The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office said Daveigh Chase died on June 16 at age 35 of AIDS, and the report listed chronic polysubstance use as another significant condition that may have contributed to her natural death.
For readers searching Melissa Gilbert now, the reason is that the death certificate finally gives a formal answer for a performer who was once best known as the voice of Lilo in Disney's 2002 hit Lilo & Stitch and for playing Samara Morgan in The Ring. Chase, whose legal name was Daveigh Schwallier, also appeared in Donnie Darko, starred in HBO's Big Love opposite Bill Paxton, and had guest roles in Charmed, ER and Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
The medical finding lands against a different account of her final days. Roy Hernandez, who created a GoFundMe page before her death, said Chase had meningitis and several serious blood infections and that doctors told him she may not have much time left. His public appeal described a woman whose condition had become critical, while the official report now identifies AIDS as the cause of death and adds chronic polysubstance use as a contributing factor.
That gap matters because the report does not explain how she contracted AIDS or lay out the medical history behind that determination. It does, however, close the question that had surrounded her death since June 16. What is left is the unanswered part of the story: the circumstances that led one account to point to infections and another to a final ruling of AIDS.
