Sex. Murder. Mystery.

by Gregg Olsen

  Mary Kay Letourneau was admitted to a Seattle hospital for observation overnight. Her pelvic bone had separated, her left shoulder was bruised, and her left leg and elbows had been scraped by the fall. A day or so later she talked with Steve.

  “He said he wished he had killed her and the baby”

  Weighing in at nine pounds, ten ounces, Audrey Lokelani Fualaau was born on May 29, 1997, at Swedish Hospital in Seattle. Named for a beloved aunt of Mary Kay's and given a Samoan middle name meaning “rose of heaven,” the baby's hair was as black as her teenage father's. And just as John Schmitz had done some sixteen years before when Carla Stuckle gave birth to their son, Vili Fualaau emerged from the waiting room and held his baby in secret.

  But Vili wasn't alone, and neither was Mary Kay. Her music teacher friend from Shorewood, Beth Adair, was there to support and encourage Mary and Vili on their happy day. Also in attendance were scads of Vili's relatives—brothers, cousins, aunts, and uncles.

  “Every Samoan in Seattle was there,” Mary joked later.

  Strangely, presiding over the scene was not the new mother, but the mother of the boy who had just become a father. “She's the Samoan Queen,” Mary told a friend. “She's the matriarch of the family in any way that you can imagine. No question. She is in charge of every move that family makes.”

  Before her baby was born, Mary Kay wrote a message that she hoped would someday help the child understand her love for Vili and how difficult it had all been. “People are putting me down. Accusing me of being mentally unfit because I allowed him to love me and I returned that love… ”

  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.

  “She wasn't giving the teachers any information unless they asked about it. Food and cards came from different schools so we knew people were concerned but we never had support or concern from the district, not once,” said a teacher from Shorewood.

  And they needed support in the most desperate way. They had children crying in class because of the stress of losing the beloved teacher in such a stunning and public way. Others acted out because they were mad at the replacement the district had hired. For a time, even the parents picked at the wound.

  “One father said of the substitute that she was fine, but she was no Mary Kay Letourneau,” recalled a teacher. “Thank God she was no Mary Kay Letourneau.”

  The goal of the Shorewood teacher group was to just get through the day and do their best to make sure that the children received the best education possible. No matter what had been disclosed that day—and every day seemed to bring another tawdry revelation—the teachers numbly went about their duties. When 9:05 arrived and the kids would come in, they'd put on a different face and pretend that nothing about Mary Kay Letourneau mattered at all.

  “Trying,” one said, “to protect the kids from being hassled.”

  The media intrusion was a hindrance to the educational process in ways that no school should have to endure. The media that was camped out on the street had been ordered to stay away from students.

  “They could step on the sidewalk, but not one foot on the lawn,” recalled a teacher.

  But they tried. They followed kids. They shadowed teachers as they walked into the building. Their satellite trucks sprang like oversize toadstools all along the street in front of Shorewood. One second-grader came up to her teacher and pointed out the window to the television vans lined up.

  “
So we had this impromptu lesson. What's a good time to be on TV and what's not a good time to be on TV? What do people say when they don't want to talk? No comment. That's what you need to say.”

  It upset the Shorewood teachers when Mary Letourneau's class photo and another taken by a teacher at camp found their way into the pages of magazines and newspapers. They were outraged when they learned that the district had given permission for their use. Weren't students supposed to be protected?

  Further irony came later when a national magazine published the class photo and only Vili Fualaau's image had been blurred to protect his privacy.

  None of the other students had their identity obscured in any way.

  “I'm surprised no parent sued the district. I would have,” said one Shorewood teacher.

  Instead of making matters better, the counselor at the school inadvertently fanned the flames, according to a teacher who witnessed her “approach” to the crisis.

  “Our own counselor was more of a problem,” said the teacher.

  The counselor went before the students of room 39 and asked questions that led to nothing but pain for the woman who was trying to salvage the school year for the group abandoned by their beloved teacher's arrest.

  “What did you love about Mrs. Letourneau?” the young woman asked.

  The kids piped up with a litany of praise. She was fun. Pretty. Let them do what they wanted. Lots of art. Music. Fun.

  “What do you hate about Mrs. [new teacher]?”

  The kids didn't volunteer anything, so the counselor prodded them.

  “Is there anything you are doing in class that you don't like? Is there anything that Mrs. [new teacher] is doing that you don't like?”

  Finally the words came.

  “I don't see why we have to… ”

  Other voices joined in, as the kids complained about the new order under Mary's replacement. The lessons. The extra work. All of it.

  Later, when the kids in the class had left for the day, a dumbfounded teacher who had witnessed the exercise berated the counselor for turning the students against the substitute teacher. How was that going to help the students move on? Other techniques at healing the wounds of the scandal only served to anger the remaining teachers even more. It particularly miffed some teachers when the counselor allowed Mary Letourneau's students to keep a notebook of the articles written about the “love affair” between teacher and student. The kids were told they could look at the contents of the binder any time they wanted—even when class was in session.

  Chapter 48

  SHE NEVER SAID it out loud because it would have hurt her friend so much. But the idea spun circles in Michelle Jarvis's head when she made her first trip to Seattle a day after Audrey was born. Where was someone, anyone, from Mary Kay's family? It was Michelle who had the duty of bringing Mary Kay home with her newborn daughter.

  Where's her support system? she asked herself. I can't believe that I'm it. I'm the only one.

  If ever someone needed the love of a family, it was Mary Kay. She had been arrested, lost her job, run out of money, and was alone. Her four other children were dispatched to live in Alaska, Washington, D.C., and Tempe, Arizona, with relatives. Her hostile husband, living with his cousins in Bonney Lake, was around enough to make things as uncomfortable as possible. And all Mary Kay had was Michelle Jarvis and Beth Adair. Mary Kay spent the first night out of the hospital with Beth, the music teacher from Shorewood. She hadn't wanted to spend the first night at home alone. Michelle came up and drove her to Normandy Park the next day.

  The house was a mess. The kitchen floor was so dirty, it could have been plowed. Boxes were everywhere. Michelle cleaned up, filled the refrigerator, and made casseroles for the freezer. She tried to put some order back in Mary Kay's life. Things had slipped so far in the months since she became involved with the mystery student. Or had they? Michelle reminded herself that the only glimpses she'd had of Mary Kay's life with Steve in Seattle had been school pictures, and the orchestrated photographs of the family dressed in matching sweaters in front of a perfect Christmas tree nestled in a drift of gorgeously wrapped packages.

  This place was not only in utter disarray, it was dangerous, too. Carpet tack strips had been left along the walls and in the doorways from the day the Letourneaus decided they wanted to refinish the hardwood floors. When Michelle stepped on the tacks for the second time, she asked Mary Kay how she could live like that.

  Mary Kay shrugged it off. It wasn't a problem.

  “What about your kids? You let them run around the house like this?”

  “Oh, they learn to avoid stepping on it.”

  Michelle was astonished. A mother of three, she wouldn't have dreamed of leaving such a hazard and having such a cavalier attitude about it. It would have taken only a couple of hours to pry off the most dangerous tacks. But Steve and Mary Kay hadn't bothered.

  “There were other things that were much more important.” she said later. “Which is kind of the Schmitz mentality. You keep up appearances at all cost.”

  One other thing surprised and worried Michelle during her stay at the house in Normandy Park. Steve Letourneau was still around. Mary Kay had led her childhood friend to believe that Steve had already left the residence. But during the week that Michelle was there, Steve returned several times and each time tension filled the air. Mary Kay repeated her concern that she feared additional rage when “he saw… the black hair, and the olive skin… ” And at one point, Steve's anger at the situation and his apparent hatred for his wife frightened Michelle enough to pick up the phone and threaten to call the police.

  In many ways Mary Kay was her own worst enemy. Maybe it had always been that way. But her defiance of the court order stipulating no contact with Vili troubled Michelle. Yes, Michelle could concede, the two had feelings for each other, but “feelings” wasn't enough. Whenever Mary Kay got off the phone with Vili, Michelle met her with an icy stare and a word of warning.

  “You are playing with fire and you better knock it off.”

  Mary Kay didn't care. She was going to do what she wanted to do. She deserved it. It was her chance at happiness.

  “She ignored me, like she always does,” Michelle told a friend later.

  After a week of cooking, cleaning, and worrying, Michelle took Mary Kay and Audrey to a restaurant for a last meal together. After they ate, they watched the sun set and sipped Grand Marnier. Audrey slept soundly and Michelle told her friend she thought she had been blessed with such a good baby. Both cried as they said their good-byes. Mary Kay trusted that she'd never go to jail, and in time, the whole problem would be sorted out.

  “I'll be all right,” she said.

  There was a hole in the neighborhood when the Letourneau kids were gone—and never coming back. Ellen Douglas was left with the difficult task of supporting her son and daughter through a crisis that had reached out and abruptly snatched their best friends. She knew how tough Mary Kay's arrest had been on her son and daughter, but she knew that whatever their pain and confusion it had to be a billionfold for Steven, Mary Claire, Nicholas, and Jackie. With Audrey's birth and their parent's divorce inevitable things had to feel very unsettling.

  Ellen would never forget how excited ten-year-old Mary Claire had been on the phone because she and her siblings were going to Washington, D.C., to go to school—and they were leaving right away. They'd be living with their Aunt Liz. After school was let out, they'd be visiting other relatives, including their father's in Alaska.

  I'm sure this is cool, Ellen thought as she listened to Mary Claire burble on about the new school without a clue about what was to come, but there's something going on that you haven't allowed to sink in. Life as you know it is falling apart…

  Ellen's daughter, Jennifer, didn't get it completely, either. When Audrey was born the little girl asked her mother if they could go see the baby. Ellen knew it was important for Jennifer to see Audrey because the infant was her daughter's best friend's new baby si
ster. The difficulty for Ellen was the fact that she was a schoolteacher in the Highline District and she saw the pain that had resulted there—because of Mary Kay's relationship with her former student.

  Concern for her daughter won out. Ellen picked out a lovely little outfit as a baby gift and the pair went down the street.

  Cradling her newborn, Mary Kay welcomed mother and daughter inside. The house was eerie in its emptiness. Boxes and cartons bordered walls smudged by children who no longer lived there. A child's easel and plastic pool had been left behind in the carport. Talk centered on the baby's delivery with no mention of the disintegrating family or the acts that caused it.

  “We knew someone was there,” Ellen said later, “because she was not allowed to be alone. That was what the law said. She told us that it was her friend from California. We never saw the person. We were there twice. She said her friend was sleeping. The other time the shower was running the whole time we were there.”

  Ellen later wondered if Mary Kay really had someone there, or if perhaps someone who wasn't supposed to be there was hiding out waiting for the visitor to leave.

  Not long after Audrey was born, Mary Kay called Amber and Angie Fish to see if they could watch her newborn. She was required by the court to participate in some evaluations and treatment—and she wasn't happy about it. The twins were elated about the prospect of seeing the baby, partly because they loved Mary Kay, but also because their mother was so convinced that Audrey wasn't Steve Letoumeau's.

  Mary Kay was running late when she breezed into the condo. Her baby was in an infant carrier hidden by a blanket.

  “Audrey's asleep,” she said, dropping the diaper bag. “Here's her formula. She should sleep for a while.”

  Then she left, leaving the baby covered up.

  Amber would never forget that visit and how she and her sister were dying to take a look under the blanket.” We were all peeking under the blanket, but no one wanted to touch it. The minute she walked out the door, 'Oh my God!' ”