When Andrea Cooper entered her home in Littleton, Colo., after a New Year’s Eve celebration in 1995, she heard Alanis Morrisette’s song “You Oughta Know” blaring from the family room stereo. She went toward the noise — and found the dead body of her 21-year-old daughter, Kristin, lying on the floor.
“Little did I know that I would lose a child to suicide,” Cooper told about 150 students, most of them female, in Ryan Auditorium at the Technological Institute on Wednesday.
Kristin shot herself in the head several months after she was raped by a friend following a party he hosted. Cooper has been visiting campuses around the country since 1998 to tell her daughter’s tale — a presentation she calls “Kristin’s Story” — to women who may one day experience acquaintance rape.
Northwestern’s chapters of Delta Delta Delta and Alpha Chi Omega sororities brought Cooper to campus to raise awareness about acquaintance rape and depression. Kristin was a member of Alpha Chi at Baker University in Kansas.
Communication sophomore Nibette LaFrennie said she wanted to bring in a speaker on sexual assault who was not overly accusatory or bitter.
“I hoped that she would impart to the audience how important it is to look after your friends without being scary about it,” she said. “I don’t think her presentation was depressing at all. It was absolutely a success.”
Cooper, a Florida State University alumnus and Tri Delt member, began by telling the audience about Kristin’s childhood and her artistic successes in high school, later talking about Kristin’s college experiences.
“When I took her to Baker, it was really hard for me to leave her there,” she said. “Little did I know that in a year and five months she would be dead.”
When Kristin committed suicide, Cooper said she believed it was because her boyfriend had broken up with her. But after Kristin’s father recovered her journal from the police station two weeks after Kristin’s death, Andrea Cooper realized that the situation was far more serious.
“She had all this writing (in her journal) about what it felt like to be raped,” she said.
Cooper shared a poem with the audience that Kristin had written about her experience. Kristin never had told her parents that the previous summer, a male friend and fellow lifeguard had asked her to watch a movie with him after a party and then raped her. Without Kristin’s testimony, Cooper could not press charges.
She did, however, go into “major mom detective mode” and contact Kristin’s friends to gather more information about the rape immediately following Kristin’s suicide. She found out that Kristin had become severely depressed, and after much hesitation, had told her boyfriend what had happened. He was not supportive.
“When she told her boyfriend that she was raped, he broke up with her,” Cooper said. She added that the boyfriend’s rejection was what ultimately drove Kristin over the edge.
Cooper discussed signs of depression with the audience and urged them to seek help for their friends if they felt that they may be depressed or contemplating suicide.
“Kristin told a sorority sister that she was going to commit suicide, and the girl told no one,” Cooper said.
She also told students that one in every four college women are victims of rape or attempted rape. Cooper provided the number of a national rape crisis hotline, 1-800-656-HOPE. She encouraged rape victims to seek out counseling, medical attention and the police.
Jamie Jimenez, the coordinator of NU’s Sexual Assault Education and Prevention Program, pointed out that a 24-hour rape crisis hotline number is printed on the back of WildCARDs.
