In 1997, Seattle primary school teacher Mary Kay Letourneau was convicted of raping sixth-grade student Vili Fualaau.
At the time she was 34 years old and married with four children. Fualaau was 14 years old, just 18 months older than her eldest son.
Speaking to Barbara Walters of the ABC (US) in 2017, Letourneau said their relationship started when Fualaau was 12 years old.
“The incident was a late night that didn’t stop with a kiss,” said the now 56-year-old.
By the time she pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree child rape and was convicted of a suspended sentence of 89 months, in November of 1997, Letourneau and Fualaau were the parents of a six-month-old child.
Then, after serving six months in a county jail she was released on parole under the condition that she would attend counselling and not contact Fualaau. Weeks into her parole she fell pregnant with their second child and was forced to serve the full 7.5 year sentence. At 15 years old, Fualaau had become a father of two.
Now 20 years after her trial, Letourneau’s life has been made into a two-hour confessional documentary by A&E Documentary, titled: Mary Kay Letourneau: Autobiography.
Premiering just days after their 13th marriage anniversary on the 29th of May 2018, Letourneau said she wanted to set the ‘record straight’. It aired in Australia on Saturday on Foxtel.
She now denies Vili was her student when they began their “relationship”, claiming instead it began when they were doing classes at a community college.
“First of all I was a teacher and Vili was once a student. There wasn’t anything going on at all when he was a student of mine,” she claims in the documentary.
“Everybody wants to hear the story. Whether it’s because they want to analyse it or criticise it. It’s been 20 years but it’s still there.
“I call it media carnage. Road kill. Blood.
“Am I sorry he’s the father of my children and the man of my life? No, I’m not.”
The convicted rapist recalled missing her children’s birthdays and giving birth in prison before being forced to surrender her newborn.
Speaking to Fox News, Executive Producer Brad Abramson said that ‘reliving the time in prison’ was brutal for Letourneau.
“She’s openly weeping as she’s talking about missing her older children’s birthdays while in prison. I think she felt very, very conflicted. It brought back a lot of raw emotions,” he said.
“I was quite surprised to see that after 20 years. Those raw emotions were still close at hand.”
Top Comments
Whether or not she was the teacher of the child in question at the time, he was still well underage - a child - she was then and continues to be now - a pedophile. If she was the male and the child the female this story would have been approached without any sympathy - as it should have been in this case. The fact they are still together after all this time says more about the psychological and emotional control a pedophile has over their victims long term than it says about the ability of the boy to grow and think and feel for himself.
As a teacher myself, I felt physically sick and so effing angry at seeing her interviewed last night. I wrote a raging post on my medium account I was so wild. She is a rapist, end of story. blog post is at
https://medium.com/@frugali...