On Tuesday night, Cathy Chase searched online for any trace of her actress daughter who she had not heard from in years.
It had become part of her nightly routine to scroll Google and Reddit, hoping for even a glimpse of where her ‘sunshine’ might be or how to find her.
Daveigh Chase, best known for playing the little girl in the horror film The Ring, had drifted into addiction and homelessness after her acting career slowed and had not seen her mother since 2019.
Then, on Wednesday, the news alerts came through. Daveigh was dead at just 35.
‘I was devastated. 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,’ Cathy told the Daily Mail.
Family members said Daveigh’s cause of death was linked to bacterial meningitis and a blood infection, complications common among the homeless.
When Cathy read the news, she let out a scream and ran out into her backyard where she paced back and forth, overwhelmed with grief and disbelief.
‘I let out this guttural scream and I just was running. And these weird sounds were coming out of me, these kind of, like, primeval sounds,’ Cathy said.
‘And I went out into the backyard, and I was screaming, “No, no, no, no!” I am in so much pain but I hope her soul heard me.’
Daveigh Chase, best known for playing the little girl in the horror film The Ring, drifted into addiction and homelessness
Daveigh, who died at 35 on Wednesday, with her mother Cathy as a child during happier times
The award-winning actress showed promise for an early age and was set for Hollywood stardom
Daveigh in 2011 at the peak of her career following a string of high profile movie and TV roles
Subconsciously, she had been mentally preparing for this moment for years.
Alongside her nightly news searches, Cathy would also check the LA County Medical Examiner’s system, fearing the worst.
‘I would just put her name in the coroner’s [search system] and see if her name came up and if somebody had her somewhere,’ she said.
‘I would look at their list of unidentified bodies. It was very difficult, but you do everything you can as a mother.’
Even so, nothing prepared her for seeing confirmation that her daughter was truly gone.
Cathy spoke to the Daily Mail from a $1.5 million, four-bedroom home in Chatsworth, Los Angeles, which was passed down from Daveigh’s grandmother and where the actress spent Christmases as a child.
‘I actually thought it was fake news, that first time I saw it, and then, but then all of a sudden, it’s all of these different legitimate sites had her name and I realized that it wasn’t fake,’ Cathy said.
Cathy went to the hospital Thursday morning where she was able to identify her daughter’s remains and where she and a chaplain prayed over Daveigh’s body.
‘We were able to lay hands and pray. Technically, we were touching the glass, but it’s as close as we could get, so we were able to lay hands and pray for her,’ she said, speaking to the Daily Mail just hours later.
‘It was a beautiful experience, and, and I feel very blessed, too, have been able to share that with my daughter.’
Cathy said she left her work as a nurse and moved to Los Angeles to support her daughter’s acting career after raising Daveigh in Albany, Oregon.
Cathy spoke to the Daily Mail from a $1.5 million, four-bedroom home in Chatsworth, Los Angeles
The home was passed down from Daveigh’s grandmother and where the actress spent Christmases as a child (pictured together)
She started in commercials at the tender age of three and moved to Hollywood in the early 2000s, where she instantly got small roles in major films, playing a singing girl in Steven Spielberg’s AI Artificial Intelligence and Jake Gyllenhaal’s sister in Donnie Darko.
Cathy said the downward spiral began after a motorcycle accident around 2016, when Daveigh injured her back.
She was prescribed strong painkillers, including oxycodone, which she believes marked the start of her addiction.
After that, she began taking stronger drugs and fell into a party lifestyle.
‘She was seeking drugs and was partying with the wrong people. I never kicked my daughter out. She wanted freedom and these people got her hooked on some drugs. That was the beginning,’ Cathy said.
From 2018, Daveigh was in and out of jail on drug and other charges.
The last time Cathy saw her in person was in October 2019, during a jail visit after she had been charged with two counts of burglary.
She said the change in her daughter was shocking.
‘She was completely gone, like, out of her mind. I honestly thought there was something wrong with her. My daughter was never diagnosed with mental health other than PTSD. But the drugs took hold of her.’
Daveigh (in 2013) died on Tuesday after reportedly battling meningitis that developed into septic complications
Cathy believes Daveigh help onto her Christian faith right until the end
During jail visits, Cathy said they spoke about Daveigh coming home. They made an agreement that when she was released, Cathy would pick her up.
‘But when I got there, she never waited. She went back to the streets and I couldn’t find her,’ Cathy said.
After that, contact was lost.
Cathy and her younger son, Daveigh’s 19-year-old brother, continued searching across LA.
They drove through areas including Hollywood and Koreatown near Vermont, speaking to homeless people and trying to follow any lead they could.
At times, she said people told her they recognized Daveigh and claimed she had been trafficked, something she was never able to confirm.
As time went on, the search became more desperate. Cathy and her son began canvassing encampments across the city, looking for any sign of her daughter.
She said the only moments of certainty came when Daveigh was arrested and briefly held in jail. Otherwise, she was completely out of reach.
‘It upsets me because people are saying I must’ve been a bad mother, but I never gave up on her,’ Cathy said.
‘As a mother, you don’t give up on your child. I was hoping she would still come home.’
Daveigh became a promising child actress in the early 2000s. Her big break came in 2002, when she was just 11, voicing Lilo in Disney’s animated movie Lilo & Stitch.
Her performance as an orphaned Hawaiian girl who makes friends with a mischievous blue alien earned her a Young Artist Academy Award for best voice-over performance in the pre-teen category.
Aged 12 in 2003, she won the ‘Best Villain’ MTV Movie Award for her turn in The Ring. Ashton Kutcher and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs presented her with the award
She then landed her most recognizable role as Samara in the horror classic The Ring. Starring alongside Naomi Watts. She played Samara, the haunting long-haired girl at the centre of the cursed VHS tape.
Chase’s performance earned her the MTV Movie Award for best villain in 2003. Ashton Kutcher and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs presented her with the award.
She returned to the role of Lilo soon after, reprising the character in Stitch! The Movie and the Lilo & Stitch TV series, which ran from 2003 to 2006.
Her final significant television role came in HBO’s Big Love, where she played Rhonda Volmer, a manipulative teenage bride-in-waiting. She appeared across 32 episodes between 2006 and 2011.
By 2012, her career drifted and she stopped appearing in mainstream film and television projects.
In December 2025, after not hearing from her daughter in six years, Cathy said she saw a video on Reddit claiming to show her daughter.
The woman in the footage appeared severely emaciated, slumped over with a crack pipe nearby.
Cathy said she did not initially believe it was Daveigh, but later came to that conclusion.
‘In the video, she was in a really bad shape. She was very frail. She was fragile. She was saying no, and trying to push the camera away, and they were shoving it in her face. It was gross.
‘She was obviously drugged out of her mind. She was nothing but skin and bones and I didn’t want to think that was my daughter.’
Daveigh became a promising child actress in the early 2000s. Her big break came in 2002, when she was just 11, voicing Lilo in Disney’s animated movie Lilo & Stitch
After seeing the video, Cathy returned to the streets herself, trying to locate her daughter.
From December 2025 onwards, she said she regularly went into Skid Row alone, asking anyone who would speak to her for information.
Cathy said: ‘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.
‘I went to pick her up the day after she was released because I didn’t know she was let go early. I can’t stop blaming myself for that. She went back to the streets after she was released.
‘The chaplain at the hospital told me I’m not to blame myself, but I am a mother who loved her daughter so much.
‘And I tried desperately to try to get her help, but you can’t legally force someone who doesn’t want that help.’
Cathy said Daveigh maintained a deep faith, even as addiction took hold in later years.
‘My daughter always had strong faith, and I know during the last few years, it might’ve wavered because of the addiction. However, she had a deep foundation in Christ.’
She also shared handwritten notes from when Daveigh was a child, messages expressing love for her mother and a belief they would always be together. Cathy still calls her daughter her ‘Sunshine.’
