Late Lilo & Stitch star Daveigh Chase left behind an estate worth $400,000 despite reportedly living on the streets in Los Angeles prior to her death at age 35.
Probate documents obtained by Us Weekly show that Daveigh’s mother, Cathy Chase, asked a Los Angeles Superior Court to appoint her administrator of her late daughter’s estate on Wednesday, July 8. Cathy specified that Daveigh left behind $400,000 in personal property but “no real property.” (TMZ was the first to report the news.)
Cathy asked to become the administrator of her daughter’s estate because Daveigh was never married and had no children. The legal motion listed Daveigh’s father, John Schwallier, as a potential “estate descendant.” (Cathy clarified that John “keeps properties in Las Vegas” but she thought he currently resided at an unknown address in the Philippines.)
Us obtained a second motion filed before the court that put restrictions on how money from Daveigh’s estate can be spent. (This document was signed by Cathy on Tuesday, July 7.)
‘There are many other restrictions on your authority to deal with estate property. You should not spend any of the estate’s money unless you have received permission from the court or have been advised to do so by an attorney,” the instructions read. “You may reimburse yourself for official court costs paid by you to the county clerk and for the premium on your bond.”
The instructions went on, “Without prior order of the court, you may not pay fees to yourself or to your attorney, if you have one. If you do not obtain the court’s permission when it is required, you may be removed as personal representative or you may be required to reimburse the estate from your own personal funds, or both. You should consult with an attorney concerning the legal requirements affecting sales, leases, mortgages, and investments of estate property.”
A probate hearing has been set for August 12 at a Los Angeles County Superior Court. Ahead of the upcoming hearing, Cathy asked the court to approve a $400,000 bond.
Daveigh’s boyfriend, Roy Hernandez, confirmed her death to TMZ on June 17, saying at the time that the Big Love alum was battling meningitis and an infection in her blood that led to sepsis before her death.
However, a Los Angeles medical examiner’s report obtained by Us on June 29 listed acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) as Daveigh’s primary cause of death. The medical examiner determined it was a natural death while noting that chronic polysubstance use was a contributing factor. (The Cleveland Clinic defines polysubstance use as using more than one drug or substance at the same time or in close proximity.)
Once an in-demand actress, Daveigh virtually disappeared from the spotlight in the mid-2010s, with worried fans occasionally sharing footage of her on Skid Row in Los Angeles in recent years.
A source who was once close to Daveigh exclusively revealed to Us that mutual friends reached out to the actress to offer help over the years but she was not receptive.
“People really loved her and cared about her and offered her help,” the source says. “If you talked to anyone, everyone asked about her and worried about her and cared about her.”
The insider added, “If I ever met anyone on the street, I would ask about her and if they knew her and no one ever did.”
Daveigh’s childhood friend Amy Castle expressed her belief that “things absolutely could have been different” if the star was willing to confide in others.
“Whenever I speak to people about it, they go, ‘It’s so sad, it’s so tragic,’ and I say it is sad, and it is tragic, but also it didn’t have to be this way,” Castle told Us on Wednesday, July 8 “I knew her from [age] 9 to 16, and I can tell you with certainty the friend that I knew would never have wanted her life to go the way it went. No way. I don’t have a shadow of a doubt in my life.”
Castle suggested that Daveigh simply “did not have the support” she needed in the final years of her life.
“I believe that a lot of the time if a person does not have the support needed to process … that a very understandable coping mechanism can be to compartmentalize or to self-soothe, a lot of times with drugs, [it] can be with food, with sex, with anything that’s going to give your brain dopamine and take you out of what you don’t understand,” she noted.
Daveigh first found fame as a child star with live-action roles in Donnie Darko and The Ring, before landing lead voice roles in Disney’s Lilo & Stitch and the Studio Ghibli film Spirited Away. Her final film roles came in 2016 with the horror movie Jack Goes Home and thriller American Romance.
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