Actress Eva LaRue and her daughter moved numerous times in hopes that the stalker would not find them again. Photo: Eva LaRue/Instagram
An Ohio man who spent 12 years threatening to torture, kill, and rape actress Eva LaRue and her young daughter was sentenced in Los Angeles on Sept 8 to more than three years in federal prison.
Prosecutors say that 58-year-old James David Rogers, of Heath, Ohio began terrorising the Daytime Emmy-winning actress in March 2007.
During this time he made dozens of threats via letters and phone calls to the 55-year-old actress – whose credits include CSI: Miami, All My Children, and The Young And The Restless – and her daughter, who was five when the harassment campaign began.
The threats only ended when Rogers was arrested in November 2019.
From March 2007 to June 2015, he mailed approximately 37 handwritten and typed letters to LaRue in which he threatened to rape, kill, or hurt both mother and daughter.
In a February 2008 letter to LaRue, for example, he wrote that he was going to “stalk you until the day you die”.
Then in a June 2015 letter addressed to her daughter he stated: “I am the man who has been stalking for the last seven years. Now I have my eye on you too.”
When signing the letters, Rogers used the name “Freddie Krueger,” the fictional serial killer from the horror film series A Nightmare On Elm Street.
In late 2019, prior to his arrest, prosecutors say that Rogers left a voicemail at the school where LaRue’s daughter attended threatening to “rape her, molest her, and kill her.” He also identified himself in the voicemail as Krueger.
On Sept 8, US District Judge John A. Kronstadt sentenced him to 40 months behind bars.
The long-running campaign of terror “impacted the daily lives of his victims,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
“(LaRue and her daughter) moved numerous times in hopes that (Rogers) would not find them again. They drove circuitous routes home, slept with weapons nearby and had discussions about how to seek help quickly if (Rogers) found them and tried to harm them,” prosecutors said.
And while they tried to remain under the radar as much as possible “by avoiding receiving mail and packages at their actual address,” their attempts would always fail.
“Each time they moved, (Rogers’) letters – and the victims’ terror – would always follow. And (Rogers) knew it,” they added.
Waseem Salahi, Rogers’ federal public defense attorney, told the court that his client is “actually a very sweet, gentle person – but he’s also mentally ill, and that makes him into someone else sometimes,” Deadline reported.
Rogers apologised to LaRue via Zoom for putting her family “through this hellish nightmare”.
“I hope someday I can earn your forgiveness for my misdeeds. I wish someone had intervened much sooner and I was caught much sooner,” he added. – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
