At the height of her career, CSI: Miami star Eva LaRue seemed to have everything — steady work, fame, and a close bond with her young daughter, Kaya. But behind the scenes, her life had been consumed by something far darker: a 12-year campaign of terror from a man who seemed determined to destroy both of them.
It began in 2007, when LaRue received a letter signed “Freddie Krueger.” At first, she thought it had to be a prank. But then another arrived. And another. Each one more graphic and menacing than the last — dozens of them over the years, promising to rape and kill her and her daughter.
“Those words and those threats were absolute psychological terrorism,” LaRue says in the trailer for My Nightmare Stalker: The Eva LaRue Story, a two-part documentary premiering November 13 on Paramount+. The series revisits how a Hollywood actress — used to playing detectives and crime victims on television — found herself living a real-life horror story.
LaRue, known for her roles on All My Children and CSI: Miami, tried to go about her life as the letters kept coming. She installed security systems, alerted police, and worked with the FBI, but investigators had no fingerprints, no clear motive, and no suspect for years.
The letters were written by hand or typed, filled with violent imagery and signed with the name of a fictional killer. Then, in 2015, a new letter arrived — this one addressed not to LaRue, but to her daughter. “I am the man who has been stalking for the last 7 years,” it read. “Now I have my eye on you too.”
By 2019, the harassment escalated to something chillingly personal. The stalker called Kaya’s high school in California, posing as her father and asking if she was present that day. He left voicemails threatening to “rape her, molest her, and kill her,” again using the “Freddie Krueger” signature.
Federal agents finally traced the threats to a man in Ohio — 58-year-old James David Rogers. According to the Department of Justice, Rogers mailed at least 37 letters between 2007 and 2015. He pleaded guilty in 2022 to multiple counts of stalking and mailing threatening communications. A judge sentenced him to 40 months in prison. He was released earlier this year.
For LaRue and Kaya, the trauma lingers even after justice was served. The actress says she still checks her locks twice before bed, still feels her heart race when the mail arrives. But by sharing her story, she hopes to take back some of what was stolen.
