Actress Eva LaRue Investigated Crimes on TV—Then She and Her Daughter Became Real-Life Victims

In March 2007, actress Eva LaRue, best known for her role as DNA expert Natalia Boa Vista on CSI: Miami, began receiving a series of disturbing letters. The writer threatened rape and murder and signed each note with a name borrowed from horror movies: “Freddie Krueger,” the killer from the Nightmare on Elm Street films.

Over the next 12 years, LaRue and her young daughter would live through a nightmare that seemed ripped from the kind of scenes portrayed on her television show. The stalker sent dozens of threatening letters, left terrifying voicemails and even called the child’s school pretending to be her father. 

His threats of rape and murder left both mother and daughter trapped in a world of constant fear, unsure if the man who haunted their mail might one day appear at their door. In 2022, an Ohio man, James David Rogers, pleaded guilty in federal court and was sentenced to 40 months in prison for the harassment. A new documentary, My Nightmare Stalker: The Eva LaRue Story, traces how investigators finally unmasked him.

The first letters arrived in the spring of 2007. They were brief but bone-chilling, stating the writer’s violent intentions against LaRue. They were signed “Freddie Krueger,” which would become his twisted trademark.

At the time, LaRue’s daughter, Kaya, was only 5 years old. What began as a handful of letters soon escalated into a barrage of hate-filled threats, with 37 letters in all. Some were typed, others handwritten. He described what he wanted to do to both La Rue and Kaya in excruciating detail, signing every note with the same mocking name. 

LaRue alerted authorities, but the letters continued. Detectives collected envelopes and preserved them for DNA analysis, but the samples yielded no matches in federal databases. 

By June 2015, the stalker had shifted focus directly to Kaya. One letter addressed to LaRue’s daughter announced, “I am the man who has been stalking for the last 7 years. Now I have my eye on you too.” The escalation widened beyond the home. In fall 2019, a man called Kaya’s school, claimed to be her father, asked if she was present and then left a voicemail identifying himself as “Freddie Krueger,” threatening to “rape her, molest her and kill her.”

The threats rewired the two’s everyday life. LaRue and her daughter moved multiple times (including a stint overseas), drove circuitous routes home, slept with weapons nearby and discussed how to seek help quickly if the stalker appeared. Despite the precautions, “each time they moved, [the] letters—and the victims’ terror—would always follow,” prosecutors later noted.

Despite years of threats, the case remained cold. The FBI and local law enforcement eventually traced the letters to Ohio, but the stalker was careful: For more than a decade, the LaRues lived in fear while investigators gathered what little forensic evidence they could.

In 2019, new technology offered a breakthrough. Advances in genetic genealogy—the same investigative technique that helped identify the Golden State Killer—gave detectives a new path forward. Technicians revisited the DNA found on several envelopes and cross-referenced it against publicly available genealogy databases to search for relatives of the unknown sender.

The results pointed to a family line in Ohio. Investigators quietly began surveillance on one man who fit the profile, James David Rogers, living in Heath, Ohio. They followed him to a restaurant, where he discarded a drinking straw. When that straw was collected and tested, the DNA was an exact match to the genetic material recovered from the threatening letters sent years earlier.

In November 2019, authorities finally arrested Rogers. When agents arrived at his home, they found evidence connecting him to the letters and phone calls, including photos of LaRue and Kaya. During questioning, 

To prosecutors, his motive mattered less than the devastation he caused. For 12 years, he had stalked a woman and her child from hundreds of miles away, invading their lives through words and fear alone. The case revealed the limits of existing anti-stalking laws and the emotional toll such crimes take, particularly when the target is a child.

In April 2022, Rogers pleaded guilty to two counts of mailing threatening communications, one count of threats by interstate communications and two counts of stalking. His attorney described him as a loner with mental health struggles, though no formal insanity defense was raised. 

During sentencing, prosecutors described how LaRue and her daughter had lived “in a constant state of terror,” always wondering when the man behind the letters might show up in person. The judge sentenced Rogers to 40 months in federal prison, followed by supervised release. For LaRue, the moment brought relief but was not a complete ending. In court, she read a statement addressing the man who had tormented her family for over a decade. “I forgive you, but I will never forget,” LaRue said. “The fear is with me forever.”

Today, LaRue speaks openly about the long-term effects of stalking and the need for better protections for victims. She has praised investigators who refused to give up, and she hopes her story will encourage others living in fear to seek help and push for justice.