Mary Katherine Letourneau (formerly Schmitz; January 30, 1962 – July 6, 2020) was an American schoolteacher who pleaded guilty in 1997 to two counts of felony second-degree rape of a child, Vili Fualaau, who was 12 or 13 at the time and had been her sixth-grade student. While awaiting sentencing, she gave birth to Fualaau’s child. With the state seeking a six-and-a-half-year prison sentence, she reached a plea agreement calling for six months in jail, with three months suspended, and no contact with Fualaau for life among other terms. The case received national attention.
Shortly after spending three months in jail, the police caught Letourneau in a car with Fualaau. A judge revoked her plea agreement and reinstated the prison sentence for the maximum allowed by law of seven-and-a-half years. Eight months after returning to prison, she gave birth to Fualaau’s second child, another daughter. She was imprisoned from 1998 to 2004. Letourneau and Fualaau were married in May 2005, and the marriage lasted 14 years until their separation in 2019.
Mary Kay Letourneau Says Her Affair With Student Was Real Love Story
On May 9, 2017, after almost 12 years of marriage, Fualaau filed for separation from Letourneau but later withdrew the filing.
As of April 2018, Fualaau was working at a home improvement store and as a professional DJ and Letourneau was working as a legal assistant.
The couple finalized a legal separation in August 2019. Earlier in the marriage, Vili Fualaau said he was not a victim, and was unashamed of the relationship. According to People in May 2020, an unnamed source “close to Faulauu” said that “He sees things clearly now, and realizes that this wasn’t a healthy relationship from the start.”
Mary Kay Letourneau cause of death
Letourneau died from colorectal cancer on July 6, 2020, at her home near Seattle; she was 58.