Rapist educator Mary Kay LeTourneau has been accused by a former student of traumatizing an entire sixth-grade class after she sexually assaulted and married her 12-year-old student Vili Fualaau.
Caitlin Steed was in the same Shorewood Elementary School class as Fualaau when LeTourneau was caught having sex with him in a minivan in Washington.
Now, Steed, 41, said her entire classes are still facing the trauma of that grim discovery.
‘She was a mother figure for us because she was so nurturing,’ she told the New York Post. ‘And then we had to process all of this really when we’re just learning what sex is all about.
‘I think a lot of us ended up in counseling. She literally messed up an entire class of sixth-graders… We were trying to make sense of it, and we missed our teacher.’
LeTourneau, who died from cancer in 2020 at the age of 58, made headlines around the world in 1997, when the then-34-year-old teacher and mother-of-four was found to be having an abusive sexual relationship with Fualaau.
Letourneau met Fualaau when he joined her second-grade class in 1992, but they did not begin their sexual relationship until four years later when he was 12.
In 1996, after the school year had ended, the pair enrolled in summer classes at the same community college and began spending more time together.
Caitlin Steed was in the same Shorewood Elementary School class as Vili Fualaau when Mary Kay LeTourneau (pictured in 1997) was caught having sex with him in a minivan in Washington.
Now, Steed, 41, said her entire classes are still facing the trauma of that grim discovery. ‘I think a lot of us ended up in counseling. She literally messed up an entire class of sixth-graders… We were trying to make sense of it, and we missed our teacher’ (pictured: Fualaau and Letourneau)
One day after class, the pair went out for dinner. In a 2018 interview, Fualaau recalled that after the meal he asked to kiss Letourneau inside her car, which she accepted.
Letourneau then had sex with Fualaau for first time later that summer, when her then-husband, Steve Letourneau, was out of town.
On June 19, 1996, police found the pair in a minivan parked at the Des Moines Marina around 1.30am. Letourneau was seen jumping into the front seat as officers approached the vehicle, while Fualaau pretended to be asleep in the back.
Fualaau and Letourneau denied there had been any ‘touching.’ They initially provided false names and Letourneau told police that Fualaau was 18.
Letourneau then said she had been babysitting the boy at her home and took him away in her van after she and her husband had a fight.
They were taken to the police station but no further action was taken.
However, the true nature of their relationship was uncovered in February 1997, when Steve Letourneau found love letters that the pair had penned to one another. He confronted Fualaau, demanding he end the relationship otherwise he’d inform his parents.
Letourneau was initially sentenced to three months in jail as part of a plea agreement in November 1997, in which she agreed to no longer have any contact with Fualaau.
Letourneau, who died in 2020 from cancer, mothered two children with her student
LeTourneau made headlines around the world in 1997, when the then-34-year-old teacher and mother-of-four was found to be having an abusive sexual relationship with Fualaau (pictured with his family)
She was pregnant with her former student’s child at the time of her conviction.
Letourneau was then paroled in 1998.
However, shortly after her release from jail, she was once again found having sex in a car with Fualaau on February 3.
A judge then revoked Letourneau’s prior plea agreement. She was ordered to serve seven years in prison on second-degree child rape charges for violating the no-contact order.
She gave birth to Fualaau’s second child while in prison.
The young father had still not yet turned 15.
Upon her release from prison, Fualaau, who was by then an adult, petitioned in court for a judge to remove the no-contact order.
The restraining order against Letourneau was dropped, but the shamed teacher remained a registered sex offender in Washington state until her death.
Letourneau and Fualaau then once again shocked the world when they tied the knot in 2005.
They remained married for 12 years, until Fualaau filed for divorce in 2017.
Despite several attempts to reconcile, the couple finalized their split in February 2019 and began living apart, according to King County court records.
He cared for her while she battled cancer.
Leading up to her death, she wrote tons of letters as she was trying to atone for her ‘deep remorse.’
Letourneau began reflecting on the inappropriate relationship with Fualaau after being diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2020, a friend claimed.
‘At the end of your life, you start reassessing a lot of things,’ the friend told People. ‘And she was trying to make her peace, not only with everyone else, but with herself.’
The friend told People that she received a letter from the disgraced teacher about a month and a half before she died in July 2020.
Letourneau wrote dozens of letters while terminally ill to atone for her actions, the outlet said.
