Daveigh Chase’s dad reveals heartbreaking final words he said to her two hours before she died

Daveigh Chase’s dad has revealed the heartbreaking final words he said to his daughter just hours before her death on their final phone call.

The former child star, who was best known for voicing Lilo in Disney’s Lilo & Stitch and playing Samara in The Ring, died aged 35. Yesterday (29 June), the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner confirmed her cause of death was acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), with chronic polysubstance use also listed as a significant contributing condition.

Now, her estranged dad, John Schwallier, has opened up about the emotional phone call they shared on the day she died.

He told the Daily Mail that he was in Las Vegas on June 16 when he got a call from Roy Hernandez, who said he was Daveigh’s boyfriend. He told John that Daveigh was drifting in and out of consciousness. Hernandez held the phone to her so he could speak to her.

Recalling those final moments, John said, “I just told her I love her and that I’ve been looking for you. I told her, ‘I have a place to take you if you make it out of the hospital.'”

He also told her, “I’m on my way, I will be there in three or four hours.”

John said he actually made it to the hospital in around two and a half hours, but by then it was too late.

‘She looked even worse than that video going around’

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Speaking about seeing his daughter for the first time in years, he said he could barely recognise her because she had become so thin. “She must’ve weighed 65 pounds and looked even worse than that video going around,” he said. “I touched her thigh above her knee, and it was just bone.”

He added, “I was beside myself at first when I finally saw her. I thought they were hustling me at first. I didn’t think it was my daughter.”

John also said Roy Hernandez introduced himself as Daveigh’s boyfriend of six years when he arrived at the hospital. Hernandez reportedly told him, “I did the best I could, sir.”

But John admitted it was difficult to hear after seeing his daughter’s condition. “But if you saw my daughter, it didn’t look like the best to me,” he said.

Still, he explained that he didn’t question Hernandez further because he was overwhelmed with grief. “Not seeing my daughter for a long time, I didn’t want to go there with [Hernandez],” he said. “I was beside myself seeing her that way. She was a bag of bones.”

John also revealed that after leaving the hospital, he believed Daveigh had died from a blood infection and other complications. He only later learned that her official cause of death had been ruled as AIDS alongside chronic polysubstance use.

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