Actress Eva LaRue and Daughter Kaya Callahan Were Stalked for 12 Years: 'Sickening, Terrifying Threats' By Liam Quinn

Her Hollywood dreams were becoming a reality. Already known for appearing on the classic soap opera All My Children in the 1990s and 2000s, Eva LaRue saw her fame blossom when she became a member of the cast of CSI: Miami in 2006.

That season, her hit prime-time series was one of the 10 most-watched scripted shows on TV. But LaRue’s dream job threatened to turn into a nightmare when she began to receive disturbing mail from an anonymous fan.

Sent to the actress via her manager and publicist, the graphically violent letters contained threats of rape, torture and murder and were eerily signed “Freddie Krueger,” after the villain of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies.

At first LaRue, then 40 and a single mother living with her 5-year-old daughter Kaya Callahan in Los Angeles, thought the hate mail might just be a twisted prank. But then three more obscene letters from the same sender arrived within a week — and it became clear she was being stalked.

“I am going to instill fear into every part of your life,” said her antagonist in one of his messages.

True to his word, the stalker grew increasingly menacing in his letters until he began to target her daughter Kaya as well.

“It was the most heinous, most deplorable, most sickening, most terrifying threats,” LaRue recalls. “And then he began leveling them against my little girl.”

To keep her daughter safe, LaRue had security cameras installed at their home. It would take authorities more than a decade to make the letters stop with the arrest of a suspect in 2019.

In the intervening years, mother and daughter moved three times to avoid being located. But with each move, their stalker was able to find the new address. LaRue avoided reading all but a handful of the dozens of letters, and she protected her daughter by not telling her about the letters for years.

Now they are experiencing the terrifying ordeal again by appearing in My Nightmare Stalker: The Eva LaRue Story, a Paramount+ docuseries premiering on Nov. 13.

“Because my mom kept so much hidden, I didn’t know much about it,” says Kaya, now 23, of filming the docuseries. “It was like reliving it and yet experiencing it for the very first time.”

A model before she landed her first acting gigs, California native LaRue had her big break when she was cast as Dr. Maria Santos on All My Children in 1993.

She married costar John Callahan, who played her onscreen husband, and together they welcomed Kaya before divorcing in 2005.

When the Freddie Krueger letters started arriving in 2007, they weren’t addressed to LaRue’s home.

But then one day she checked the mail and found an envelope with the familiar scrawl.

“I have finally found you,” the letter inside said.

The stalking became more invasive in 2019 when Kaya, who was by then 17 and aware of the letters, was called from a classroom to the school office.

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The receptionist explained that her dad had phoned and said he would pick her up outside the building. Kaya texted her mom to see if it was true, and LaRue called her ex-husband to confirm.

When he replied that he wasn’t even in Los Angeles, it clicked: The stalker had learned which school Kaya attended and was impersonating her father. LaRue immediately drove to the school to get Kaya.

“It still feels like a jump scare,” she says.

Later that year DNA found on one of the letters finally led to a breakthrough, and Ohio resident James David Rogers, 61, was arrested. In 2022, he pleaded guilty to federal stalking charges and was sentenced to 40 months in prison.

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“It was very freeing,” recalls Kaya. “I just felt like I could live a normal life again.”

Still, LaRue says she took part in the docuseries to advocate for stronger laws to protect victims of stalking.

“It’s not just celebrities — all of us can be targeted through social media,” she says. “We want to help everybody who’s being stalked and instill some hope.”