Mary Kay Letourneau felt remorse about relationship with student Villi Fualaau

July 2024 · 3 minute read

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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.

Mary Kay Letourneau was riddled with guilt about her relationship with Villi Fualaau before her death in 2020, according to a report. ABC via Getty Images

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.”

Mary Kay Letourneau and Villi Fualaau in 2009. ZUMAPRESS.com

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.

Mary Kay Letourneau, then 36, was brought into a King County courtroom for her 1998 trial. ZUMAPRESS.com
Mary Kay Letourneau listens to testimony during a court hearing in Seattle in 1998. AP
Vili Fualaau testifies in this April 3, 2002, file photo in Kent, Wash., during his lawsuit against the Des Moines (Wash.) Police Department and the Highline School District at the Regional Justice Center in Kent, Wash. The suit, which Fualaau lost, accused the school district and the police of failing to protect Fualaau from sexual exploitation stemming from his relationship with Mary Kay Letourneau. AP

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