Mary Kay Letourneau felt remorse about relationship with 12-year-old student
An infamous ex-Washington state teacher who raped a 12-year-old student — and later married him — was riddled with guilt over their relationship before her 2020 death, a report claims.
Mary Kay Letourneau felt “deep remorse” and tried to make peace with herself and others in her final days before she died of colon cancer at age 58, a friend told People magazine.
“The bottom line was that she understood on a very deep level that she had really made a mess of her life and the lives of many other people back in 1996,” the unnamed friend told People.
“She realized even though things turned out relatively good that she was responsible for a wide swath of destruction by her actions. She apologized to a lot of people for a lot of things.”
Letourneau pleaded guilty to rape in 1997 in a shocking case in which she admitted to a sexual relationship with preteen Villi Fualaau. The pair ended up having two children together.
She did seven years behind bars and registered as a sex offender, but married Fualaau in 2005. Fualaau filed for separation in 2017.
The disgraced teacher was married and had four children when she began her relationship with the boy and claimed two years before her death that she didn’t know the relationship was illegal.
“Had I known, if anyone knows my personality, just the idea this would count as a crime,” she said during an appearance on Australia’s Channel Seven in 2018.
“If someone had told me, if anyone had told me, there is a specific law that says this is a crime.”
She had also claimed the boy was the pursuer in the relationship.
While on probation after a plea deal, she was caught again having sex with the boy in a car and sent to prison.
Even after Letourneau’s death, her victim-turned-husband stayed in contact and reportedly told a friend he “lost a piece of himself” when she died.
