MARY KAY LETOURNEAU - A TRAGIC ENDING

THE STORY BEHIND HER HEADLINE-GRABBING RELATIONSHIP THAT SHOCKED THE WORLD

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Her final days were spent with the man she was convicted of raping. As Mary Kay Letourneau, 58, succumbed to the cancer which had eaten away her life over the past six months, it was 37-year-old Vili Fualaau, her former husband, the father of two of her children, and yes, her one-time student, who was by her side when she passed away on July 6. “Vili moved back from California, gave up his life there, and for the last two months of Mary’s life he stood by her 24/7 taking care of her,” her family lawyer David Gehrke told Today. “He knew that this was Mary’s end coming, fast-moving, and for her sake and the family’s sake, and for his sake, he came back up and was with her, and it meant the world to her.”

For a time, Letourneau and Fualaau were the most talked about couple in the world. Here’s why: Letourneau, a sixth-grade teacher from Seattle, was arrested in 1997 for raping Fualaau, her 12- or 13-year-old student. At the time, she was a 34-year-old married mother of four.