For 12 years, Eva LaRue and her daughter Kaya Callahan were tormented by a stalker — an ordeal the actress described as “psychological terrorism.”
“You become your own prisoner,” the “CSI: Miami” alum told Fox News Digital.
“Your mind is constantly in absolute terror mode, so you’re thinking about every possibility. Your mind is spinning out of control. Could he be in the back seat of my car? Could he be under my car? Could he follow me home from work? Did he find my daughter’s school? Is he in the crowd? Is he this guy? That guy? Is he my neighbor?”
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“You are living in a prison of your own making,” she admitted.
The 58-year-old actress and her 23-year-old daughter are breaking their silence in the new Paramount+ docuseries “My Nightmare Stalker: The Eva LaRue Story.” The star said she’s sharing her story to shine a light on what she calls an “epidemic” of stalking — a threat far more widespread than many realize.
According to the Stalking Prevention, Awareness, and Resource Center (SPARC), an estimated 13.5 million people in the U.S. are stalked each year, with one in three women and one in six men experiencing stalking at some point in their lives.
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In 2007, LaRue received a chilling letter through her manager and publicist. It was signed “Freddie Krueger,” referring to the fictional serial killer from the “Nightmare on Elm Street” films. Inside were graphic, detailed threats of rape, torture and murder.
The letters didn’t stop coming. One arrived at her home with the familiar scrawl. It read, “I have finally found you.”
LaRue was 40 years old and a single mother living in Los Angeles when the threats began. She was previously married to John Callahan, her on-screen husband in “All My Children,” from 1996 to 2005. Their daughter was 5 years old.
“The letters escalated in violence and sickening details pretty immediately,” said LaRue. “What’s frightening is that stalking is the crime that hasn’t happened yet. They’re threatening to kill you. They’re threatening to rape you. They’re threatening to cut you into tiny pieces — all the things. But it hasn’t happened yet.”
LaRue’s stalker mailed his letters from different post offices, making it difficult to trace their origins. At the time, forensic tracing for mailed threats was far less sophisticated. Even if partial DNA was recovered, it might not match anyone in the system. The stalker remained hidden as police were stumped.
“I was pretending to be a DNA specialist on a procedural crime show, pretending to have all of this technology that didn’t exist,” said LaRue.
“This stalker was not in a national database. For criminals who have committed a felony, you have to have either raped or murdered somebody to have your DNA taken.
“But if you didn’t have any felonious priors, then you weren’t going to be in the system. So he was always evading capture, evading being identified. And so, there was no way for the cops or the FBI to come guns blazing because there was no way to identify him.”
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There were moments when LaRue experienced “a lovely sense of security.” She remarried in 2010 to businessman Joe Cappuccio, and they lived in a gated community. She also became comfortable with a gun.
“I was never a big gun person,” she said. “I learned how to shoot on ‘CSI: Miami.’ [But] we felt much more secure during that time frame. We felt more protected. And there were times when the letters would subside for five or six months.
“We thought, ‘Maybe he got arrested. Maybe he’s in jail. Maybe he died.’ And then at one point, I wasn’t on ‘CSI’ anymore. I hadn’t worked in a couple of years. I thought, ‘Maybe he’s going to give up on me.’”
The letters returned. Threats also came to Cappuccio’s office. The relentless fear strained their marriage. In 2014, they called it quits.
Callahan told Fox News Digital that over the years, she and her mother clung to one another for strength — still holding out hope that police would one day uncover who the stalker was.
“I couldn’t continually live in fear every day,” she explained. “So, I think in some ways, it brought us a lot closer. At the end of the day, no one understood what we were going through and what we did for each other. We confided in each other about it. But, at the same time, because we were the only people who knew in depth what we were going through, I think it also put a bit of a gap between us because we didn’t want to talk about it.”
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“I know I didn’t want to talk about it,” Callahan continued. “I didn’t want to have to bring it up and deep dive into it. So I feel like there was always this bonded pull with each other of love, support and safety, but also this shame, guilt and fear that really kept us from discussing it.”
LaRue and Callahan moved several times in hopes their stalker wouldn’t find them. They would drive circuitous routes home and sleep with weapons nearby. Mother and daughter avoided receiving mail and packages at their home address. But every time they moved, the letters followed.
Things escalated in 2019 when the stalker called Callahan’s school, claiming to be her father. Prosecutors said he also left a voicemail threatening to “rape her, molest her and kill her.” The New York Times reported that he called the school 18 times.
Because the threats were sent through the mail and crossed state lines, the case drew the attention of the FBI. They began to collect and analyze every letter, looking for forensic evidence that could tie them to a suspect.
In 2019, with the help of genetic genealogy, forensic analysts recovered a usable DNA sample from one of the envelopes. The same science was previously used in California to capture the Golden State Killer. That case taunted police for more than four decades.
“Our case was the very next one they picked up just to prove it was the actual technology at work and not a fluke,” said LaRue.
The collected DNA was run through a genetic genealogy database. Investigators uncovered a list of the suspect’s relatives, leading them to a small town in Ohio, WRAL.com reported. The outlet said they arrested James David Rogers, 58, after pulling his DNA from a discarded Arby’s straw.
The district attorney’s office revealed that from March 2007 to June 2015, Rogers mailed 37 letters. In one 2015 letter to Callahan, he wrote in part, “I am the man who has been stalking for the last seven years. Now I have my eye on you too.”
In 2022, Rogers pleaded guilty to two counts of mailing threatening communications, one count of threats by interstate communications and two counts of stalking. He was sentenced to 40 months in federal prison and released in 2024.
“He gets to go directly back to jail if he corresponds in any way, shape or form,” said LaRue. “So I almost hope for it.”
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LaRue also hopes her story will spark conversations about stalking laws. She pointed out that a national database should be launched and “universal training” required for all police departments on how to help victims of stalking.
“You are never not in fear,” LaRue reflected. “You do find a way to compartmentalize it so that you can live your life and not have a nervous breakdown. But you’re never not hypervigilant … even though stalking victims are not always taken seriously, the statistics show that they could end up dead.”
