Daveigh Chase Died of Aids, LA Medical Examiner Rules
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- Los Angeles County Medical Examiner ruled Daveigh Chase's cause of death as Aids, listing "chronic polysubstance use" under "other significant conditions" and classifying the death as "natural," according to official findings.
- Daveigh Chase died on 16 June in a Los Angeles hospital at age 35, after a career that began at age four with acting and included her first Hollywood job at seven on Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
- Chase's manager John Ryan Jr told the BBC the previous week that she had died from sepsis after suffering meningitis in an LA hospital — a markedly different cause from the medical examiner's Aids ruling.
- Chase's father, John David Schwallier, told the New York Times she was homeless and living in Los Angeles with her boyfriend before her death.
- Chase had a string of legal troubles later in life, including charges of drug possession and joyriding in a stolen car, per the Hollywood Reporter, and she retired from acting full time in 2015.
- Chase's career highlights included voicing the Elvis-loving Hawaiian girl Lilo in the 2002 Disney hit (winning an Annie Award), playing the crawling ghost Samara Morgan in The Ring (earning a 2003 MTV Movie Award for best villain), appearing as Samantha Darko in Donnie Darko, and voicing Chihiro in the English-dubbed Spirited Away.
Why it matters: The medical examiner's Aids ruling directly contradicts the sepsis-after-meningitis account her manager gave the BBC days earlier, reshaping how the public understands a former child star's final chapter. The official finding — paired with reports of homelessness, polysubstance use, and prior drug charges — adds clinical and biographical weight to a death already being reframed by outlets like Variety through the lens of child-stardom pressures.
