From USA Today/ AP:
“Mary Kay Letourneau, the former
Washington state teacher jailed for raping a student, dies of cancer at 58”
Mary Kay Letourneau, who married
her former sixth-grade student after she was convicted for raping him, has
died. She was 58. Her lawyer David
Gehrke told multiple news outlets Letourneau died Tuesday of cancer. He did not
immediately return an email from The Associated Press. Letourneau was a married
mother of four having difficulties with her marriage in 1996 when Vili Fualaau
was a precocious 12-year-old in Letourneau's class at Shorewood Elementary in
Burien, a south Seattle suburb. At about 1:20 a.m. on June 19, 1996, police
discovered them in a minivan parked at the Des Moines Marina. Letourneau, then
34, initially told officers the boy was 18, raising suspicions that something
sexual was going on. But back at the police station, Fualaau and Letourneau
denied there had been any "touching." Instead, they said, Letourneau
had been babysitting the boy and took him from her home after she and her
husband had a fight. About two months after the marina incident, Letourneau
became pregnant with the couple's first daughter. Their second child was
conceived in 1998, after Letourneau had pleaded guilty to child rape and
received a 7 1/2-year prison term, which was suspended on condition she have no
contact with Fualaau. Letourneau and Fualaau married on May 20, 2005, in
Woodinville, Washington, after she finished serving time in prison. Fualaau and
Letourneau had previously characterized their relationship as one of love, and
even wrote a book together — "Un Seul Crime, L'Amour," or "Only
One Crime, Love." Their story was also the subject of a USA Network movie,
"All American Girl." King County court records show Fualaau asked the
court for a legal separation from Letourneau on May 9, 2017. Seattle attorney
Anne Bremner befriended Letourneau in 2002, when she represented the Des Moines
police department in a lawsuit brought by Fualaau’s mother, claiming the city
and school district failed to protect him from the teacher. A jury found
against the family in the civil action. Bremner visited Letourneau in prison
and would meet her for lunch after her release. “She accepted that it was a
crime and that she had to serve her time, but when she got out she didn’t
dwell,” Bremner said. “She moved forward in a very positive way and raised
those girls. She was somebody I rooted for. I really wanted her to do well, and
she did.” In the civil trial following the multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed by
Fualaau’s mother, the police department and school district insisted the
romance was so bizarre that no one could have predicted it. The district’s
lawyer said it began off school grounds after the academic year had ended.
Police argued that they simply had no evidence of sexual abuse until it was too
late. Bremner said of Letourneau and Fualauu's relationship: “Everyone said it
wouldn’t last, but it did, at least for 20 years.”
^ I can’t say this is any real
loss. The world is always a better place when rapists – especially those that
rape children – are no longer around. ^
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