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This ‘CSI: Miami’ actress was threatened by a stalker for 12 years. The FBI caught him after he left his DNA on a fast-food straw
They got here within the mail to Eva LaRue’s Southern California home — generally handwritten, generally typed — from an unknown sender who known as himself “Freddie Krueger” and vowed to rape and kill her and her younger daughter.
The letters — greater than three dozen of them — saved on coming for greater than 12 years, a relentless psychological assault that made the “CSI: Miami” actress and her household afraid to step outdoors their residence.
Early on, some letters talked about LaRue’s daughter, then 5. However in 2015, letters started arriving addressed to the kid. The stalker additionally started calling LaRue’s daughter’s faculty, saying that he was her father and was outdoors to choose her up.
However with the assistance of genetic family tree, a science that was used for the primary time in California to seize the Golden State Killer, the FBI in 2019 was in a position to take DNA from the envelopes and run it by means of a database, yielding a listing of the suspect’s kin. This finally led them to a small city in Ohio, the place they arrested a 58-year-old man after pulling his DNA from a discarded Arby’s straw.
“I forgive you, however I can not overlook,” LaRue instructed him on the sentencing in a Los Angeles County courtroom. “The worry is with me endlessly.”
12 years of terror
LaRue is a former magnificence queen and longtime actress who appeared for a few years as a health care provider on the cleaning soap opera “All My Kids.” She’s in all probability greatest identified for her seven seasons on the crime drama “CSI: Miami,” ending in 2012.
Her character was a DNA analyst for the Miami-Dade Police Division, which turned a bitter irony when authorities discovered DNA on envelopes containing the threatening letters however could not pinpoint a suspect.
LaRue was halfway by means of her second full season on “CSI: Miami” when the primary letter confirmed up at her home. Others quickly adopted.
“I’m going to f**king stalk you till the day you die,” stated one, based on a 2019 federal indictment of Rogers.
“There might be no place on this earth that I … (cannot) discover you. I’m going to rape you,” stated one other letter, by which the stalker additionally threatened to rape and impregnate LaRue’s daughter.
The letters had been signed “Freddie Krueger,” the fictional killer from the horror movie collection “A Nightmare on Elm Avenue.” Many had been postmarked from Youngstown, Ohio.
LaRue instructed CNN she was so terrified that she finally bought her home and moved together with her household to Italy, the place they lived for a number of months with a good friend. She then returned to California and acquired a brand new home beneath an LLC — a enterprise entity that gives restricted legal responsibility safety — to defend her identification, however the letters started exhibiting up at that tackle as nicely, she stated.
LaRue and her daughter “drove circuitous routes residence, slept with weapons close by and had discussions about tips on how to search assist shortly if [Rogers] discovered them and tried to hurt them,” federal prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
“They tried to anonymize their addresses as a lot as doable by avoiding receiving mail and packages at their precise tackle,” prosecutors stated. “To no avail. Every time they moved, [the] letters — and the victims’ terror — would all the time comply with.”
In 2015, the household began receiving letters addressed to LaRue’s daughter. On the time, she was about 13.
“I’m the person who has been stalking for (the) final 7 years. Now I’ve set my eye on you too,” the primary one learn, based on the indictment. One other one learn, “You look so lovely in your footage on google. Are you able to be the mom of my youngster.”
How the FBI caught the stalker
The FBI collected DNA from most of the envelopes however did not know whose it was till 2019, once they turned to the rising subject of genetic family tree — the identical technique that had fingered the Golden State Killer the earlier yr.
Thanks partially to corporations resembling 23andMe, Ancestry and GEDmatch, genetic family tree has turn out to be a helpful software for regulation enforcement officers making an attempt to unravel previous crimes. Authorities add a DNA knowledge file to a public database to determine any kin of the one who may need submitted their DNA for testing. They then construct out household timber and slim down doable suspects by way of old style detective work till a lead suspect emerges.
Even so, investigators nonetheless should receive a pattern of the suspect’s DNA and make a match earlier than they’ll make an arrest.
As soon as the proof pointed to Rogers, FBI brokers started surveilling him. FBI brokers traveled to Ohio within the fall of 2019, former FBI particular agent Stephen Busch and former FBI lawyer Steve Kramer instructed CNN.
When Rogers left his job as a nurse’s assistant at an assisted dwelling facility and went to an Arby’s on his method residence, the FBI adopted and watched him eat his meal and discard the bag in a Dumpster, Busch and Kramer stated.
Brokers raided the Dumpster and extracted Rogers’ DNA from a soda straw within the bag, Busch and Kramer stated. It matched the DNA from the envelopes despatched to LaRue and her daughter, they stated.
The FBI arrested Rogers at his residence early one morning in November 2019.
Rogers’ conviction marks the primary time genetic family tree has solved a case on the federal stage, Busch and Kramer instructed CNN.
Their worry nonetheless lingers
At his sentencing Thursday, Rogers instructed the decide by way of a video hyperlink from Ohio that he grew up in an abusive residence and was bullied at school. He stated he’s receiving psychological well being therapy.
“I sincerely apologize for what I did for the final 12 years, placing you and your loved ones by means of hellish habits,” he stated to LaRue. “I settle for full accountability. I hope you may put this behind you and in some unspecified time in the future by no means take into consideration me once more.”
LaRue then addressed Rogers in her sufferer influence assertion, thanking him for his apology however telling the decide, “I’m so nervous what’s going to occur when he will get out out.”
She grew emotional as she instructed the courtroom how the repeated threats took a toll on her and her household and disadvantaged them of fundamental freedoms.
“We now have had years of this,” she stated. “That is past deviant habits.”
LaRue’s daughter Kaya Callahan, now 20, additionally turned emotional as she instructed the courtroom how she was traumatized by Rogers’ threats.
After Rogers contacted her faculty, she stated there was such “paranoia” about her security that she was escorted day-after-day to and from the college constructing to the car parking zone.
“I used to be afraid for my life,” she stated. Callahan stated her worry nonetheless lingers.
“I wish to really feel OK once more,” she stated. “Secure.”