Soap Opera Alum Eva LaRue's Stalker Nightmare Finally Comes To An End
Eva LaRue has been acting since 1986 and along the way was in such soap operas as "Santa Barbara" in 1988, "All My Children" from 1993 to 2011, and "The Young and the Restless" from 2019 to 2020, among many other appearances in film and television. Having been on "CSI: Miami" for seven years, along with dozens of other TV show performances, LaRue was well-known in the spotlight, making her an easy target for a troubling stalker.
LaRue had been threatened for 12 years by a stalker using the pseudonym "Freddie Krueger." When she put up a fence in front of her house in 2010, she failed to get the proper permits and permission from the city she lived in, and the council members voted to have her remove it (via Soap Central).
The stalker sent letters to LaRue and eventually to her daughter, threatening to commit horrendous acts on them. Per CNN, LaRue and her daughter moved around often — including staying in Italy for a time — so he couldn't find them. He eventually did, and the letters were mailed directly to her house with frequency. Finally, through genetic testing using DNA from the envelopes in 2019, the FBI suspected the stalker was a man named James David Rogers. The FBI followed him and cross-referenced the DNA from Rogers' discarded drink straw to that found on the envelopes, confirming Rogers was the perpetrator.
Now, the terror that LaRue and her daughter have experienced is finally over.
The stalker's reign of terror is finally over
Actress Eva LaRue's real-life situations mirror those of a soap opera. Not only did she discover a sister that she never knew she had through DNA testing, but she and her daughter were hounded by a stalker for well over a decade. Deadline reported that LaRue's stalker, James David Rogers, was sentenced to jail for a term of 40 months. Through letters he sent to both LaRue and her daughter, he claimed he would stalk them for the rest of their lives, threatening horrific bodily harm on them. He even called the daughter's school pretending to be her father a few times.
Rogers' attorney, Waseem Salahi, lobbied for house arrest in which the stalker would be confined to his home for the term of the sentence. Salahi advocated for his client, claiming that Rogers was mentally ill and required intense treatment. Ultimately, Rogers did offer an apology to LaRue for all the torment he put her and her family through. He hoped that someday she would be able to forgive him and wished that his mental illness had been diagnosed ages ago. LaRue lived in fear because even though Rogers was in Ohio, she had no way of knowing whether or not he would eventually come to her house.
Despite having Rogers neutralized, LaRue and her daughter can live in relative peace, although the fear will surely still stay with them for a long time (via Soap Hub).