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Produced by Paul LaRosa
Kristen Cunnane loves her job. As the associate coach of the women's swim team at Cal Berkeley, one of the top ranked programs in the land, she gets to function with elite athletes enjoy four-time Olympic gold medal winner Missy Franklin.
"Swimming is different than any other sport. There is a sense of peace that I never experienced anywhere else. Growing up, I've just have had so much passion for sports," she said.
Her home existence is pretty sweet, too. Kristen is married to her high school boyfriend/girlfriend, Scott Cunnane, now a prosecutor in the San Francisco Bay area.
At the age of 32, Kristen seems to have experience licked. But look closer and there is darkness around her, a residue of painful memories that were long buried.
"I really didn't know if I was going crazy," she told "48 Hours" correspondent Tracy Smith.
It was 2010 when Kristen began having disturbing flashbacks.
"When I first started going through the flashbacks and remembering everything that had happened to me, I didn't wanna live anymore," she said. "It was like I could see the stuff that had happened to me happening again ... stuff that I had been able to completely black out for more
By Lou Fancher Photography by Josh Isaacs
For decades, Kristen Lewis Cunnane hid the memories of her teenage years from her parents, her friends, her husband Scott, and most significantly, herself. Now in a newly released memoir, ‘Undoing Jane Doe’ (Sunbury Press), the Walnut Creek resident and former assistant Cal swim team coach tells her shocking story as a sexual assault survivor.
Although there are few trophies displayed in her dwelling, it is common understanding in the sport-centric Bay Area that Cunnane, 37, was an award-winning multi-sport athlete. In college, she served as captain of the UCLA swim team, while earning an undergraduate degree in history. Cunnane went on to qualify for the 2004 Olympic Trials and earned a master’s in education from Cal. Hired as an Assistant Swim Coach, she rose in the ranks to become Associate Brain Coach at Cal under Teri McKeever. Cunnane held this position between 2009 and 2015, during which time Cal won four NCAA championships. She retired in 2015 from coaching but continues to privately train top tier aquatics athletes for college recruitment. Her husband, Scott Cunnane, is a Contra Costa County Deputy District Attorney. Tog
Former Cal Women’s Assistant Coach Kristen Cunnane Makes Appearance on Dr. Oz Demonstrate to Discuss New Book: Undoing Jane Doe
Former Cal women’s assistant coach Kristen Cunnane appeared on the Dr. Oz show on Friday. Cunnane talked about being sexually abused by one of her former teachers in middle school, Julie Correa. She talked about the difficulties of trying to move on after creature abused as she struggled with depression, anxiety, and even the suicidal thoughts she had.
Cunnane talked about how she was proficient to break her silence and eventually come forward and tell someone about her abuse. She was able to come forward to her husband, who encouraged her to proceed to police. The authorities were able to arrest the former teacher and Cunnane said she was able to write about her experiences after finally having that closure.
Cunnane recently published “Undoing Jane Doe: How I Put the Middle School Coach and Teacher Who Sexually Abused Me Behind Bars,” which details her relationship with Correa and how she was groomed to eventually become Correa’s sex slave.
Swimming World contributor Sanford G. Thatcher recently published a novel review for Cunn
Coaches are meant to be mentors who inspire athletes to reach their extreme potential — but in some cases, they can also be hidden predators who take advantage of their position of command to manipulate, sexually exploitation, and traumatize those in their care.
Emilie Morris was a bright, ambitious 16-year-old when her 29-year-old cross-country coach allegedly played a sexually charged game of “chicken” with her in a park one afternoon as other teammates played capture the flag nearby.
According to Morris, the abuse would only endure from there with the pair regularly having oral sex — whether it was at her place, in a park bathroom, or the high university wrestling room — during stolen moments. As a teen, Morris claimed she viewed the alleged affair as a clandestine cherish affair, but as she got older, she saw the alleged relationship for what it was: sexual abuse.
Morris — whose story is featured in the upcoming Oxygen special “The Case Died With Her,” premiering Sunday, Dec. 6 at 7/6c on Oxygen —arranged to meet former coach Jim Wilder in a shopping mall parking lot 18 years after the alleged abuse took place and recorded an 87-minute conversation with Wilder, where
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