Daveigh Chase’s Cause of Death Was AIDS, Confirming What Ended the Life of the Lilo & Stitch and the Ring Star at 35
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner listed AIDS as the primary cause, with chronic polysubstance use as a significant contributing condition, and ruled the manner of death natural. Chase died June 16 at a Los Angeles hospital, and the cause was made public around June 29 after Variety, Deadline, People, and the LA Times confirmed it from the official records (case #2026-09597).
The finding reframed the earlier account. Her boyfriend, Roy Hernandez, initially told TMZ she died from complications of meningitis and a blood infection, conditions consistent with advanced, untreated AIDS combined with substance use.
Chase voiced Lilo in Disney’s Lilo & Stitch and played the crawling-out-of-the-television girl, Samara Morgan, in The Ring, both released in 2002. She also appeared in Donnie Darko and HBO’s Big Love before stepping away from acting around 2016. Her father, John David Schwallier, said her drug struggles dated to age 13 and that he hadn’t spoken to her in years.
In her final weeks she was living in an RV in Boyle Heights with Hernandez and had been hospitalized for malnutrition. Tributes have noted that she died of a disease that’s now manageable for people who get treatment.
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