Along the perimeters of Los Angeles‘ grim homeless encampment sat tents and ramshackle trailers housing the city’s most forgotten residents.
Among them, in her final months of life, was former child star Daveigh Chase – a world away from the Hollywood life she once knew.
At the age of just six, Chase voiced Lilo in Disney’s animated blockbuster Lilo & Stitch and, in the same year, starred in iconic horror film The Ring – an early career high that made her one of the most sought-after young actors in film.
But her death last week, aged 35, lays bare a far more difficult truth: How a largely preventable chain of medical failures, driven by addiction, malnutrition and delays in care, can be deadly.
Because by the time doctors finally saw Chase, it was already too late.
She had spiraled into drug addiction, was sleeping rough, and had recently been admitted to the hospital suffering from severe malnutrition.
Heartbreaking footage, circulated online but later deleted, appeared to show the actress emaciated and barely conscious inside a makeshift shelter on Skid Row – her ribs visible, her body shockingly gaunt, according to reports.
Sources claimed she may have weighed as little as 75 pounds.
Chase died on June 16 after developing sepsis from meningitis and an infection in her blood, her boyfriend Roy Hernandez shared with TMZ; Seen in 2012
Prior to Chase’s death at 35, her manager John Ryan and stepsister Gaia Brown reportedly learned from a private detective that Chase was living on LA’s Skid Row among its homeless population, according to the California Post; LA’s Skid Row pictured in June 2025
According to reports, Chase died from sepsis, a catastrophic, fast-moving reaction that shuts down the body’s organs, triggered by bacterial meningitis.
However, Dr Michael Nguyen, an emergency medicine doctor at Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas, says that while a case like this is tragic, what’s hardest is that it really didn’t need to end like this.
‘Malnutrition and addiction are treatable – people just have to be able to reach care before it’s too late,’ he added.
To understand how a once-promising child star could die at just 35, it’s crucial to trace the chain of events that turned an infection into a fatal collapse.
To understand how a once-promising child star could die at just 35, it is crucial to trace the chain of events that turned an infection into a fatal collapse.
The specific substances Chase was taking have not been publicly confirmed, but she had a long history of drug abuse dating back to her early teens – a pattern doctors say can quietly erode the body long before a medical crisis takes hold.
Chronic drug use is associated with weakened immune function, increased susceptibility to infection and poor nutrition – all of which leave the body dangerously exposed when illness strikes.
And while it is unusual for a former Hollywood star to end her life this way, the underlying pattern is far from rare.
The former child star terrified moviegoers in 2002’s The Ring in which she played the ghostly Samara Morgan
In 2002 she voiced the character of Lilo in the animated classic Lilo & Stitch
People experiencing homelessness face significantly higher rates of serious illness and early death, particularly when addiction is involved. Limited access to healthcare, poor hygiene, delayed treatment and exposure to the elements all contribute to worse outcomes, allowing infections to progress unchecked.
This is where malnutrition, which also affects the homeless and substance abusers for obvious reasons, comes into play.
‘Malnutrition isn’t just a dietary issue,’ Dr Brynna Connor, a family medicine physician and Healthcare Ambassador at NorthWestPharmacy.com, told the Daily Mail. ‘Severe nutritional deficiencies can weaken immune defense and increase susceptibility to infections.’
Malnutrition is a whole-body condition that strips the body of the nutrients it needs to function, leaving it weaker, slower to heal and far less able to fight disease.
Over time, the effects are profound.
The body begins breaking down its own fat and muscle for energy, leading to extreme weight loss and physical wasting. Vital organs shrink and heart muscle weakens. Blood pressure can fall to dangerously low levels.
At the same time, the body’s natural defenses begin to fail.
Chronic malnutrition destroys the immune system from the outside in. The skin and mucosal barriers in the mouth, nose and eyes that normally help keep out pathogens begin to break down, while inside the body, levels of infection-fighting white blood cells and antibodies fall.
Sources claimed Chase may have weighed as little as 75 pounds at the time of her death
The result is a body that is both more exposed to infection and less able to fight it off.
When illness does strike, the consequences can be severe.
Inside, the white blood cells and antibodies needed to fight infection plummet. So when bacteria invade, the body can’t contain them. And when it finally tries to fight, its response can spiral into the widespread inflammation that drives sepsis.
‘A malnourished body has no reserve left,’ Nguyen said. ‘Layer in homelessness and limited access to care, and an infection that might have been survivable becomes fatal.’
By the time meningitis took hold, Chase’s body was already depleted – less able to fight the infection, and less able to survive what came next.
Meningitis is an inflammation of the protective membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord. These membranes act as a shock-absorbing lining, shielding the central nervous system from harm.
But when bacteria infect and invade that lining, it becomes swollen, placing dangerous pressure on the brain. The result can be severe headaches, confusion, sensitivity to light and, if not treated rapidly, permanent brain damage or death.
In most cases, the bacteria that cause meningitis live harmlessly in the nose or throat of otherwise healthy people.
Her last red carpet appearance was at Vogue’s Triple Threats dinner hosted by Sally Singer and Lisa Love at Goldie’s in April 2013 in Los Angeles
The infection begins when those bacteria spread into the bloodstream and travel to the brain, where they infect the protective lining around it.
‘Bacterial meningitis is a true medical emergency,’ Nguyen said. ‘It can go from the first symptoms to death within a day. And in a malnourished patient, that window is even shorter.’
But meningitis is often just the beginning.
Sepsis is the body’s extreme reaction to an infection. The immune system releases large amounts of chemicals into the bloodstream to fight the invader, but this response triggers widespread inflammation that damages the body’s own organs.
‘Blood vessels leak and clot at the same time, organs are starved of oxygen, and the kidneys, lungs, liver and heart begin to shut down,’ Nguyen said. This is what doctors call septic shock – and it is often fatal.
Meningitis and sepsis are not separate conditions; they are often part of a deadly chain reaction – one that may also be linked to drug use.
Injecting drugs can introduce bacteria directly into the bloodstream, while substance use more broadly is associated with immune-weakening conditions that leave people vulnerable to serious infections.
A patient with meningitis can deteriorate rapidly, turning a localized infection into a full-body attack that destroys vital organs.
In the end, Chase’s death was not caused by a single illness, but by a cascade of conditions that fed into one another – each making the next more dangerous, until the body could no longer withstand the strain.
Her father, John David Schwallier, said he had not spoken to her since she was 19, adding that he arrived at the hospital shortly before she died.
When the news was announced, there was no flood of celebrity tributes – only a scattering of messages from family, a stark reflection of how far she had drifted from the glittering world where she was once one of the most promising stars.
