Sex. Murder. Mystery(193)

“She's a very good person who did a horrible thing,” he said.

And there she would stay, pumping her breasts for milk for baby Audrey, awaiting sentencing that would drag on for months as doctors, lawyers, and people she didn't know argued over her fate: treatment as a deviant or more than seven years in prison as a criminal.





Chapter 57

AUGUST 21, 1997, was Vili Fualaau's coming-out party. Sort of. On that morning the boy and his mother, Soona, appeared on NBC's Today show and gave the world the first glimpse, albeit obscured, of the boy behind the woman. Karen O'Leary missed the segment that morning, but the KIRO-TV reporter caught excerpts of the interview on the NBC affiliate's noon news show. News director Bill Lord told Karen to get down to White Center to dig up an interview. The boy? His mother? Mary Kay? Gehrke?

“Anybody,” he said.

Karen O'Leary and cameraman Tom Matsuzawa made their way to south Seattle, but once there, Karen realized she had left the Samoan family's name and address back at the station. She went to see Nick Latham at the Highline School District.

“She showed up at Highline, with her cell phone, and told me, 'Bill Lord told me I've got to get an interview with Vili, help me find him,'” recalled the public relations officer. It made for an awkward moment and the beginning of a strain on their friendship. Nick couldn't tell Karen anything; the district and the Fualaaus had made it clear that legal action was a possibility if they disclosed information about Vili. Moreover, he wondered why she needed it from him anyway. All the information she wanted was on the charging papers filed by King County anyway. Name, address, probably phone number, too.

“I can't help you find him,” he said finally.

It was time for a Coke and plan B. Karen went to a nearby Burger King.

“Do you know that boy who was involved with Mary Letourneau?” she asked a group of teens hanging around the fast food restaurant.

The kids didn't flinch or hesitate.

“Oh, yeah, Vili… Buddha,” said one.

“I know his telephone number,” added another. “Here it is.”

It was that easy at Burger King and it probably would have been just as easy at Taco Time. The teens admitted that it was common knowledge that Vili was the mystery boy involved with Mary Kay Letourneau. Everyone, it seemed, knew.

Some secret, Karen thought. Kids aren't dumb. They are observant. Everyone knew this boy.

The house at White Center was modest and rundown. Karen O'Leary left the cameraman in the car and knocked on the door. Vili answered. He looked like a boy of thirteen, maybe fourteen. To the veteran reporter, Mary Kay Letourneau's boyfriend/victim did not look like a mature young man, as the lawyers had tried to portray him. He was small, gangly, and self-conscious like a kid. Karen introduced herself, though she needn't have. Vili immediately knew who she was and said so. She said she'd seen the Today show interview and the two talked about the story.

“Now that you've done national TV, we'd like to interview you for a local story.”

“Okay,” he said.

They talked a bit longer and Vili excused himself and went back inside. Karen could hear him converse with a couple of others. Later Vili would tell her that his sister, Leni, and his aunt were home.

“We said we'd disguise his face using pixalization. He knew what that was,” Karen said later. “We talked for five or ten minutes.”

Then Karen asked to use the restroom.

“I needed to use the restroom, is all,” she explained later. “It wasn't any kind of a ruse. I'm a television reporter. I didn't have a camera with me. What difference would it have made that I was inside? He was already talking to me.”

A few minutes later, he brought out baby Audrey to show to the reporter and the cameraman. The baby was very cute and they asked if they could take her picture.

Vili said yes at first, but later changed his mind.

“I don't think my mom would like that,” he said.

They took video of some of his artwork, the bassinet, and a car seat. When it came time for the interview, Vili considered the most appropriate venue. First the inside of the house was all right, then he thought the porch would be better. Finally, he said it would be best to tape it at nearby Hicks Lake Park.

Before they left, Vili washed off a stylized m with a heart that he had drawn on his hand like a mock tattoo. He was embarrassed and didn't want any kids to see it when he was on television. He was embarrassed, not because the m stood for Mary, which it did, but because he thought friends would tease him for writing it on himself.

Sitting at a picnic table not far from the tennis courts in the park, Vili Fualaau gave his second major interview. And though she'd hate to admit it later, it was the most important of Karen O'Leary's career. Not for what her subject said, but for how it would affect her life for nearly a year.