Mary Kay Letourneau

Mary Katherine Fualaau (previously Letourneau, née Schmitz; January 30, 1962 – July 6, 2020) was an American teacher who pleaded guilty in 1997 to two counts of felony second-degree rape of a child and subsequently married her former student. The case received national attention.

After achieving a teaching degree in 1989, Mary Letourneau started working at an elementary school in Burien, Washington. In September 1991, she first met Vili Fualaau, a second-grade pupil. Letourneau admired Fualaau's artistic abilities and kept in touch while not being his teacher. Letourneau and Fualaau met again in the fall of 1995, in sixth-grade class. In June 1996, Letourneau, aged 34, committed statutory rape against Fualaau, aged 12. In September, she found out she was pregnant with Fualaau's child.

Letourneau was arrested in March 1997, after a relative of her husband contacted the police. While awaiting sentencing, she gave birth to Fualaau's daughter. With the state seeking a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence, she reached a plea bargain calling for six months in jail with three months suspended and no contact with Fualaau for life, among other terms. Shortly after Letourneau had completed three months in jail, the police caught her 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.