Warning: This article contains discussions of rape, sexual assault and threat, which some readers may find distressing.
In 2006, after working her way up the showbiz ladder, actress Eva LaRue landed her dream job as 'DNA expert' Natalia Boa Vista on CSI: Miami.
Soon after, she and infant daughter Kaya began scouting the luxuriant Los Angeles neighbourhood of Glendale for the perfect place to settle down.
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During their search, fellow TV star Sarah Michelle Gellar reached out to Eva, advising her to purchase any property under a different name - or as an LLC (Limited Liability Company) - for an especially eerie reason.
At the time, Sarah was at the height of her own fame, fronting Buffy the Vampire Slayer and appearing in a number of blockbuster horror hits.
Eva recalled the conversation as part of a harrowing new documentary, claiming: "She said, 'I'm telling you, you're going to be so grateful'."
Little did the on-screen bombshell know at the time, that her gal pal's warning would soon mutate into a dark, alarmingly-accurate premonition of what was to come.
In the 12 long years that followed, the mother-of-one was subjected to violent 'psychological terrorism' at the hands of a man living hundreds of miles away, who'd formed a deadly obsession with both the actress and her child through his television set.
The first letter arrives
In 2007, Eva received a handwritten letter out of the blue, sent from Ohio and delivered to the CSI set.
Vowing always to make time for her adoring fans, she opened the letter, unaware that the gruesome contents would go on to haunt her for over a decade.
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In it, a man using the pseudonym 'Freddie Krueger' - a villain made famous by the Nightmare on Elm Street horror series - vowed to violently rape, murder and dismember both Eva and her daughter, then six.
The contents of Eva's letters will now be heard in full for the very first time, as part of a chilling new self-fronted true crime documentary, My Stalking Nightmare: The Eva LaRue Story, which lands today (24 Nov).
The first note delivered read: "Dearest Eva, I think about you all the time. Once I f**k you and your daughter, then I will kill you both, and chop up your bodies into small pieces."
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Reflecting on the moment it dawned on her that this threat was real, and very personal, the California-born star told Tyla this week: "The letter was so heinous right off the bat, there was no reason for me to think that it was just a joke.
"Signing it, 'Freddie Krueger', that was the part that seemed like a joke, but the contents of the letter were very serious and very violent, and very threatening in every way. I took it seriously from the first letter, and then they started coming one right after the other."
Eva played a 'DNA expert' on CSI (Cliff Lipson/CBS via Getty Images)
12 years of torment
Soon enough, the warped 'fan-mail' started coming in thick and fast.
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Another promised the crime-drama actress: "I am going to f**k your life up to badly it will never recover. Then, I am going to make your daughter into a little w***e." In a third, he told Eva: "I will stalk you until the day you die."
Looking back at the chilling advice that Sarah gave her all those years earlier - which had been given in an attempt to keep her personal information out of the publican arena - Eva told Tyla she can hardly believe how accurate it came to be, joking that not even CSI bosses could have written it.
"I remember at the time saying to Sarah, 'I’m no.6 on the [CSI] call sheet, I’m not no.1, I’m joining the show two years in, what are the chances of me getting a stalker?'"
"In the same year, David Caruso ended up with a stalker, Emily Proctor ended up with two stalkers at the same time, and I ended up with a stalker."
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Eva continued: "So, that show became cursed with obsession. I understood Sarah’s warning, because she was doing Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so it seemed accurate that she would maybe have some crazy stalkers with the content.
"But I never saw [my stalker] coming."
A dead end
As any devastated mother would do, the star went to the police, only to be told there was no way they were able to track where the letters were coming from. On top of this, the fingerprints upon the letters failed to match with any criminals already in the system.
Forced to take matters into her own hands, she installed security cameras around her property. Sensing danger around every corner, however, Eva and Kaya ended up relocating on three separate occasions over a 12 year period, only to continue receiving threats.
During this time, she refused to divulge to her little girl the extent of the threats being made against her, not wanting her to live everyday in fear.
On the conversations she had with Kaya, Eva told Tyla: "It was always really delicate. When she was six, it was more than the ‘stranger danger’ conversation that we all have with our children.
"It was a heightened, more vigilant version of that because, now it wasn’t just a matter of ‘any stranger’ being dangerous."
The actress continued: "This was a specific stranger – although, we still didn’t have a face or name. I needed her to know that we were specifically being watched by someone that we didn’t know. But she never knew the contents of the letters pretty much until we were sitting in the federal court house. I didn’t want those words living in her head."
A mother's worst nightmare
Eva's worst fears were one day realised when, at the height of her hellish experience, she received a call from Kaya's school informing her that a man had gotten in touch claiming to be the child's father, and promising to collect her from school.
After she called him to check, Kaya's real father, John Callahan - who lived several hours a way - insisted he hadn't spoken with the school.
A horrified Eva sped straight to the educational facility to collect Kaya, only to learn that the same man had also threatened the youngster using the school voicemail facility on several different occasions over the years.
Of the impact this had on a pre-teen Kaya, Eva: "This informed her formative years; this was her adolescence, her teen years, her young adulthood. She dealt with anxiety and depression - and now, luckily, she has a great grasp on that.
"But it’s heartbreaking as a mom because all you want to do is protect your child’s welfare – mental, physical and emotional – and when you feel like you’re failing as a parent, it’s the most heartbreaking thing. It’s on you, there’s nothing worse."
An unexpected breakthrough
What Eva didn't know, was around this time, a special branch of the FBI had been formed, which used groundbreaking genetic genealogy to solve cold cases.
Databases like Ancestry.com were used as a means of tracking down a criminal's ancestors in cases where their DNA was not part of the US' Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS).
Moving down a family tree of surviving members, they're able to limit the perpetrators to make an arrest - the first individual caught in this way was the notorious Golden State killer, Joseph DeAngelo Jr, who was arrested in 2018, aged 72, over 50 years on from his final murder.
Using this advanced technology, the DNA found on the envelopes addressed to Eva were linked by the FBI to a number of the stalker's deceased relatives, bringing them to a small town in Ohio.
It was there that they came across James David Rogers, a nurse's assistant at an assisted living facility, who lived at home with his elderly mother.
Believing they had their guy, the police lastly needed to prove a definitive DNA match with the letters - which they were able to do using a soda drink that Rogers disposed of in the trash one day.
Arrest and trial
In November 2019, Rogers was arrested, pleading guilty to two counts of mailing threatening communications, two counts of stalking and one count of threats by interstate communications.
Asked how it felt when the FBI finally handed her an image of the man who'd savaged she and Kaya's safety for over a decade, Eva told us: "Man, the first time I saw the picture, the first thing that occurred to me was a description for cartoon criminals – ‘little black beady eyes’.
"He had beady, little, black eyes. In every picture I’ve ever seen of him, there are no whites to his eyes. They’re as black as those shown on cartoon characters of demons – where a demon is behind the eyeholes."
She added: "Every time I look at a photo of him, that’s my only thought. There’s demon energy shooting out of his eyes."
In court, Rogers pleaded with the mother-daughter duo for forgiveness.
He begged: "I sincerely apologise for what I did for the last 12 years, putting you and your family through hellish behaviour. I accept full responsibility. I hope you can put this behind you and at some point never think about me again."
For Eva, however, the damage is already done.
Asked what she'd say to Rogers if she had the chance to confront him one final time, she confesses to feeling 'stumped'.
“That’s such a good question, no one has asked me that," the actress explains. "I wonder if Kaya would have an answer for that. I’ve never really thought about what I might ask him, because I guess, I just have no interest in what he has to say.
"I heard enough of what he had to say for 12 years. We heard his excuses in court – his plea, that he was ‘so sorry’, and that he hoped that, now, we could just move on and never think about him again. As if."
After being sentenced to 40 months in federal prison Rogers was released in 2024.
Eva recalled of the trial: "He said, ‘I wish I had therapy sooner’. Yeah, us too, dude. ‘I wish I’d been on meds sooner’. Yeah, us too. But still, there’s nothing guaranteeing that he’ll be on meds for the rest of his life – nothing guaranteeing he’ll stay in therapy."
"He’s out now, he can do what he wants. He can go right back to being straight-up crazy. He might turn on somebody else – I can’t imagine that he wouldn’t. I don’t think these feelings can just disappear.
"He has a mental health issue that is not going to go away."
My Nightmare Stalker: The Eva LaRue Story premiers on Crime+Investigation on Monday 24 November, and is currently available on Paramount+.
Topics: Celebrity, TV And Film, Documentaries, True Crime, Crime, True Life, Real Life, US News
Rhianna Benson