The case received national attention. Mary Schmitz met Steve Letourneau while attending Arizona State University; they had a child out of wedlock and married out of social pressure. They had three more children together over the years. Their marriage was unhappy. After achieving a teaching degree in , Mary Letourneau started working at an elementary school in Burien, Washington. In September , she first met Vili Fualaau, a second-grade pupil. Letourneau admired Fualaau's artistic abilities and kept in touch while not being his teacher.
Letourneau and Fualaau met again in the fall of , in sixth grade class. In June , Letourneau, aged 34, engaged in statutory rape with Fualaau, aged Mary Letourneau was arrested in March , after a relative of her husband contacted the police.
While awaiting sentencing, she gave birth to Fualaau's daughter. With the state seeking a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence, she reached a plea bargain calling for six months in jail with three months suspended and no contact with Fualaau for life, among other terms.
Shortly after Letourneau had completed three months in jail, the police caught her in a car with Fualaau. A judge revoked her plea agreement and reinstated the prison sentence for the maximum allowed by law of seven-and-a-half years.
Letourneau was imprisoned from to , spending half a year in solitary confinement for her communication attempts with Fualaau. After her release, she and Fualaau successfully petitioned to the court to have their no-contact order lifted. Mary Letourneau and Vili Fualaau were married in May The marriage lasted 14 years, until their separation in Schmitz — , a community college instructor and politician. When Mary Kay was two years old, her father began a political career, successfully running as a Republican for a seat in the state legislature.
