Camilla Jessen
Paramount+ docuseries explores the long campaign of threats that ended with an arrest in 2019.
Actress Eva LaRue and her daughter, Kaya Callahan, say a longtime stalker turned their lives upside down with obscene, violent and personal threats that lasted more than a decade.
LaRue is best known for roles on All My Children and CSI Miami.
The actress and her daughter recount the ordeal in a new Paramount Plus docuseries, My Nightmare Stalker: The Eva LaRue Story, which premieres November 13.
The harassment began in 2007 when LaRue, then a working actress and single mother, started receiving letters that named the Nightmare on Elm Street villain Freddie Krueger and threatened rape, torture and murder.
At first she assumed the mail was a cruel prank.
When the letters continued, and then escalated to include direct threats against Kaya, LaRue installed security cameras and moved three times to try to stay ahead of the sender.
A pattern of escalation and fear
The stalker found the family again after each move.
For years LaRue kept the letters from her daughter to protect her. Kaya, who was only five when the threats began, grew to understand the danger as she got older.
In 2019 the harassment reached a new level when Kaya was lured from school by a caller pretending to be her father. The caller intended to pick her up from the campus. LaRue raced to the school and kept her daughter safe.
DNA from one of the letters led investigators to James David Rogers of Ohio.
He was arrested in 2019, pleaded guilty to federal stalking charges in 2022 and was sentenced to 40 months in prison.
LaRue and Kaya say the arrest offered real relief.
Speaking out to help others
Both women agreed to share their story to highlight how stalking can affect anyone, not only public figures.
LaRue said she hopes the series will push for stronger protections for victims and better laws around stalking, especially given how social media can make people vulnerable.
Kaya said appearing in the documentary felt like reliving the trauma but also offered closure.
“It was like reliving it and yet experiencing it for the very first time,” she said. For LaRue the goal is clear. “We want to help everybody who’s being stalked and instill some hope,” she said.
Source: People.
This article is made and published by Camilla Jessen, who may have used AI in the preparation
