Andrea Cooper stood and revisited the days of family vacations, attending her daughter’s high school graduation, hearing her daughter excitedly tell of how she had met the perfect guy and ultimately, finding that same daughter dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound because she had been raped.

An audience of about 460 students attended the presentation titled, “Kristin’s Story: A Story of Date Rape and Depression,” Tuesday night in the Grand Ballroom of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union. The Greek Panhellenic and Interfraternity Council brought the presentation to Eastern.

Cooper introduced her daughter, Kristin Cooper, to the crowd with pictures of ski-trips and recounts of Kristin choosing the right college for herself.

“Mothers usually fear they will lose a child to a car wreck. Kristin was in a car wreck right after graduation with two of her sorority sisters where she rolled the car before eventually hitting a parked police car,” Cooper said. “After that incident I thought to myself, ‘Well, she made it through the car wreck, so she’ll be OK. I’m not going to lose her.’ I never dreamed only 15 months later she would be dead.”

The presentation wove through the events telling of Kristin’s break up with the man of her dreams through the apparent beginning of a drastic depression.

“Kristin honestly believed this was the man she was going to marry,” Cooper said.

Cooper said Kristin eventually started showing signs of “getting on with life.”

Andrea Cooper and her husband, Mike, said goodbye to their only daughter New Year’s Eve 1995 and went to a party with the understanding Kristin would be leaving soon for a party herself. Arriving home at about 2 a.m. Jan. 1, 1996, they noticed Kristin’s car was there and assumed she was back from the party.

They found Kristin dead from a self-inflicted gun shot wound.

A friend of the family told police to contact her instead of the Coopers. Two days later, an officer contacted the friend and asked the friend, “Did you know Kristin had been raped while away at school?”

After learning of her daughter’s rape, Cooper made continuous inquires to find out what had happened to her daughter while away at school. Cooper first learned Kristin had told her best friend of the rape. Eventually Cooper learned Kristin’s entire sorority house knew.

Cooper told the audience fewer than 10 percent of all rape victims report their rapes to the police.

“Also, 30 percent of rape victims contemplate suicide. Nearly 85 percent of all rapes are committed by relatives, friends or acquaintances.”

Kristin was raped by a lifeguard coworker after a party.