Mary Kay Letourneau, The Teacher Who Raped Her Student Vili Fualaau — Then Married Him
RedditVili Fualaau and Mary Kay Letourneau. Their sexual relationship began shortly before Fualaau’s 13th birthday.
At the beginning of 1996, Mary Kay Letourneau was a married mother of four and a teacher at Shorewood Elementary School just outside Seattle. By the end of that summer, she was sexually involved with one of her students, 13-year-old Vili Fualaau — and pregnant with his baby. (Shockingly, the relationship began when Fualaau was still 12 years old.)
According to Fualaau, their relationship started not long after he made a $20 bet with his cousin that he could “get” his sixth-grade teacher, Letourneau, who was then in her 30s. But the game became very real when Letourneau started responding to Fualaau’s advances. They exchanged their first kiss shortly before Fualaau’s 13th birthday in the summer of 1996.
This scandal came to light in February 1997, when Letourneau’s husband discovered letters that his wife had written to Fualaau. He told a relative, who told officials at Shorewood Elementary. On March 4, 1997, Letourneau — then seven months pregnant — was arrested for statutory rape.
Police PhotoMary Kay Letourneau ultimately served seven and a half years in prison total.
But even though authorities tried to separate Letourneau and Fualaau, it seemed that nothing could keep them apart. Letourneau first went to prison for six months, then immediately violated her parole by seeing Fualaau (and getting pregnant again). She was sent back to prison until 2004, but she reconciled with Fualaau (by then a legal adult) upon her release.
The couple got married in 2005, with their daughters serving as flower girls.
Though Letourneau and Fualaau separated in 2017, and divorced in 2019, Fualaau raced to Letourneau’s side when he learned that she was dying of colon cancer in 2020. Fualaau was with Letourneau during her final moments, and after Letourneau’s death that July, he referred to her as his “wife,” his “best friend,” and the “only person that actually cared.”
