CANADA • Victoria STAFFORD, 8 ~ Woodstock ON

Rafferty lawyers apply to move trial
Jan. 19, 2011 6:19 PM ET


Victoria 'Tori' Stafford went missing on April 8, 2009.
Her remains were found nearly four months later.

Lawyers for Michael Rafferty, who is accused in connection with the murder of 8-year-old Victoria Stafford, have applied to have his trial relocated.

They are expected to argue Rafferty can't get a fair trial in Woodstock, where his victim lived.

The application was received by the courts Tuesday, and lawyers are expected to present their arguments to a judge on Feb. 7.

Rafferty is charged with first degree murder in the case, and his lawyers say he will plead not guilty. He is currently being held at a jail in Chatham, Ont.

Terri-Lynne McClintic pleaded guilty to a first degree murder charge in the case in April 2010.

A publication ban prevents the reporting of any other details in the application.

http://swo.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110119/swo-rafferty-trial-110119/20110119/?hub=SWOHome

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More on Terri-Lynne McClintic's guilty plea and the events that led to Tori's tragic demise at this link... http://www.canada.com/news/Guilty+plea+Tori+Stafford+murder+revealed/3951478/story.html#ixzz17dKNZfRD


The news travelled like a laser beam through the small snow-covered southern Ontario town Thursday: a woman had confessed and been sentenced for the murder of eight-year-old Victoria (Tori) Stafford.

Read more here:
http://www.canada.com/news/tori-stafford/index.html

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Stafford's accused killer gets change of venue
February 7, 2011

WOODSTOCK, Ont. — The people of Woodstock, Ont., won’t get to sit in judgment of the man accused of stealing and killing one of their little girls.

An agreement in court Monday will instead allow Michael Thomas Rafferty, 29, charged with the murder of eight-year-old Tori Stafford, to be tried outside the girl’s hometown, and indeed, entirely outside surrounding Oxford County.

Clean-shaven with close-cropped hair and wearing a grey suit, but no shackles or handcuffs, Rafferty made a rare personal appearance in court to hear arguments about the change of venue.

He watched the day’s dry legal debate in silence and showed no reaction to what one legal expert called the “uncommon” decision to move the trial.

But he smiled and joked with his lawyers during breaks, shocking the victim’s father.

“You stand accused of first-degree murder, I don’t know how you can sit in a courtroom and laugh and joke around. You should be worried,” Rodney Stafford said outside court.

It was the first time Stafford had seen Rafferty in person. Most of the accused’s other appearances have been through video from jail.

The distraught father told reporters he had to restrain himself from doing anything irrational.

“It’s really hard. Just four rows of people stopping me from wanting to get to the front of the courtroom, but I just can’t.”

Asked what went through his mind while staring at Rafferty, Stafford had one word: “Fry. That’s all. No matter what happens, it’s never going to be enough justice for Victoria.”

Stafford said he doesn’t care where the trial is held, as long as it’s done properly.

“Tori deserves justice. I just want to get that done. I’d go overseas if I had to make sure justice was served.”

Tori’s mother, Tara McDonald, didn’t speak to reporters as she quickly left the courthouse.

Tori was abducted in April 2009 while walking home from school in Woodstock.

Her disappearance sparked a cross-Canada search, but hopes were dashed when Rafferty and co-accused, Terri-Lynne McClintic, were charged with murder in May of the same year.

Tori’s body was found in July 2009.

In April 2010, McClintic, 20, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Rafferty’s trial isn’t expected to take place until later this year at the earliest.

Monday, Crown attorney Brian Crockett told court he’d consent to an application by Rafferty’s lawyers to move that trial out of Oxford County.

The decision was made for administrative reasons and had nothing to do with court security or Rafferty’s ability to get a fair trial, Crockett said.

But it was clear Rafferty’s lawyers were satisfied the agreement gave the accused a better chance of a fair trail.

“The concern was always that the people of any given municipality see things extraordinarily strongly because of the fact it is local,” his lawyer Dirk Derstine said.

“All we want for Mr. Rafferty is a fair trial. We are trying to do everything we can to make sure that happens."

Derstine said his client is struggling as he awaits trial.

“It is very hard for Mr. Rafferty. You can only imagine how hard it would be for anybody sitting in a cell contemplating a trial coming up about this.”

Successful change of venue applications are rare in Canadian courts, one expert said.

“It’s uncommon. There is a strong presumption against changing a venue,” said Chris Sherrin, a former lawyer who now teaches law at the University of Western Ontario.

“The accused person is supposed to be tried where the alleged crime occurred.”

That’s because witnesses tend to live where the alleged crime happened and because it’s that community’s “values” that have been violated, Sherrin said.

A venue can be changed if it’s “expedient to the ends of justice,” according to statues, and the vast majority of trials that are moved — they’re few and far between — tend to be on the grounds of adverse pre-trial publicity.

“That tends to be the primary ground,” Sherrin said. “But there are traditional trial safeguards that are in place to make sure pre-trial publicity does not affect the outcome of a trial.”

A publication ban on Monday’s hearing allows only partial information to be released.

Further submissions about the trial’s location are expected as the hearing continues Tuesday.

http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2011/02/07/17187251.html#/news/canada/2011/02/07/pf-17185581.html

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Rafferty's former girlfriend, 20-year-old Terri Lynne McClintic, was convicted in the killing after she pleaded guilty to first-degree murder on April 30, 2010. She was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

McClintic confessed to being high on drugs before luring the blond-haired, blue-eyed girl away from school with the promise of showing her a puppy. McClintic said Tori was chosen at random.

Her plea was sealed under a controversial publication ban, which was lifted in early December.

Publication Ban Lifted In Tori Stafford Case

McClintic Full Statement: Part 1 | Part 2

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A trial site to be decided by April
February 8, 2011



London was discussed as a potential venue for the first-degree murder trial.

Other cities, such as Hamilton and Brampton, were also named as possible locations where Michael Rafferty could potentially get a fair trial.

Superior Court Justice Thomas Heeney reserved his judgment on the change of venue application and other issues, but agreed to move the trial outside of Oxford County.

The Oxford Crown attorney's office consented to the move for administrative reasons.

Crown attorney Brian Crockett said their decision has nothing to do with whether a fair and impartial trial can be held here.

"We have confidence the citizens could have done justice in those terms," he said, adding his office was not conceding that Woodstock's courthouse was not a proper facility.

"It is not in any way a reflection of the citizens of this county."

Rafferty's lawyer used comments made Monday by Tori's dad to bolster his case to have the trial moved out of Oxford County.

Toronto lawyer Dirk Derstine said Rodney Stafford's commentary published in a Sun Media newspaper speaks to the inability of his client to have a fair trial here.

Stafford was quoted as saying he wanted Rafferty to "fry."

Stafford told reporters outside court Tuesday he has a lot of resentment towards Rafferty.

"He is accused of abducting and murdering my child … I have a right to be angry," he said.

Read More + Video

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. . . . . . . . . .
Michael Rafferty, who appeared in court for a pre-trial hearing, leaves the courthouse in Woodstock, Ont., February 7, 2011.
Rafferty faces a first-degree murder charge in the abduction and death of Grade 3 student Tori Stafford.


London, Ont., chosen as Tori Stafford trial venue
March 4, 2011

WOODSTOCK, Ont. - A first-degree murder trial for the man accused of killing eight-year-old Tori Stafford will be held in London, Ont.

Defence concerns over pre-trial publicity prejudicing Michael Rafferty's right to a fair trial in Woodstock, Ont., prompted the request to change venues.

Tori disappeared on her way home from school in Woodstock in April 2009 and her remains were later found more than 100 kilometres north of the city.

Following a change of venue hearing in February, Superior Court Justice Thomas Heeney released his decision today that Rafferty's trial is to be held in London, 50 kilometres west of Woodstock.

Rafferty's co-accused, Terri-Lynne McClintic, has already been convicted of first-degree murder in Tori's kidnapping and death in a case that traumatized her southwestern Ontario community.

Rafferty's next appearance is slated for April 6 in London.

http://www.globaltoronto.com/world/London+chosen+Tori+Stafford+trial+venue/4385993/story.html

More: Guilty plea revealed in Tori Stafford murder

MESSAGE FROM POSTER: WARNING THIS IS VERY GRAPHIC.

Tori Stafford murder trial: Terri-Lynne McClintic describes killing little girl


Published On Wed Mar 14 2012



Terri-Lynne McClintic, 21, testifies at the Tori Stafford murder trial in London on Tuesday.
LONDON, ONT.—I can’t begin at the heart-shattering end, with a
confessed murderess wielding her hammer against the covered face of an
8-year-old child.

Yes, hide her face so you can’t see what’s being destroyed.

I can’t begin in the middle, with an accused killer in the back seat of a Honda Civic with the little girl, allegedly raping her repeatedly.

I can’t even begin at the beginning, with Tori Stafford
trustingly putting her small hand into the palm of the teenager who’s
admitted to abduction: Come see my Shih Tzu puppy, sweetheart.

There is no soft place to land in any of the ghastly testimony that
Terri-Lynne McClintic delivered in a quiet, halting voice from the
witness stand Tuesday, entire minutes of silence passing between
questions and answers.

It is a wrenching narrative that can’t be told with dignity for the
victim or sensitivity for her parents, both of whom listened with
expressions of horror and excruciating pain.

Tara McDonald
buried her head in her fists, a curtain of dark hair obstructing the
view of a mother’s grief. Rodney Stafford wiped tears away with his
shirt sleeve. They came to bear witness to a beloved daughter defiled
and slain. These are the images they will carry to their graves, and
Tori’s voice in McClintic’s mouth.

“Don’t let him do it to me again,” the child had begged.

“Stay with me,” she’d pleaded.

McClintic ignored Tori’s screams, walked away from the torture being
inflicted on a child, turned her back on the youngster she’d procured.

And then, says McClintic, she killed her.

Stopped gazing mutely, stupidly, at the horizon from where she’d been standing at the edge of a field.

“I went back to the vehicle and I savagely murdered that little girl.”

She was the one, McClintic told court, and not Michael Rafferty,
who’s on trial for first-degree murder, sexual assault and kidnapping.
And though McClintic had pleaded guilty to first-degree murder two years
ago, is serving a life sentence for it, the raw statement, the claim,
stunned everyone in the packed courtroom.

It just hung there, the inhumanity of so beastly a crime.

The witness doesn’t look much like she did in a Woodstock courtroom
on April 30, 2010. Her hair has been lopped off, cut to chin-length and
stylishly framing a round face that still carries pudgy baby fat.
McClintic is 21 now. In the defendant’s dock, 31-year-old Rafferty has
shorn his hair from a week ago, shaved now into a military cut, like a
jarhead.

He keeps his head down mostly, scribbling on a note pad.

Under direct examination from Crown Attorney Kevin Gowdey, McClintic
described what she says happened late on the afternoon of April 8, 2009,
a few hours after Tori had been lured away while leaving Oliver
Stephens elementary school in Woodstock.

She’d stared at a silo in the distance, trying to block out the
sounds of assault coming from the car parked about 12 metres away from
where she stood.

“I kept having flashbacks. Sometimes it was like I wasn’t even there.
I realized I needed to do something so I turned back to the vehicle and
. . . when I saw what was going on, all I saw was myself when I was
that age and all the anger and hate and rage that I’d had and blame that
I still feel towards myself came boiling up out of me.”

It was all about her rage, you see, not what Tori was suffering; Tori
who was still alive at that moment, lying on the ground alongside the
Honda, as McClintic recalled it. “I . . . I . . . I started kicking
her.”

A garbage bag — one of those McClintic had bought earlier — was
placed over Tori’s face. Who put it on her, Gowdey asked? “I believe it
was me.”

Then, in the passive voice: “She was struck with a hammer.”

Gowdey: “Who struck her with a hammer?”

McClintic: “Me.”

This is the Crown’s witness, their key witness against the accused.

Then Rafferty, McClintic testified, began “putting the rest of her” in more garbage bags.

“He yelled at me to help him . . . that I was in just as far as him now. So I helped him.”

Together, court heard, they buried Tori under a pile of rocks beneath a tree. The child’s remains would be found 103 days later.

Yet McClintic knew how it would end for Tori, realized it when the
couple was driving away from the school, with the child sitting on the
floor in the back seat, Rafferty’s pea jacket thrown over her, and
certainly knew when they turned down a rural laneway north of Guelph.

“We can’t keep her and we can’t take her back,” McClintic says Rafferty told her.

It could have halted there, if McClintic had done . . . something,
anything. Instead, she chose not to challenge Rafferty. So she made
small talk with Tori, convinced Rafferty to at least allow the child to
sit up.

“There was a little bit of conversation with Tori. That was me trying
to reassure her, tell her everything was going to be okay. I guess
reassure myself at the same time.”

Stop it here, McClintic’s account of what happened to that frightened
yet preternaturally brave youngster. Go back to the start, a few hours
earlier, a few months earlier.

McClintic fatefully crossed paths with Rafferty in February 2009,
while picking up a pizza. She was a teenager of low self-esteem, born to
a mother who’d given her away to “a fellow dancer” at birth, raised by
this woman who was both an alcoholic and drug addict. By her late teens,
McClintic — who only finished Grade 8 — was also a heavy user of
OxyContin and other drugs, with six arrests on her record, charges
ranging from robbery to assault.

On the day McClintic met Rafferty she had sex with him in his car.

They dated, though Rafferty could be cruel, “like he was so much better than me, making me feel real down on myself.”

That April 8, McClintic, after signing in at a local employment
centre, returned home and found Rafferty waiting in the driveway.
Rafferty said he was going to Guelph and would she like to come?
Instead, he parked beside Oliver Stephens school. “So, are you gonna do
it?” he asked McClintic, she told court. “I said, ‘do what?’ He said, ‘I
knew it. I knew you were all talk, no action.’ ” She understood what he
meant. Earlier in their relationship, Rafferty had casually asked:
“Would you think it was weird if I asked you to kidnap somebody?”

McClintic told court she became defensive when Rafferty accused her
of being all talk and no action, ready to prove herself game. “He said I
just want you to grab someone. He said it’ll be easy. ‘All you have to
do is talk about dogs or candy or something like that.’

“He told me he wanted a younger female because the younger they were, the easier they were to manipulate.”

She got out of the car. “My plan was to say I couldn’t find anybody.”
As she walked toward the school, Rafferty pulled up closer, parking at a
nearby retirement home. Kids were just getting out of school. McClintic
spotted Tori, a little girl walking by herself. McClintic fell in
alongside. “I remember asking her name and if she wanted me to walk with
her. I remember her telling me her name was Victoria but everybody
called her Tori.”

They chatted about dogs. Tori said she had a Shih Tzu. McClintic said
she had one too, a puppy in the car, inviting the child to come have a
look. As they crossed the road “she grabbed on to my hand.”

When Tori peeked into the back seat of the Honda, McClintic pushed her in and they took off.

From the back seat, a frightened Tori asked where they were going.
McClintic said she tried to calm the child by asking her favourite
colour (purple), favourite time of year (Halloween) and favourite TV
character (Hannah Montana).

They drove to a Tim Hortons where McClintic stayed with Tori while
Rafferty went inside. They stopped to buy Percocet at a dealer’s house.
When they made another pit stop so Rafferty could withdraw money from an
ATM, Tori told McClintic not to leave her with the man. In Guelph, they
pulled into a Home Depot where, as instructed, McClintic purchased
garbage bags and a claw hammer.

Tori demanded to know “when could I go home?”

“I said I’d make sure she got home, that I wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”

She lied.

Coming off the highway, bumping over country roads, Rafferty began
masturbating as he drove. That’s when he said they couldn’t keep Tori.

In a secluded copse, with McClintic allegedly out of the vehicle,
Rafferty clambered into the back seat. “I knew what was going to happen
and I didn’t want to be there when it happened,” she testified. “I
believed he was going to rape Tori.”

He did.

“I could hear voices, yells. I heard Tori scream.”

McClintic said Rafferty summoned her because Tori needed to go to the
bathroom. “She grabbed on to my hand.” The child was naked except for
her Hannah Montana T-shirt. As the child urinated near the car,
McClintic noticed “blood in the snow.”

“I told her I was sorry. She said, ‘Just don’t let him do it again.’ I told her she was a very strong girl.”

When McClintic returned Tori to the car, “she still had a hold of my
hand. She didn’t want to let go. She asked me to stay with her. So I got
in the front seat and I tried to hold on to her hand. But I knew what
was about to happen and that I couldn’t be there for that.”

Again, McClintic left Tori to her terrible ordeal.

And then this woman — who professes such tender feelings for Tori,
who couldn’t bear to watch a rape — kicked her, bludgeoned her, killed
her.

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1145839--tori-stafford-accused-killer-s-girlfriend-admits-bludgeoning-child-to-death

I think this sorry excuse for a human is lying to protect her man. Talking about "standing by your man".

This is so sad and heartbreaking. I don't know how her parents are enduring sitting through this. I would have to be restrained to keep from trying to kill this bitch with my bare hands.

I could never finish this post because my computer wouldn't let me type .

I just wanted to say that Rafferty knew this dear child was going to be killed and he planned on killing her. How obvious is that when he bought the trash bags, hammer etc.
Such evil in the world is frightening. What a beautiful, happy looking, endearing child.

Tori Stafford murder trial: Woman says she found discarded shoes
Published On Wed Mar 28 2012

LONDON, ONT. — The shoes that Terri-Lynne McClintic says she wore when Tori Stafford was killed were the focus today at the first-degree murder trial of McClintic’s former boyfriend.

McClintic testified earlier at Michael Rafferty’s trial that after Tori was killed north of Guelph, Ont., he instructed her to throw her shoes out the car window on a sideroad.

Rafferty, 31, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, sexual assault causing bodily harm and kidnapping.

A woman who lives in the area testified today that in about early April 2009 — the month Tori was killed — she was taking a walk on Sideroad 6 near her home north of Guelph and found a pair of white basketball shoes with blue trim and a single shoe.

Lillian Metcalfe says she threw the single shoe out and took the pair of shoes home and washed them, intending to donate them to Goodwill. On May 30 she gave them to police while they were canvassing the area and McClintic later identified them as hers.

The jury saw the blue and white Shaq basketball shoes as they were entered as an exhibit at the trial today.

Metcalfe also said there was a car’s back seat in the same area of the side road for a while. She mentioned it to police since she had heard they were searching for Rafferty’s back seat, but by May 30 it was no longer there. She then told the officer about the shoes and he asked her to describe them, Metcalfe said.

“I said, ‘Well, I think I can do one better than that,’” Metcalfe testified Wednesday. “’I have the shoes in the house. Would you like to see them?”

Tori’s remains were found partially clothed in a field near Mount Forest, further north of Guelph, more than 100 days after she went missing April 8, 2009.

McClintic testified that after Tori was killed Rafferty went to great lengths to cover up their crime, including hiding Tori’s body under a rock pile, reversing over tire tracks to make them less distinguishable, providing McClintic with a change of clothes, discarding the clothes they were wearing as well as the murder weapon and throwing out the shoes.

“He turned his lights off and pulled onto the sideroad,” McClintic testified earlier about their actions following the murder. “He said, ‘We need to get rid of our shoes, so I believe I tossed my pair of shoes out the car window. He gave me a pair of shoes to wear and he put on a different pair of shoes as well then we drove off.”

Rafferty then drove to a car wash in Cambridge, Ont., where they hosed down the car and shampooed the interior, McClintic testified.

McClintic is already serving a life sentence after pleading guilty two years ago to first-degree murder. The trial heard from her as the central witness in the case over two weeks, with questioning largely focusing on inconsistencies in her story.

When she first confessed and when she later pleaded guilty, she said it was Rafferty who killed Tori using the hammer. But she testified at Rafferty’s trial that it was she who wielded the hammer.

The Crown alleges Rafferty and McClintic abducted Tori outside her elementary school and drove her to a rural area more than 100 kilometres north, where she was raped and violently killed.

The trial is not sitting Thursday, but resumes Friday with what the Crown says will be “quite a full day.”

http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/article/1153092--tori-stafford-murder-trial-woman-says-she-found-discarded-shoes

Poster's note: Well, this is turn I hadn't thought of. Hmmm, lawyers!

Tori Stafford murder trial: McClintic was killing’s mastermind, lawyer charges
Published On Fri Mar 23 2012

LONDON, ONT. — Terri-Lynne McClintic abducted and murdered Tori Stafford to settle a drug debt and even “offered” the little girl sexually to her then boyfriend Michael Rafferty.

When Rafferty turned down that “gift,” McClintic told him to drive north, ostensibly to a safe house. But in a secluded laneway in rural Mount Forest, McClintic asked Rafferty for a little time alone to talk to Tori. When he returned to the car, McClintic had hammered her to death.

That is what happened on April 8 2009, Dirk Derstine, Rafferty’s lawyer, said as he confronted McClintic on Friday and outlined the defence’s theory for the first time.

“Mr. Rafferty came back after the death ... he was horrified but helped you (clean up),” Derstine told McClintic, adding that she was the mastermind behind the horrific plot to kill Tori.

McClintic denied it vehemently.

It was the most dramatic day yet in the murder trial that began three weeks ago.

Tori, 8, was abducted on April 8, 2009. McClintic and Michael Rafferty were arrested a month later and charged with abduction and murder. McClintic pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in April 2010. Rafferty, 31, is accused in the first-degree murder, sexual assault and abduction.

His trial began on March 5.

McClintic, 21, the Crown’s star witness, spent her sixth day on the witness stand Friday. She has admitted to luring and killing Tori but has maintained that Rafferty orchestrated the events of that day, that he was the one who wanted to abduct and rape a child.

“We have video of you abducting Tori Stafford, video of you buying murder tools,” Derstine pointed out. “And largely about your word on who was the engine in this case, who made it happen.”

Derstine, who has been grilling McClintic since Wednesday afternoon, reminded her that she had several opportunities to flee with Tori or seek help.

She didn’t.

Derstine said McClintic did not try to escape because the abduction and murder were her plan.

McClintic, the court had heard, was alone with Tori three times before they drove to Mount Forest, their final destination. She was in the car with Tori at a Tim Hortons in Guelph, in a residential neighbourhood in that town where Rafferty picked up some Percocet pills, and finally when he went into a gas station to withdraw money.

At the Tim Hortons, Rafferty went inside while McClintic waited in the car with Tori. McClintic asked him to get her a green tea.

“If there’s a child cowering in the back seat of your car, how is it that you’re coming up with the idea that a tea would be lovely?” Derstine asked.

“I don’t know how my mind was working any better than anyone else does,” said a tearful McClintic.

Earlier Friday, Derstine played a half-dozen “death-rap” songs by Necro, an underground band that McClintic has admitted she was a fan of.

The lyrics were about violence, stabbings and disposing of corpses. One song was titled “No Remorse.”

Derstine also showed the jury entries McClintic had made in her diary while in prison at Genest Detention Centre in London after she was arrested for an outstanding probation warrant in April 2009.

She raged about being incarcerated with younger people and at one point wrote: “I’m ... getting blood-thirsty again, it’s like I’m ... relapsin’ a bit.”

As recently as January 2012, McClintic had got into a vicious fight with a fellow inmate at the Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Derstine said.

He said McClintic asked to see an inmate ostensibly for peer support but quickly got into a brawl where she kicked and stomped the other woman.

“I confronted her about some things and things escalated,” McClintic testified. “And we got into a scrap.”

Derstine reminded her it was more than a scrap. “You were kicking and stomping on her.”

“Yes, I did assault her,” McClintic admitted.

While in prison, McClintic also told her godmother that she was sad about Tori’s death but only because Tori was a child. She said she could do it again, Derstine said.

McClintic said yes, she had said that to her godmother.

Derstine closed his cross-examination with a confession McClintic made to her godmother after Tori’s death: that as a child, she had microwaved a tiny family dog. At that time, she told everyone that the dog had been attacked by another animal and they believed her. The dog had to be put down.

The family had always believed that to be the truth.

“Because nobody, apparently, could believe that you could be so cruel,” Derstine said.

“I was a child,” said McClintic. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”

http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/article/1151011--tori-stafford-murder-trial-mcclintic-was-killing-s-mastermind-lawyer-charges

Transcript of police interview with Michael Rafferty on May 15, 2009

Michael Rafferty police interview

ladibug wrote: I could never finish this post because my computer wouldn't let me type .

I just wanted to say that Rafferty knew this dear child was going to be killed and he planned on killing her. How obvious is that when he bought the trash bags, hammer etc.
Such evil in the world is frightening. What a beautiful, happy looking, endearing child.

Yes you're right.

I have trouble with this murder,probably because we know so many of the graphic details. I don't see how a man can be this evil and find a woman as evil as he is.

My heart breaks for her parents. She was so beautiful, such a flower in bloom.

I don't think Canada has the DP.

A veteran police officer described in court Friday how he came to locate the remains of eight-year-old Victoria (Tori) Stafford, three months after the Ontario schoolgirl went missing.

Det. Staff Sgt. Jim Smyth of the Ontario Provincial Police was called to testify Friday morning at the murder trial of Michael Thomas Rafferty in London, Ont.

Rafferty, 31, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault causing bodily harm in connection with Tori's death.

Smyth testified he was brought in to help investigate the girl's disappearance on April 17, 2009, nine days after the Grade 3 student was last seen alive as she walked away from her school in Woodstock, Ont.

On May 19, 2009, Smyth interviewed Rafferty's former girlfriend, Terri-Lynne McClintic, who later pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the case and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

Smyth testified he prepared for his interview with McClintic by talking to other officers and digging into her past.

"The purpose of the interview overall was to assess McClintic's credibility in terms of whether we needed to investigate her further or not," Smyth said.

At that point, Smyth said police also wanted to ask McClintic about her relationship with Rafferty, whom police had spoken to four days before.

Smyth said he spoke with McClintic over the course of several hours, during which time she implicated herself and Rafferty in Tori's death. McClintic also offered to assist in the investigation.
McClintic offered to help police find Tori

McClintic offered to help police locate the body, which Smyth said took priority over confronting her about details in her story because officers were unsure how long she would be co-operative. They left Woodstock around 8 p.m. and headed toward a Home Depot in Guelph, but McClintic was confused as to the direction they had gone.
Jim Smyth of the Ontario Provincial Police arrives at the courthouse in London, Ont., Friday to testify at the Victoria (Tori) Stafford murder trial.Jim Smyth of the Ontario Provincial Police arrives at the courthouse in London, Ont., Friday to testify at the Victoria (Tori) Stafford murder trial.

The following day, Smyth said that officers again travelled with McClintic, including taking her up in a helicopter.

Repeated trips were taken with McClintic, but Tori's body was not found when she was present.

"There were certainly times that we thought we were close," Smyth said.

Smyth told the court that on July 17, 2009, police obtained phone records that indicated Rafferty's phone had been used in an area near Mount Forest on the day Tori disappeared. This suggested to investigators that they might have to search farther north of Guelph than they had previously thought.

Two days after receiving that information, Smyth travelled to Mount Forest, on July 19, 2009, hoping to provide suggestions to search teams.
Smyth sought to assess, not to search

"My goal was to do a bit of an assessment. I certainly wasn’t searching that day," Smyth said.

While driving in the area, Smyth noticed a house that was on an odd angle, something McClintic had consistently described as a landmark. The bungalow was similar in appearance to a picture that police had drawn up with McClintic's input.

The officer turned his vehicle around and saw a laneway across the road that went into a field. Smyth drove up the laneway, spotting a rock pile as he went forward. He kept driving, because McClintic had told police that they had passed a culvert.

When Smyth stopped and got out of his car at the top of a small hill, he saw another, larger rock pile, about 15 metres across. He also saw evergreen trees that McClintic had described.

When he approached the rock pile, Smyth said he detected "a slight odour which I believed to be decomposition."

He saw garbage bags and removed a rock from the pile before touching a bag.

"I believed that we had finally found Victoria Stafford," he said.

Smyth then carefully backtracked from the scene and contacted his superiors.
Victoria (Tori) Stafford's body was found in a rural area near Mount Forest, Ont., three months after she went missing. Victoria (Tori) Stafford's body was found in a rural area near Mount Forest, Ont., three months after she went missing.

By early afternoon, police officers gathered at the scene, including forensic identification officers and a pathologist. Tori's body was taken to Toronto the next day for a post-mortem examination.

The preliminary results indicated the Woodstock girl died of blunt force trauma to the head.

Smyth told jurors his last involvement with the case was on July 31, the day he attended Tori's funeral.

The defence did not have any questions for Smyth, who was excused early Friday afternoon.

The Crown next called Const. Gary Scoyne, a forensic identification officer with the OPP, who gave the jury a glimpse into the rural area near Mount Forest where Tori's body was found.

Scoyne, who has testified several times throughout the trial, presented a series of photographs taken by investigators in the days following Smyth's discovery, including some of the rock pile and laneway.

Justice Thomas Heeney warned the jurors that they were about to see some images that might be considered disturbing, as Scoyne showed pictures of what appeared to be a body inside garbage bags that had been partially covered by rocks.

The officer also showed a number of photographs taken in April 2011, when the seasonal conditions were similar to the day Tori disappeared.

The trial resumes next week.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2012/03/30/stafford-rafferty-trial.html

'I
feel like a part of my heart was ripped out': Brother of girl, 8, who
was abducted, raped and murdered confronts her killer in court as he is
handed down maximum sentence

• Michael Rafferty guilty of raping and murdering eight-year-old Tori Stafford
  
• Sentenced to life in prison without possibility for parole before 25 years
  
• Tori's family read out victim impact statements
  
• Rafferty still claims innocence
  
• Judge branded him an 'evil, twisted monster'
  

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 15:51 EST, 15 May 2012 |

UPDATED: 17:07 EST, 15 May 2012








Trial: Michael Rafferty, 31, has pleaded not guilty to murder, sexual assault and abduction, but was found guilty of all counts

The
man who brutally raped and murdered an eight-year-old girl on her way
home from school cried today as he listened to her brother talk about
how empty his life was without his sister.

As
he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole
for 25 years, Michael Rafferty, 31, from Ontario, continued to
vehemently deny he was responsible for the shocking murder of Victoria
'Tori' Stafford.

He
cried as he listened to the victim impact statements and apologized to
her family today saying: 'I am guilty of many crimes and there are a lot
of things I am very, very ashamed of, but these three counts I still
stand firmly behind not guilty.'

He
did admit he was 'very definitely part of why Tori is not here today'
and offered to tell her mother Tara McDonald 'all the pieces of the
puzzle' in private.


He was also sentenced to ten years to be served concurrently for sexual assault causing bodily harm and kidnapping.

When
handing out the sentence, Superior Court Judge Thomas Heeney told him
he took Tori's precious life simply to 'gratify his twisted and deviant
desire to have sex with a child', according to The Canadian Press.

He said: 'Only a monster could commit such an act of pure evil. You, sir, are a monster.'

Rafferty
did not take the stand once during the ten-week trial and today was the
first time he spoke since he gave his plea of not guilty.



Disturbing
case: Victoria 'Tori' Stafford was only eight-years-old when she was
abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered by a couple who were high on
drugs



Daryn
Stafford, brother of slain Victoria Stafford, wrote in his victim
impact statement: 'This is my reality. No more fun times, just old
memories. No more I love you¿s, just an empty spot in my heart'


[caption


Tori's
brother Daryn Stafford's statement was read out by crown attorney
Stephanie Venne in which he revealed he was lost without Tori.

'My
baby sister was taken from me and that’s not something I can go buy in a
store and replace. No hugs, no see you later, no goodbyes, just a part
of my heart ripped out.


'My
sister was the only person I had to talk to. Someone that felt what I
felt, cried when I cried, laughed when I laughed and now I feel alone,
like the world is playing a sick trick on me, but it’s not.


'This is my reality. No more fun times, just old memories. No more I love you’s, just an empty spot in my heart.'

After the verdict was announced Mr Stafford stood outside the courthouse with a photo of his daughter.


'We got it. We got justice!' he told reporters.


'And
it was all for this little girl right here. And not just for Tori but
for every little child in Canada who doesn't deserve what happened to
her.'


During
the trial, the horrifying brutality with which the eight-year-old was
raped and murdered has been laid bare, as graphic photographs of her
mutilated body were shown to a packed courtroom.


Tori
Stafford may still have been alive as she was being stamped on and
beaten with a hammer before her corpse was stuffed into plastic bags and
buried beneath a pile of rocks, jurors heard.

But
perhaps most haunting of all, was what she was wearing when her
decomposed body was found 103 days later - just a Hannah Montana T-shirt
with the words: 'A girl can dream.'

Jurors
wept and the little girl's father ran out as the court viewed the
pictures, some of which were so horrifying that the judge banned even
the reporting of their content.

The
blonde and blue-eyed High School Musical fan went missing on her way
home from school in Woodstock, Ontario, on April 8, 2009, sparking a
hunt for the little girl that would last for three months.



Hugs:
Tara McDonald, right, mother of slain Victoria Stafford, and her mother
Linda Winters hug following the sentencing hearing for Michael Rafferty
in London, Ontario, today



Justice
is served: Rodney Stafford, Tori's father, holds up her picture as he
talks to the media in front of the courthouse in London, Ontario





Overjoyed: Tara McDonald (left), Tori's mother, received a hug from a family member outside the court




Several
important pieces of evidence were not released to jurors, including the
fact that Rafferty’s laptop was used the day before Tori’s abduction to
look up terms like ‘underage rape,’ ‘real underage rape pictures, and
‘nude preteen,’ CBC said.

In addition, a torture video was found on his laptop.

However,
the potentially damaging information was considered inadmissible
because police obtained it without a secondary warrant.


Judge
Heeney ruled that a laptop – due to the massive amounts of personal and
sensitive information it holds – should be considered a ‘place,’ and
not merely a ‘thing.’

Though
officers had the proper warrants to search Rafferty’s car and home, the
police would have needed to obtain a second warrant for the computer
and his BlackBerry, the Globe and Mail said.



Local drug addicts Michael Rafferty, 31, and Terri-Lynne McClintic, 21, were arrested a month later and charged with her murder.


In April 2010, McClintic pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life, while Rafferty denied all charges.


Warm embrace: Rodney Stafford (facing camera) is hugged by supporters





Close by and not forgotten: Ms McDonald showed a bracelet full of pictures of her slain daughter

During the trial, many graphic images were shown to the jury.


Before
showing the pictures, Ontario state pathologist Dr. Michael Pollanen
warned jurors at Rafferty's trial: 'While you might recognize some of
the body, you might not recognize all of it.'

He
went on to tell how the bottom half of Tori's body was so decomposed by
the time she was found that it was impossible to tell if she had been
raped or not.


'I wanted to scream in the
courtroom, but I just couldn’t… at the same time (I felt) a sense of
loss because Tori’s not coming home.'

-Rodney Stafford



But he did tell the court what was clear was that she had been stamped on, strangled and beaten with a hammer.

He said 16 of her 24 ribs were broken and her liver was lacerated in injuries consistent with blunt trauma such as stamping.

He said there were 'so many fractured to the skull' that it was difficult to see where one ended and another began.

He
told the courtroom, which included Tori's parents, grandparents, aunts
and uncles, that of four areas of her head that had been smashed, three
were from a hammer's claw and one with its blunt end.



Anxious:
Rodney Stafford sat with his girlfriend Patrina Fraser while waiting
for the verdict outside the courthouse earlier today; both wore purple
as a sign of solidarity for Tori



Intense
attention: Reporters and TV crews surrounded Mr Stafford on the second
day of jury deliberations; the case has horrified and fascinated people
the world over

He said that various fractures to her face could have been the result of kicking, stomping or blows from a hammer.

In
the end, Tori died due to bleeding from the head wounds, brain damage
and asphyxiation, he said. It is not clear know how long she was alive
after she was kicked and stomped.


Rafferty
appeared unmoved by what the court heard. He sat in the prisoner’s box
with his eyes either half closed or looking up at the ceiling.

And
in a further move that caused huge offence, Rafferty wore a new purple
shirt and grey and purple tie - Tori's favourite colour and the colour
that has become the emblem of her family throughout the trial.

Tori's body was found in woods adjoining a farmer’s field stuffed in plastic bags and buried under a pile of rocks.



Solemn: Crown prosecutor Kevin Gowdey leaves the courthouse after the guilty verdict has been announced



Defence:
Dirk Derstine (left) and Laura Giordano, served as defence lawyers for
Michael Rafferty, and spoke to reporters outside the courthouse

Previously,
Rafferty's girlfriend, McClintic, told the court how she and Rafferty
singled out the little girl because she was on her own - the first day
she was allowed to walk back from school alone - and lured her to the
car by saying they had a shih tzu puppy.

McClintic was high on Oxycontin, as she was most days, and had also smoked marijuana.

The
drug-addicted couple made three stops, she said, to pick up Percocet, a
highly-addictive narcotic pain killer, coffee and a hammer and garbage
bags before arriving at the remote area chosen to kill the innocent
school girl.

McClintic
said she 'knew what was about to happen', so walked away from the car.
When pressed as to what that was, she replied: 'I believed he was going
to rape her.'

After
Rafferty sexually assaulted Tori the first time in the front seat of
his Honda Civic, during which time she could hear screams and cries for
help, he called McClintic to take her to the toilet, she told the court.






Parents:
Rodney Stafford, father of slain Victoria Stafford, left, left the
court as the graphic pictures of her body were shown. The girl's mother,
Tara McDonald, right, stayed for the duration




When
Victoria Stafford was abducted, it was the first day she had been
allowed to walk home from school on her own and it was for that reason
she was singled out by Terry-Lynne McClintic and Michael Rafferty


Happy
child: Victoria Stafford loved Hannah Montana and was looking forward
to going home that day so she could play in her newly decorated room and
watch High School Musical

The 21-year-old recalled Tori was bleeding and crying and pleaded with her: 'Just don't let him do it to me again.'

'I
told her I was sorry and that she was a very strong girl. And she said
"Like you?" And I told her she was much stronger', she testified.


The convicted child killer then took Tori back to Rafferty, so he could commit the senseless, depraved act again.

Rafferty's
former girlfriend told the packed courtroom that as they were walking
back to the car, Tori wouldn't let go of her hand. All she was wearing
was her favourite Hannah Montana T-shirt.

'She
asked me to stay with her. I tried to hold on to her hand but I
couldn’t stay because I knew what was going to happen,' said the former
drug addict. 'I couldn’t be there for that. I left.'


Testimony:
Terri-Lynne McClintic, then 18, pleaded guilty to the murder of
Victoria Stafford and is the key witness in the murder trial of Michael
Rafferty, her ex-boyfriend and co-accused



Court
sketch: Terri-Lynne McClintic recounted the horrific details of
Victoria Stafford's murder at the hands of Michael Rafferty and herself


'I
kept having flashbacks. Sometimes it was like I wasn’t even there,' she
said. 'I realized I needed to do something so I turned back to the
vehicle and... when I saw what was going on, all I saw was myself when I
was that age and all the anger and hate and rage that I’d had and blame
that I still feel towards myself came boiling up out of me.'


She
walked back to the car, put a garbage bag over Tori's head and started
to kick her. She then struck her repeatedly with both sides of the
hammer on the head, she told the court.

'I went back to the vehicle and I savagely murdered that little girl,' she said to a stunned and horrified courtroom.


They both buried the body, she recounted, before washing themselves and the car so no evidence could be found.


The
pair had been dating just over a month when they carried out the
gruesome crime. McClintic said it was Rafferty's idea and said they
would be like Bonnie and Clyde.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2144938/Tori-Stafford-trial-Brother-girl-8-abducted-raped-murdered-confronts-killer-court-given-maximum-sentence.html#ixzz1v0VzAGzp

Rafferty appeals conviction in Tori Stafford murder: report

Aug 02, 2012 17:37:13 PM

Michael Rafferty is appealing his conviction in the murder of 8-year-old Tori Stafford.

The Toronto Star is reporting that Rafferty is appealing on the grounds that the judge failed to properly instruct the jury and that the jury failed to apprehend the evidentiary requirement to convict for first-degree murder.

If a new trial is ordered, the 31-year-old convicted of the abduction, rape and murder of Tori, wrote that he would like a trial by jury.

Rafferty missed the 30-day deadline to appeal his conviction but asked for an extension, attributing the delay to “inability to use the telephone to contact legal counsel.

http://www.680news.com/news/national/article/388746--rafferty-appeals-conviction-in-tori-stafford-murder-report

OMG I actually feel like puking... Twinkletoes, we don't often see eye to eye, but something you said earlier in this thread was exactly what I was thinking... I don't know if I could have sat in that court room hearing what that monster did to my baby and not rip him to pieces.
I pray so hard that that monster doesn't get off on appeal and at the same time sit in wonder how someone who could be found guilty of something so horrendous could be free on bail after 25 years (35 when you add the sex assault too). I think Canada is lacking in their judicial system. And that woman... I just want to puke.