Daveigh Chase autopsy report reveals Ring star’s tragic decline while suffering from AIDS and drug abuse

Daveigh Chase, best known for her roles in The Ring and Lilo & Stitch, suffered a tragic decline as her autopsy reveals a heartbreaking history of AIDS and drug abuse.

Daveigh died at just 35 years old in June earlier this year, leaving her family heartbroken after they tirelessly tried to rescue her from addiction and homelessness, the Daily Mail previously reported. 

On June 4, Daveigh was discovered in the backseat of a car with a meth pipe found nearby, her autopsy report obtained by the Daily Mail revealed. 

The actress had complained of a headache, feeling weak, confusion and pain in her right thumb before 911 was called. 

Paramedics transported her to Los Angeles General Medical Center where she was admitted with ‘advanced’ HIV/AIDS, wasting, cryptococcus without meningitis, MRSA and an infection in her right thumb, the report detailed. 

After her health continued to decline, she died days later on June 16. 

Along with a history of advanced and untreated HIV/AIDS as well as drug use, Daveigh’s autopsy revealed that her toxicology screening was positive for both methamphetamine and fentanyl. 

The County of Los Angeles Department of Medical Examiner determined her cause of death to be acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and ‘other conditions,’ noting chronic polysubstance abuse – the repeated use of more than one drug over time.

Daveigh’s mother, Cathy Chase, said she was ‘devastated’ after learning of her daughter’s death through the news. 

‘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.

When Cathy read the news of her daughter’s death, 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.’

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.

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 her daughter’s 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 first time Cathy visited her in jail was 2019, 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.’

During jail visits from July 2023 to January 2024, 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.

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. 

‘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 earned her a Young Artist Academy Award for best voice-over performance in the pre-teen category. 

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 center of the cursed VHS tape. 

Daveigh’s performance earned her the MTV Movie Award for best villain in 2003. 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, 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.’

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 still calls her daughter her ‘Sunshine.’