'She Was a Bag of Bones': Daveigh Chase's Dad Breaks Silence on Star's Tragic 65-Lb State and Final Phone Call

Daveigh Chase's estranged father, John Schwallier, has said he spoke to the former child star on the phone just hours before her death in Los Angeles, after being told she was drifting in and out of consciousness. Schwallier said he made it to the hospital in around two and a half hours, but was too late to see her alive.

Daveigh Chase's Final Call And Last Journey To The Hospital

The news came after the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner reportedly confirmed that Chase, who died aged 35, had an official cause of death listed as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS, with chronic polysubstance use also named as a significant contributing condition. Chase was best known for voicing Lilo in Disney's Lilo & Stitch and for playing Samara in The Ring.

Schwallier said that he was in Las Vegas on 16 June when he received a call from Roy Hernandez, who said he was Chase's boyfriend. According to Schwallier, Hernandez told him Chase was slipping in and out of consciousness and held the phone to her so father and daughter could speak one last time.

'I just told her I love her and that I've been looking for you,' Schwallier said. He said he also told her, 'I have a place to take you if you make it out of the hospital.'

He added that he told her, 'I'm on my way, I will be there in three or four hours.' Schwallier said he then travelled as fast as he could, but by the time he arrived, the moment had passed. There was no late dramatic rescue, no neat ending, just the ordinary cruelty of being too late.

What Schwallier Says He Saw In Los Angeles

Chase had been out of the spotlight for years, though her name still carried the weight of an era when she was one of the better-known child actors of her generation. Schwallier said his first sight of her in hospital left him shaken. He claimed she was so thin that he could hardly recognise her.

'She must've weighed 65 pounds and looked even worse than that video going around,' he said. 'I touched her thigh above her knee, and it was just bone.'

He said the shock was immediate. 'I was beside myself at first when I finally saw her. I thought they were hustling me at first. I didn't think it was my daughter,' he said.

That kind of detail, grim as it is, helps explain why the story has travelled so widely. It is not only about a celebrity death. It is about a father arriving at the end of a long separation and finding the person he loved reduced to something almost unrecognisable.

Daveigh Chase, Roy Hernandez And The Questions Left Behind

Schwallier also said Hernandez introduced himself as Chase's boyfriend of six years when he arrived at the hospital. He said Hernandez told him, 'I did the best I could, sir.'

Schwallier's reaction was restrained, but plainly strained. 'But if you saw my daughter, it didn't look like the best to me,' he said. He added that he did not push the matter further, because grief had already done its work.

'Not seeing my daughter for a long time, I didn't want to go there with Hernandez,' he said. 'I was beside myself seeing her that way.'

He later said he initially believed Chase had died from a blood infection and other complications. Only afterwards, he said, did he learn that the medical examiner had ruled the official cause of death as AIDS, with chronic polysubstance use listed as a contributing condition.

Nothing is confirmed yet beyond that record, so everything else should be taken with a grain of salt.

A Child Star's Death, And A Family Reckoning

For a generation of viewers, Chase was still the voice of Lilo, the little sister at the heart of Lilo & Stitch, and the image of Samara in The Ring remains lodged in the public memory. That is part of why her death has landed so hard. People remember the screen version first, then have to catch up with the human cost.

Schwallier's account is all raw edges and no polish. He describes a final call, a fast drive, a hospital arrival that came too late and a daughter he says he barely recognised. It is not a story with much comfort built in, which may be why it has stuck. The facts, as told by the family and the medical examiner's findings, are already bleak enough.