Teacher Rapist, Victim Set Wedding Date Monday, February 14, 2005
SEATTLE — Mary Kay Letourneau (search) and her former sixth-grade pupil, Vili Fualaau (search), with whom she had two children, have set the date for their wedding, according to an online bridal registry.
Letourneau, 43, and Fualaau, 22, plan to wed April 16, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Monday. Letourneau served 7 1/2 years on a 1997 conviction for raping Fualaau.
"It's been long overdue," said Noel Soriano, a longtime friend of the family who confirmed Sunday that they will marry this spring. "It's going to be fabulous, seeing them get hitched finally."
Letourneau was a married mother of four when she began a sexual relationship with the then-12-year-old Fualaau after meeting at Burien's Shorewood Elementary School in 1996, when she was 34. She was pregnant with Fualaau's first child when she was arrested in 1997 and ordered to serve a six-month sentence for second-degree child rape.
One month after she was released, Letourneau was caught having sex with Fualaau in her car. She pleaded guilty in 1997 to two charges of child rape, and gave birth to the couple's second daughter while serving her 7 1/2-year sentence. Fualaau's mother is raising their two daughters, aged 6 and 7.
Shortly after Letourneau was released from prison last August, the pair successfully petitioned a King County judge to lift a no-contact order that had barred them from seeing each other.
Soriano said they became engaged when Fualaau proposed last fall, but they have been trying to keep wedding details a secret. But with a guest list that will include more than 200 people, the news was bound to come out eventually, he said.
The wedding will likely be held in a Seattle-area church, Soriano said. Details are yet to be completed, but plans call for their daughters to be flower girls and Fualaau's nephew to be a ring bearer, he said.
The couple's bridal registry at the Bon-Macy's listed 31 items Sunday.
Neither Letourneau nor Fualaau could be reached for comment yesterday.
Letourneau now lives with friends in the Boulevard Park neighborhood south of Seattle. Fualaau is unemployed but has been studying for his GED and working on his artwork. He's also been meeting with gallery owners to discuss the possibility of exhibiting some of his work, Soriano said.
The couple will likely live in the Seattle area after they wed, he said.
"They have gone through a lot," he said. "That they lasted this long proves how strong their love is."
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