Chapter 46
THE PAST COUPLE of years had been rough on the news team at KIRO-TV. The station changed hands repeatedly. First a CBS affiliate, then an independent, it eventually went back to network status. Shakeups in the newsroom are inevitable during such turmoil. Friends who were no longer on the inside knew that Karen O'Leary was vulnerable. She wasn't over the hill by any means, but she wasn't a fresh-faced kid anymore, either.
Mary Kay Letourneau came along at a time when it benefited the veteran reporter, too. The story gave Karen—rather, she took it—a high-profile case at the right time. And though she had a résumé of important Seattle stories a mile long, the teacher-and-student saga was like nothing she'd broadcast before. It had sex, a pretty perpetrator, a boy who said he wasn't a victim, and inquiring minds wanted to know.
It gave Karen the vehicle she needed to prove herself to new management. And she worked it to death.
“That story has made her career,” said a close friend several months after it all happened. “It saved her at KIRO.”
Later, Karen O'Leary would downplay the importance of the Letourneau story. It was only one of many that she covered during that time. The pastor of the state's largest church had been caught in a purported homosexual encounter in a public restroom was another, so was the prominent plastic surgeon who had been charged with assaulting a patient. But even Karen had to concede that none caught the public's attention more than the teacher from Shorewood Elementary.
“Yes, my news director wanted stories about Mary Letourneau,” she said later. “Yes, ratings go up whenever she's on. But that's not why I did the stories. I pay no attention to ratings and never have. If two people watch or two hundred thousand watch, I don't care. But I have bosses who care.”
Chapter 47
SOME OF THE teachers at Shorewood Elementary felt they were in an emotional battle zone without a general, much less a sergeant, in command. It seemed that after the big to-do of the arrest—a four-member crisis team of counselors, the promise of supporting teachers through the difficult time, and the ensuing media firestorm—for the most part district support vanished. The superintendent never came back.
Said one teacher embittered by the abandonment:
“They brought the whole group in that first day to tell us and the children and we did not see them once after that. We never heard from Nick Latham. We never heard from Susan Murphy. We never heard from a single person.”
District PR guy Latham later took issue with the notion that he hadn't offered ongoing support.
“We gave the teachers every opportunity to share their feelings with us,” he said. “I called the school and talked to [Principal] Anne Johnson many times about offers to help. I went through proper channels—through the principal and administration. It is possible, however, that the information didn't get to the teachers.”
The beleaguered teachers had been left to their own devices, while Highline administrators and others seemed to bask in the eye of the television camera. Nick Latham fielded inquiries from media outlets all over the world. Highline Education Association President Susan Murphy taped a segment of Dan Rather's 48 Hours on CBS. Even Highline superintendent Joe McGeehan got in on the act: he appeared on NBC's Leeza.
One person was missing in action on the PR front. Shorewood Principal Dr. Anne Johnson didn't pose for pictures or appear on television. In fact, the principal kept a very low profile—even among her staff. Yes, the somewhat aloof, petite woman with the cropped hair appeared shaken, but as the days passed some contemplated if she was just upset for being caught with a mess in her own backyard. And even more troubling, as additional information was revealed to colleagues, some were left to wonder just how much their principal knew in the first place. Had Anne Johnson been made aware that Highline security had been alerted about the marina incident in June 1996? Had there been parent complaints?
No one knew. Anne Johnson wasn't talking. Her only public remarks appeared in the district newsletter.
“If anybody had known anything, why hadn't they come to me about it?” Dr. Johnson wrote when the wound was still fresh.
But teachers had. Even though none ever had the slightest inkling that Mary Letourneau was engaging in any kind of sexual activities with a district student—and most assuredly would have turned her in to the police in an instant if they had—they had noticed and complained about other behaviors in the past.
Dr. Johnson also defended the district against some teachers' charges that they had been left to fend for themselves on the front lines. She said the administration was very aware of what was going on at Shorewood.