Eva LaRue and her daughter, Kaya Callahan, have endured harassment from a stalker for over a decade, which LaRue refers to as “psychological terrorism.”
“It’s like being your own jailer,” the former “CSI: Miami” star explained in a recent interview.
“Your mind is just racing with fear, always considering the worst scenarios. Is he hiding in my car? Did he find my daughter’s school? Is that person in the crowd him? It’s exhausting,” she admitted.
The 58-year-old actress and her 23-year-old daughter opened up about their experiences in the new Paramount+ documentary series, “My Nightmare Stalker: The Eva LaRue Story.” LaRue hopes to highlight what she sees as an “epidemic” of stalking, a problem that often goes unnoticed.
According to the Stalking Prevention Awareness Resource Center (SPARC), approximately 13.5 million people in the U.S. are stalked each year, with one in three women and one in six men affected at some point in their lives.
Despite reporting the threats, LaRue faced difficulties with their origin due to the stalker mailing from different post offices. Back then, the technology available for forensic tracking was limited, making the investigation challenging. “I felt like I was on a crime show pretending to be the expert,” she said.
The stalker didn’t appear to have a criminal record, which made tracking him down almost impossible. “If you haven’t been convicted of felonies, your DNA won’t be in any database,” LaRue explained.
For a while, she felt a temporary sense of security after remarriage in 2010, but fears lingered. “There were periods where the letters stopped for five or six months,” she recalled, hoping that perhaps her stalker had been arrested or was no longer a threat.
As time passed, however, the fear began to strain her marriage. In 2014, they separated amid ongoing threats.
Callahan expressed that while the trauma brought them closer together as they supported each other, it also put a strain on their communication due to shared feelings of fear and shame. “We knew we were in this dark place together, but talking about it was tough,” she reflected.
They moved around frequently to escape the stalker, always vigilant and sometimes uncomfortable with deliveries and correspondence. Still, the threats persisted.
The situation escalated in 2019 when a stalker contacted Callahan’s school, claiming to be her father and leaving threats of violence. This drew the attention of the FBI, leading to forensic analysis of the letters.
In a breakthrough, investigators were able to recover DNA from one of the envelopes, similar to techniques used in other high-profile cases. LaRue described how this advancement in technology gave them hope.
With the DNA sample, investigators traced relatives of the suspect to a small town in Ohio. Finally, 58-year-old James David Rogers was arrested after it was discovered that he collected DNA from discarded fast-food straws.
The District Attorney’s Office reported that Rogers had mailed 37 threatening letters between 2007 and 2015, including chilling messages directed at Callahan. In 2022, he admitted guilt to charges of mailing threats and was sentenced to 40 months in prison, released in 2024.
LaRue noted that any response from them could send him back to prison, which gives her some hope.
In sharing her story, LaRue hopes to encourage a discussion about better stalking laws and protocols for law enforcement. “I’m still frightened,” she said. “You learn to manage that fear, but you’re always on guard. Victims are often dismissed, but statistics show that real dangers exist.”
“My Nightmare Stalker: The Eva LaRue Story” is set to premiere on November 13th.
