Mother tells of daughter’s rape, death
By Crystal Forester
Staff Reporter

As Andrea Cooper and her husband walked into their home on New Year’s Eve in 1995, every light in the house was on, and music was blaring. They expected to find their 20-year-old daughter asleep in her room after attending a holiday party.

But instead they were living a nightmare. They found their daughter’s body in the family room. She had committed suicide.

Kristin Cooper’s parents thought she had committed suicide because her boyfriend had broken up with her, Andrea Cooper said. However, after reading their daughter’s journal, they found out Kristin was raped by one of her friends over the summer, she said.

“Parents rarely find out when their child has been raped,” Andrea Cooper said. “Because of what happened to my daughter, I want to tell everybody about it and possibly help some of you out.”

Andrea Cooper, who spoke to an audience in Ed Landreth Auditorium Monday night, said it is healing to talk about her daughter’s rape and suicide.

Andrea Cooper’s goal is to tell her daughter’s story from a mother’s point of view, said Alpha Chi Omega President Robyn Windham, a senior speech pathology major.

Andrea Cooper said her daughter was raped by a friend when she had stayed at his apartment after others left a party. During her fall semester at Baker University located outside of Kansas City, Kan., Kristin Cooper became depressed and told a friend she wanted to kill herself, she said.

“Rape is a crime of the heart for the victim, and a crime of convenience for the perpetrator,” Andrea Cooper said.

TCU’s chapter of Alpha Chi and Delta Delta Delta’s national headquarters were responsible for bringing Andrea Cooper to TCU to share “Kristin’s Story: a mother’s account of acquaintance rape and depression,” Windham said.

Alpha Chi helped bring Andrea Cooper to TCU because Kristin Cooper was a member of the sorority, and its national philanthropy is domestic violence, Windham said. It is more meaningful when someone has a personal story than when they talk about statistics, she said.

Jahnae Stout, a sophomore biology major, said that although rape is not something students hear about everyday at TCU, students have to know how to handle the situation.

“Because it is such a personal and private matter, we don’t hear much about it,” she said. “The stats across the board show that rape happens.”

A women is raped every two minutes and 85 percent are raped by a friend, relative or acquaintance, Andrea Cooper said.