Posted on 07/08/2020 5:36:25 AM PDT by Red Badger
SEATTLE — Mary Kay Letourneau, the former Seattle-area schoolteacher who was at the center of a national scandal in the 1990s when she was convicted of raping her sixth-grade student whom she later married, has died, her attorney confirmed to KOMO News Tuesday night.
Letourneau lost a battle with cancer, her attorney, David Gehrke, said. Letourneau was a former Highline teacher who passed away after being ill for some time. She was 58.
"It was expected but sad anyway," Gehrke said. "She was a good person.“
Letourneau generated international headlines when she admitted to a relationship with Vili Fualaau, who was her sixth-grade student at the time. The relationship began when Fualaau was a 12-year-old boy and Letourneau, who was 34 years old at the time, was his sixth-grade teacher.
The classroom teacher met Fualaau when he was a second grader and she was a teacher at Shorewood Elementary School in Burien. Their relationship advanced when the married mother of four and her student began having sex.
She was charged with child rape in the case, which made international headlines, and later pleaded guilty under a plea agreement in which she pledged to have no contact with Fualaau. But she was caught having sex with him, again, in a car and ended up serving seven years in prison.
After Letourneau's release from prison in 2004, Fualaau requested the court take back the no-contact order, and the two were married in 2005. They had two daughters together before Fualaau filed documents to legally separate from Letourneau in May 2017.
In 2014, Letourneau had another run-in with the law in King County when she failed to appear in court for a suspended driver's license charge.
Prosecutors at the time said Letourneau was originally pulled over for expired tabs a year ago and was found to have a suspended license for unpaid traffic tickets. She was ordered into a state relicensing program which would require repayments of fines and help her work to get her license back and avoid a criminal charge.
Letourneau failed to show for that program and a criminal case was filed, prosecutors said. And when she failed to appear in court for the criminal case hearing in September, a warrant was issued for her arrest.
Fualaau filed for legal separation in early 2017, with sources telling People magazine at the time that he and Letourneau might not ultimately divorce. They were repeatedly spotted together around the Seattle area, where they have lived for years.
Two years ago, Letourneau was reportedly working as a paralegal in Tacoma while Fualaau was said to be working as a part-time DJ. ABC News reported that the two divorced in 2019.
Anne Bremner represented Letourneau for a civil case and said she would be missed.
"I've known Mary for 20 years," Bremner said. "She raised wonderful daughters and she loved her family."
Funeral arrangements were pending.
She was being housed in the Purdy penitentiary for women when my band played there. We usually played at men’s prisons. This one was amazing. My wife came as a “roadie” and this was the only prison where she was genuinely terrified of the inmates.
The concert was similar in audience response to the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show. We could barely hear ourselves.
I didn’t see her, though.
What can one say. RIP.
SO screwed up
I remember that case. RIP.
“She was a good person”.
She was a career criminal. I am having a problem reconciling those two concepts.
God requires forgiveness and I hope whoever needs to forgive her, has forgiven her. God have mercy on her soul. But reading “she was a good person”, I have some doubts about that. Not that I know first hand. Perhaps she was.
Maybe Seattle is becoming the new Floriduh, where everything weird just happens there.
Alex, I’ll take “Headlines I didn’t see coming in 1950, for $200”.
Yep, the 50’s were so much more saner..................
Sorry, but doing a 12 year old is a bit too young, and I never felt sorry for Ms Letourneau then or now. The boy was not particularly good looking, that coupled with being so young told me this lady was not playing with a full deck.
Considering today’s events, how many in Seattle are playing with a full deck in order to vote themselves into the next potential Detroit?
Just think, with the sexualizing of kids early in school, with the elimination of cops (ie law & order), predators like this woman will likely be doing underage kids right in the classroom and anyone that complains will be charged with a hate crime.
Brave New World..........................
My friends she brought 6 kids into this world. Americans. Good for her.
She was nuts, Jim. May she rest in peace now.
Killed by covid lockdown
Letourneau’s thoughts currently, “Is it always this warm here?”
Her and that kid did better as a couple than half of the people that I know.
It was big news at the time because it was so unusual.
Now it seems as if you come across a headline about some teacher sleeping with their student every other day.
Society is headed down the crapper at warp speed.
Judgment Day can’t come soon enough.
Some folks perspective just make me go.....huh?....
It was not her deck which was the problem.
She was a pedophile, pure and simple.
“... she raised wonderful daughters and she loved her family”.
Yeah, I’m calling B.S. on that line. She had six children (four of whom she ditched because she had relations with a boy child). Can you imagine the initial four children’s lives after their Mother did this? The hell they must have endured by teasing, ridicule etc... IMHO, I see NO difference in a grown woman having sex with a 12 year old child and a grown man having sex with a 12 year old child.
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