Mary Kay Letourneau, who was jailed for raping her 12-year-old student whom she later married, dies of cancer at 58

Mary Kay Letourneau, the former Washington middle school teacher who was jailed for raping her student, whom she later married, has died after months of battling stage 4 colon cancer.

Her lawyer David Gehrke told multiple news outlets Letourneau died Tuesday, July 7, of cancer. She was 58.

Mary Kay Letourneau was a married mother of four having difficulties with her marriage in 1996 when she had sexual relations with Vili Fualaau, a precocious 12-year-old in Letourneau’s class at Shorewood Elementary in Burien, south Seattle.

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 when they got to the police station, Fualaau and Letourneau denied there had been any “touching.” 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 a daughter fathered by Vili Fualaau. Their second child was conceived in 1998, after Letourneau had pleaded guilty to child rape and received a 7 1/2-year prison term.

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 — “”n Seul Crime, L’Amour,” or “Only One Crime, Love.” 

Their story was also the subject of a USA Network movie, “All American Girl.”

Letourneau and Fualaau separated in 2017. King County court records show Fualaau asked the court for a legal separation from Letourneau on May 9, 2017.