Mary Kay Letourneau

There is something about this case that is -- quite simply -- very, very sad.

Ex-Student Seeks Reunion With Letourneau
By Rebecca Cook (AP)

GIG HARBOR, Wash. - Mary Kay Letourneau, the teacher convicted for having sex with a sixth-grade student, was released from prison Wednesday, and her 21-year-old victim quickly sought to get back together with her.

Vili Fualaau is challenging a court order that bars Letourneau from contacting him as part of her child rape sentence. He says he is an adult and can pick his own friends, especially the mother of his two children.

"He is now an adult and, as an adult, is requesting that the court allow him to associate with other adults of his own choosing, specifically Mary K. Letourneau," his court motion says.

Letourneau, 42, slipped out of prison quietly after midnight and was met by a crowd that included dozens of media outlets and a group of rowdy teenage boys waving signs that said "I'm 18, Baby!" and "Take Me Home."

Letourneau was a 34-year-old elementary school teacher in suburban Des Moines and an unhappily married mother of four in 1996, when she began having sex with the sixth-grader.

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How does a 34-year-old woman (or man, for that matter) develop such intense affection for a 13-year-old? I can almost understand her sexual attraction for him if he looked older than his years, but what was so lacking in her life that she could have fallen in love with someone so emotionally immature? (Interestingly enough, Fualaau's mother considered her son old beyond his years.)

That question was posed to her during an online chat with Court TV in 1991 and she responded:

How did you manage to fall in love with a child?

I think it's more appropriate to say a teenager. How did he manage falling in love with me? How did I manage falling in love with him? You know it's not as simple as to say "it just happened." But we both did find ourselves in love. And it was a mutual love. Love is something that evolves. And it was very intense, too. I don't really think that falling in love can be explained.

What were you feeling about life when you began to feel attracted to Vili?

That's something I haven't really thought about...Well, I think many people have theorized or speculated that I must have been very lonely at the time. But I wasn't. At the time I considered myself a very independent person, and very confident. I was, at the time, looking to my future, knowing I was going to get a divorce, and was actually looking forward to being happy alone in life with my children. In other words I don't have the type of personality that is dependent on having a man in my life, or a partner. I feel very fulfilled just with myself, my family, my friends, my children.

Now that she's served her sentence, what does she have to look forward to? She has been added to the state of Washington's sexual offenders list; she is going to continue to be the butt of late night jokes every time her name makes the news wires; as the above story notes, at her release from prison she was greeted by "a group of rowdy teenage boys waving signs that said 'I'm 18, Baby!' and 'Take Me Home.'" How can she possibly go anywhere without meeting with this kind of abuse? Could this all have been worth it?