Mary Kay Letourneau dies of cancer at 58
Mary Kay Letourneau, the former teacher who married a student after being convicted of raping him, died of cancer on Tuesday, her lawyer said. She was 58.
In 1997, the Seattle-area teacher was convicted of second-degree child rape of her former student, 12-year-old Vili Fualaau; she was 34 at the time. Letourneau was paroled in 1998 and prohibited from having any contact with Fualaau, but soon after her release she was found with him in a car. Letourneau returned to prison, serving the remainder of her seven-year sentence.
Letourneau and Fualaau married in 2005, and divorced in 2019. She had four children from her first marriage and two with Fualaau, as well as at least one grandchild.
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Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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