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As she worked to unbuckle her son’s car seat in his preschool parking lot, Kristen Cunnane’s cell phone beeped with a new voicemail. She checked her phone, anticipating a note from her mother or a friend, but instead found herself staring at the message she had dreaded for almost a decade.
Julie Correa — the woman who sexually assaulted her as a child and threatened to kill her and her family if she ever told anyone — would be released from prison in March.
“I felt like I just got punched in the gut,” Cunnane said later of that Jan. 12 voicemail, transcribed to text on her phone. “It was kind of like a feeling of a ticking time bomb. For a long time I didn’t know when the exact date was… I’d do math in my head all the time and I just spent time worrying about it.”
Eight years ago, long before the #MeToo movement gained steam, before accusers levied sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein, Larry Nassar and other high-profile, powerful men, Cunnane reported her abuse and began the unraveling of a scandal long buried in a small East Bay community. In addition to reporting to police the abuse from Correa, her former PE teacher at Joaquin Moraga Intermediate School in Moraga, Cunnane took the extraordinary step of dropping her “Jane Doe” pseudonym and unleashing a powerful victim impact statement using her real name.
The fallout rocked the tight-knit Contra Costa County town of Moraga: Subsequent reports by this news agency on her abuse in the 1990s by Correa and another science teacher at the school — Dan Witters, who killed himself after being caught — revealed a school district cover-up. The revelations led to the departure of a school principal, more than $18 million in settlements involving four victims, wholesale changes in the way the Moraga School District trained its employees to report abuse, and new state legislation aimed at improving mandated reporting of abuse in schools.
Cunnane — who reported the abuse she suffered from age 14 to 17 to police in 2010 — has changed over the years too. She quit her job as the assistant head coach at collegiate women’s swimming powerhouse Cal in 2015 to stay home with her two young kids and her young family is thriving. But learning of Correa’s pending release has brought a stark reality to the surface: Her survivor story will never end.
And that’s why she’s speaking up again.
“The bigger issue is for people to understand this doesn’t just end for us,” said Cunnane, 36, from her East Bay living room as Twain, her 5-year-old half Australian shepherd/Queensland heeler support dog, rested nearby. “For survivors it’s about being authentic and real and even if your perpetrators are in prison, it’s still really, really hard, and I’ll never stop dealing with those things.”
Correa began sexually abusing Cunnane in 1996. The coach became so bold, she would hide under Cunnane’s bed in her parent’s house and then assault her. She even hid a phone in a carved out book so she could call Cunnane secretly.
The assaults lasted for three years. But the psychological trauma continued long after. In 2010, more than a decade after the abuse ended, a depressed Cunnane went to police. She would ultimately capture Correa speaking about their relationship on recorded phone calls for investigators. In 2011, Correa pleaded no contest to four felonies: forcible sexual penetration of a minor and three counts of lewd acts on a child over age 14. Two years later, Cunnane received a $2.85 million settlement from the Moraga School District over its handling of the allegations against Correa and Witters.
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#MeToo
Cunnane has spent the last year watching the burgeoning #MeToo movement hold mostly men accountable for inappropriate behavior. It’s filled her with mixed emotions.
She said she’s proud of the societal shift that has empowered people to feel safe enough to publicly share stories that they were embarrassed or ashamed to tell before. But her assailant was a woman, which has left her feeling isolated. Watching the case of Larry Nassar, a USA gymnastics doctor who will spend the rest of his life behind bars for sexually abusing more than 150 women and girls, has also been difficult for Cunnane, a former star athlete.
“I’m so proud of those women and so glad he won’t ever see the light of day again, and I’m also selfishly a little sad for myself that just because it’s only happened to me she’s gone for only eight years,” Cunnane said. “She ruined my life as much as she possibly could have. Getting through this has been so hard. It almost killed me.”
Cunnane’s husband Scott Cunnane, a Contra Costa County prosecutor who has known Kristen since high school, said his wife faced a much different social climate when she came forward. Unlike the crush of women telling their stories of abuse now, Kristen faced a lot of backlash from the community when she came forward, and many in the school community supported Correa.
“Kristen could have avoided that scrutiny by choosing to become ‘Jane Doe,’ but she knew that her story could help and inspire other victims of sexual abuse,” Scott Cunnane said in an email. “Seeing the current movement makes me even more proud of Kristen’s heroic journey as she continues to be an inspiration for victims of sexual abuse who are now finding the strength to come forward.”
Carol Carrillo, executive director of the Child Abuse Prevention Council of Contra Costa County, said the foundation of her agency’s Speak Up Be Safe child safety program came from Cunnane’s story.
“By speaking up about her abuse, we now have programs in place that are designed to keep kids safe from abuse and educate our community about the importance of prevention,” she said. “Kristen is a very brave women and I do hope she knows that by telling her story she has made a difference in the lives of children in our community. Kids are safer because Kristen told her story.”
Cunnane accepts now that that is true, but for a very long time she bristled when people complimented her courage.
“I was struggling so much in 2010 I didn’t have a choice,” she said. “Even now when people tell me I’m brave, I tell them I just did what I had to do to survive.”
Not quiet
She still hasn’t listened to the voicemail from Chowchilla State Prison that provided a courtesy alert of Correa’s future release. But in those moments after reading the transcript of the voicemail, she leaned on Kristen’s Army, her tight circle of friends that have supported her over the years.
After signing her kids into preschool that day, she met a good friend for coffee and the pair made a list of all the things she could do to make herself feel safe pending Correa’s release after serving her full term.
“I’m a checklist sort of person,” Cunnane said with a smile.
She wanted to warn her neighbors and community. This is a woman who Cunnane said “obsessively messaged” her on Facebook while police were investigating her. After her arrest, Correa once waited four hours outside Cunnane’s therapist’s office, she said.
Correa’s former attorney Michael Thorman said there was never any claim that Correa actually made contact with Cunnane while she was out on bail.
“I suspect that Julie will want to reunite with her family and move on with her life, and that any concerns Ms. Cunnane may have about Julie’s release are unnecessary,” he said.
Such concerns are common with victims, Carrillo said.
“The trauma never goes away, but that does not mean people cannot live a productive, happy life,” she said. “They can with the support of family, friends, community and counseling and most importantly that she is believed, told it was not her fault, and that the abuse stops.”
A certified prison letter sent a week after the voicemail alerted Cunnane that Correa would be released March 24 in the Auburn area, but would have to visit her parole officer in Richmond. Cunnane, who has applied for a variety of restraining orders with a victim’s advocate, took solace that Correa would initially be tracked with an ankle monitor. She’ll also be required to register as a sex offender for the rest of her life.
During the abuse, Correa would constantly tell her young victim that she would harm her or her family if she told anyone.
“It was about controlling me, manipulating me, scaring me, raping me,” Cunnane said. “So it’s hard to reconcile that young voice that’s still scared.
“It was a way to keep me quiet, but I’m not quiet any more.”
