Actress Eva LaRue, best known for her roles on “CSI: Miami” and “All My Children,” is opening up about her horrific experience with a stalker.
In the two-part documentary “My Nightmare Stalker: The Eva LaRue Story,” which hit Paramount+ on Thursday, Nov. 13, LaRue recalled the 12 years of “psychological terrorism” she endured at the hands of a man named James David Rogers.
In 2007, Rogers began sending LaRue disturbing letters, signing them “Freddy Krueger,” the murderous villain from the horror classic “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”
“The letters were anywhere between three to six or seven pages long, detailing in the most heinous, evil, grotesque, depraved way, how he wanted to kidnap my then-5-year-old daughter [Kaya McKenna Callahan] and I,” LaRue told The New York Times in 2022.
“I will stalk you, punish you, destroy you, and finally kill you. So, you be prepared for my arrival,” Rogers wrote in one of his letters to LaRue.
Rogers continued to write to LaRue anonymously for over a decade, repeatedly explaining how he wanted to sexually assault, torture, kill, and dismember her and Kaya. LaRue said in the Paramount+ doc that her “worst fear” was the letter writer following through with his threats.
“I was so freaked out by what I read that I literally was stunned into obliteration,” LaRue said. “I just remember being absolutely terrified and not knowing what to do.”
LaRue was in California, and the letters were postmarked from Youngstown, Ohio. The interstate nature of the harassment made it a case for the FBI. Law enforcement officials took the threats seriously, but Rogers still eluded identification for years. Fingerprints from one of the letters were put into the FBI’s database IAFIS, but there were no hits.
Things escalated in 2019 when Rogers began calling then-17-year-old Kaya’s high school and leaving threatening voicemails.
“Hello, I wanna leave a message for Kaya Callahan. This is the man who’s gonna rape her, molest her, and kill her. My name is Freddy Krueger. Just let her know. Thank you,” he said in one message.
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Rogers later called Kaya’s school pretending to be her father, John Callahan. He informed the receptionist that he’d be picking Kaya up that day. Kaya’s father was out of town at the time, so Rogers immediately knew it was their stalker. She quickly drove to pick Kaya up herself.
Breakthroughs in investigative genetic genealogy finally led to Rogers’ arrest in 2019.
“It was weirdly comforting and disgusting to put a face and a name to our stalker,” Kaya said in the documentary. “I had always imagined that the stalker was an athletic Ted Bundy-type. Someone handsome that would merge well with a crowd, that you wouldn’t notice. … But this was a man that you would see in a crowd.
Rogers pleaded guilty to federal stalking charges in 2022 and was sentenced to 40 months in prison.
“Only three and a half years [behind bars] after tormenting us for 12? That’s it? That’s all our life was worth here?” LaRue questioned in the Paramount+ doc. “It was devastating. He didn’t get what he deserved. … There’s closure, but it didn’t feel just.”
Rogers was released from prison in 2024. His probation will be complete in 2027.
“It’s weird that he’s just back to his normal life,” Kaya said. “Almost like nothing happened. And yet I’ll still live with this.”
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LaRue said that Rogers’ probation and her restraining order against him “doesn’t guarantee” safety for her and Kaya.
During a Tuesday, Nov. 11, appearance on “CBS Mornings‚” LaRue said she doesn’t think she and Kaya will “ever feel safe” again.
“Your brain never goes back to not being hyper vigilant,” she said.
If you or someone you know is a victim of stalking, call the Victim Connect hotline or contact the Stalking Prevention, Awareness, & Resource Center (SPARC).
“My Nightmare Stalker: The Eva LaRue Story” is available to stream on Paramount+.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nj.com ’
