Mary Kay Letourneau, the former Washington schoolteacher who made headlines for her sexual relationship with an underage student in 1997, has died, according to multiple reports. She was 58.
Letourneau was battling stage 4 colon cancer, and spent the past month in hospice care, TMZ reports.
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In 1997, Letourneau pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree child rape for her sexual relationship with a 12-year-old student, Vili Fualaau. She was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Letourneau illegally continued her relationship with Fualaau, giving birth to two children with the minor by the time he was 15. Letourneau gave birth to their first child, a daughter, in 1997, while awaiting sentencing.
Letourneau initially struck a plea deal in which she would only have to serve six months in jail and then undergo years of sex offender treatment. She was also forbidden from having contact with Fualaau. However, two weeks after leaving jail, she was found in a car with Fualaau near her home.
The plea agreement was revoked and she returned to prison, where she gave birth to Fualaau's second child in October 1998.
They continued their relationship after she left prison in 2004 and got married in 2005. The couple eventually separated in 2017 and officially filed for divorce in August 2019.
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