Sex. Murder. Mystery(167)

Some teachers at Shorewood Elementary School in Burien, Wash, were embittered by what they considered a lack of support from the district administration during the scandal. (Author)





Defense lawyer David Gehrke represented Mary Kay through her second arrest. He infuriated Mary Kay's friends by calling them “groupies.” The friends, in turn, begged Mary Kay to dump the lawyer. (Noel A. Soriano)





Nick Latham, Public Information Officer, Highline School District, was on the frontlines of the media storm. (Courtesy KIRO)





KIRO-TV reporter Karen O'Leary was sued by Vili's family after she interviewed the teenager in a park near his home. The reporter considered the lawsuit an attempt to silence the media about the true relationship between the teacher and student. (Courtesy KIRO)





Dr. Julia Moore diagnosed Mary Kay with bipolar or manic-depressive disorder. Dr. Moore's testimony at the sentencing hearing in November 1997 was critical to securing sex-offender treatment over prison time. (Donald Moore)





The Mecca Cafe in Seattle got caught up in the media fever. (Jim Fielder)





The story turned tabloid when lawyer Bob Huff brokered the Fualaaus' “exclusive” story to the Globe, “Inside Edition” and American Journal. Their French tellall, Un Seul Crime, L'Amour, netted them more than $200,000. (Author)





Mary Kay Letourneau after her release from jail in January 1998. Though she looked it, the fallen teacher was not at her low point. Some encouraged her and enabled her to see the teenage father, and the results would be disastrous. (Seattle Police)





Michelle Jarvis (here, with her husband Michael) flew to Seattle to bring Mary Kay home from the hospital after Audrey was born. Michelle worried about possible violence against her childhood friend by Steve Letourneau.





Twins Amber and Angie Fish babysat Mary Kay's new baby, Audrey, until Mary Kay was sent to jail in August 1997. The twins worried about their friend's mental stability. (Breea Bridges)





No longer a teacher but an inmate at the Washington Corrections Center for Women near Gig Harbor, Mary Kay Letourneau spends her days writing and answering fan mail. Since her incarceration, she has not seen the two babies she had with the Samoan teenager Vili or the four she had with Steve Letourneau. (Jim Fielder)





After her second arrest, an avalanche of media interest enveloped Mary Kay. The former teacher made the cover of People; articles in Time, Paris Match, Mirabella, Spin and George were among the many that appeared in the spring of 1998. (Author)

“I had a parent tell me that her older son felt uncomfortable in class,” she said a couple of years later. “But I still think if Vili hadn't been in her room she wouldn't have picked anybody else.”

Who was this woman they all thought they knew? It was a question that for the longest time went unspoken within the walls of Shorewood Elementary's staff room. For a while the charges and whether they could be true was all they thought about, all they talked about. One teacher later described herself as feeling like a snowman in one of those little plastic domes trying her best to be still and numb. But now and then someone would give her plastic dome a shake and particles would fall once more.

Who was Mary Kay Letourneau? Even the way the media called her Mary Kay was unsettling to many who knew her at Shorewood. It almost made her seem unreal, like some character they didn't know. Mary Kay? She always went by Mary at school. The only one they knew who called her Mary Kay was her husband, Steve, and that was to differentiate her from Mary Claire, their daughter.

But who was she really?

The answers prompted only more confusion and even some dissension. It seemed that no one could really agree on her true character; everyone believed Mary Letourneau was a different woman for different people.

One saw her as a master manipulator who got whatever she wanted. Arriving late, skipping meetings, doing whatever she pleased.

Another saw her as a charismatic, if unhappy, woman who wanted nothing more than to be a good teacher. Devoting hours and hours for the good of her students.

She was competitive, a teacher thought. She wanted to be seen as the best, the most popular teacher in the school.

“I see Mary as a cheerleader who wanted to be very popular and wanted everybody to like her,” said one.

Still another saw her as a rule-breaker, a person for whom the guidelines of the school had no meaning.

“You can't chew gum in the classroom, but Mary let her kids do it. We might not all agree with the same rules… but we try to uphold them.”

A teacher who was relatively new to Shorewood thought that Mary appeared to act like a junior high school student. In fact, the teacher said, she even looked the part