Daveigh Chase's $400,000 Estate Revealed in New Court Documents
Daveigh Chase, the actor best known for voicing Lilo Pelekai in Disney's Lilo & Stitch and playing Samara Morgan in The Ring, died without a will, according to newly filed probate documents, leaving behind an estimated $400,000 estate consisting entirely of personal property.
Chase died in Los Angeles on June 16 at age 35. The probate filing, submitted July 8 in Los Angeles County Superior Court, states she left no real estate and had never married or had children. Because she died without a will, her mother, Cathy Chase, has petitioned the court to be appointed administrator of the estate under California's Independent Administration of Estates Act, along with a request for the court to approve a $400,000 bond. A probate hearing has been scheduled for Aug. 12.
Cause of Death
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's office ruled Chase's cause of death as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, commonly known as AIDS, and listed chronic polysubstance use, the use of more than one drug within a short period, as a significant contributing condition. Her manner of death was officially listed as natural. Chase's boyfriend, Roy Hernandez, previously told TMZ that she had battled meningitis and a blood infection in her final days before her organs ultimately shut down.
According to court filings, Chase was unhoused at the time of her death, with a Chatsworth, California, address listed as her last known residence.
A Mother's Grief and a Difficult Decade
Cathy Chase has said her daughter's struggles with addiction began following a 2016 motorcycle accident, after which she was prescribed pain medication. "She was seeking drugs and was partying with the wrong people," Cathy told the Daily Mail in June. "I never kicked my daughter out. She wanted freedom and these people got her hooked on some drugs. That was the beginning." Cathy has also pushed back on suggestions that family estrangement contributed to her daughter's struggles, saying she never gave up trying to help her. "It upsets me because people are saying I must've been a bad mother, but I never gave up on her," she said. "As a mother, you don't give up on your child. I was hoping she would still come home."
Speaking about the moment she learned of her daughter's death, Cathy described an overwhelming wave of grief. "I let out this guttural scream and I just was running," she said. "I am in so much pain, but I hope her soul heard me."
Remembered by Friends and Colleagues
Chase's longtime manager, John Ryan Jr., told the New York Post that Chase had amassed millions of dollars in unclaimed acting residuals over the years, and said he had repeatedly tried and failed to reach her before her death. He described her as someone who stayed away from Hollywood's spotlight. "She was not very Hollywood," he told the BBC. "She'd rather eat at Bob's Big Boy and go home with the cats. She loved acting but wasn't into the fame scene." He added that she was active in cat rescue work throughout her life.
Her Career
Chase, born Daveigh Schwallier, became one of Hollywood's most recognizable child actors in the early 2000s. Beyond her role voicing Lilo in Lilo & Stitch, she also voiced a young Chihiro in the English-language dub of Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away and played the haunting central figure Samara Morgan in the 2002 horror film The Ring.
Under California's intestacy laws, since Chase had no spouse or children, her estate will generally pass to her surviving parents, Cathy Chase and John Schwallier, pending the outcome of the probate proceedings.
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