Mary Kay Letourneau, teacher jailed for raping student, dies

SEATTLE (AP) — Mary Kay Letourneau, a teacher who married her former sixth-grade student after she was convicted of raping him in a case that drew international headlines, has died. She was 58.

Her lawyer David Gehrke told multiple news outlets Letourneau died Tuesday of cancer. He did not immediately return an email from The Associated Press.

Letourneau was a married mother of four in 1996 when she taught 12-year-old Vili Fualaau in her class at Shorewood Elementary in Burien, a south Seattle suburb.

Police discovered them at about 1:20 a.m. on June 19, 1996, parked in a minivan at the Des Moines Marina.

Letourneau, then 34, initially told officers the boy was 18, raising suspicions that something sexual was going on. At the police station, Fualaau and Letourneau denied there had been any “touching.” They claimed Letourneau had been babysitting the boy, and took him from her home after she and her husband had a fight.