She had caused a scandal in 1996 when her love story with her 12-year-old pupil Vili Fualaau was revealed to the world. Mary Kay Letourneau, the former Seattle schoolteacher who was at the center of one of the biggest scandals in the United States when she admitted having sex with a student, died.
The 58-year-old woman died after a silent battle of several months against stage four cancer, her lawyer David Gerke said on Tuesday. The exact nature of her cancer has yet to be revealed. “It was expected but sad anyway,” Gehrke told KOMO, announcing his death. “He was a good person.”
Back to the facts
Mary Kay Letourneau was a 34-year-old teacher at Shorewood Elementary School in 1996 when her husband Steve discovered that she was having sex with her 12-year-old student, Vili Fualaau. Steve had also found love letters exchanged between his wife and his pupil Faulaau. When Letourneau was arrested and accused of rape, her husband had asked for a divorce. He had obtained sole custody of their four children and had moved the family to Alaska.
In 1997, Mary Kay Letourneau was first sentenced to three months in prison as part of a plea agreement, in which she agreed to no longer have contact with Fualaau. At the time of her conviction, the accused appeared to be pregnant with the child of her former pupil.
Letourneau was then released on parole in 1998. However, shortly after her release from prison, she was caught in a car having sex with Fualaau and was sentenced to seven years in prison for second degree rape. Letourneau then gave birth to Fualaau’s second child in prison. The young father was not yet 15 years old.
After leaving prison, Fualaau, who was then an adult, asked a judge for permission to see her again. The restraining order against Letourneau was quashed, but the professor remained listed as a Washington, DC-registered sex offender. Letourneau and Fualaau then married in 2005, but their union did not last. Their marriage ended in 2017, when Vili Fualaau filed for divorce.
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