Mary Kay Letourneau, teacher jailed for raping student, dies at 58
- by Leland Aguilar
- in Entertaiment
- — Jul 9, 2020
Mary Kay Letourneau, the former Seattle teacher who was convicted in 1997 of raping a 12-year-old student who she would later marry, died on Tuesday from cancer, her lawyer told Q13 News. Fualaau and Letourneau denied there had been any "touching".
Letourneau's lawyer, David Gehrke, tells King 5 that Letourneau died of stage 4 cancer.
Letourneau and her student, Vili Fualaau, met when he was in the second grade and she was a teacher at Shorewood Elementary School in Burien. He was age 12 at the time - and just 13 when Letourneau had his first baby.
The couple married on May 20, 2005, in Woodinville, Washington, after she served a 7½-year prison term for child rape.
We contacted a spokesperson for Vili and they would only say it's a very hard time right now.
Despite all this, Letourneau said she "did not know" she was committing was a crime.
That sent her packing back to prison for a seven-year sentence.
She gave birth to their second daughter in prison in 1998.
In February, 1998, shortly after being released from jail, she was arrested after being discovered having sex in her vehicle with Fualaau, who was 14 at the time.
As recently as two years ago, Letourneau was reportedly working as a paralegal, while Fualaau was working as a part-time DJ, according to KOMO.
He said he had thought about leaving the relationship but Letourneau said she was still madly in love with her husband. The former teacher insisted the shocking relationship was always consensual.
Mary Kay Letourneau has passed away after battling cancer. "She was a good person".
Then an adult, Faulaau petitioned the court to drop the orders that prevented their contact, though LeTourneau remained a registered sex offender in Washington.
