her medical treatment.
“Daveigh was diagnosed with meningitis and several serious blood infections,” the fundraiser said. “Her condition has become critical, and the doctors have told me she may not have much time left.”
After her death, Chase’s mother, Cathy, opened up about her daughter’s heartbreaking final years, saying she had spent years desperately trying to find her after Chase disappeared following time in prison.
Chase had been jailed in Los Angeles after being charged with two counts of burglary. Cathy said she noticed a drastic change in her daughter when she visited her behind bars.
“She was completely gone, like, out of her mind,” Cathy told the Daily Mail. “I honestly thought there was something wrong with her.”
Cathy said her daughter had not been diagnosed with a mental health condition other than PTSD, but said drugs had taken over.
“My daughter was never diagnosed with mental health other than PTSD,” she said. “But the drugs took hold of her.”
According to Cathy, Chase’s struggles worsened after she injured her back in a motorcycle accident in 2016. She believes the injury led Chase to become addicted to painkillers before moving on to other drugs.
Cathy said Chase had been “seeking drugs and was partying with the wrong people” during that period.
At one point, Chase reportedly agreed to go home with her mother after being released from prison. But Cathy said her daughter was released a day early and left before she arrived.
“When I got there, she never waited,” Cathy recalled. “She went back to the streets and I couldn’t find her.”
Chase’s former manager, John Ryan, also spoke about the actress’s troubled years, saying he had not seen her in about a decade.
“At first, I thought she was kidnapped or something, and then we started putting two and two together,” Ryan said.
He said he had helped Chase get into “a couple of rehabs back in the day,” but claimed she and the people around her did not appear deeply concerned about her sobriety.
Ryan said a missing persons report was never filed because Chase had left on her own. Over the years, he said he would occasionally see her name appear in headlines, including in 2017 when she was arrested for riding in a stolen car.