Terri-Lynne McClintic and Michael Rafferty are two killers from Canada who would be convicted of the murder of eight year old Tori Stafford
According to court documents Tori Stafford would disappear after leaving her school in Woodstock Ontario. It was later learned that Terri-Lynne McClintic had convinced the little girl to come with her. Once she had Tori the little girl was brought to Michael Rafferty who would sexually assault and murder the little girl. Tori Stafford body would be buried in a farmers field
Terri-Lynne McClintic and Michael Rafferty would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to life in prison with a shot of parole after twenty five years which is the longest prison sentence in Canada
Terri-Lynne McClintic and Michael Rafferty Case
It was on April 8 that year when the sunny eight-year-old first went missing, improbably disappearing on a three-block walk to her home in the town of Woodstock, about a half-hour east of London, Ont.
It was, prosecutor Kevin Gowdey said in his opening address to the jurors, “the very first day she was allowed to leave school and walk home by herself.
“It was also the last day of her life.”
Tori’s badly decomposed remains weren’t discovered, under a rock pile deep in the lush countryside of this part of southwestern Ontario, for 103 long days, until July 19.
By then, her face was familiar through pictures released by police, missing posters, and her parents’ increasingly desperate pleas for her safe return.
Mr. Gowdey painted a spooky picture of the ordinary end-of-day scene, so familiar to parents everywhere, at Oliver Stephens Public School that Wednesday afternoon in April.
It was just before 3:30 p.m
As the chattering youngsters spilled out of the school, some were met by family or friends, or hopped a bus, or made their home uneventfully on their own.
But two people, the prosecutor said, were waiting for Tori and they meant only to do her harm.
The pair were Terri-Lynne McClintic, who in a separate proceeding two years ago pleaded guilty to and was convicted of first-degree murder for her part in the kidnapping and killing of the little girl, and Michael Rafferty, the 31-year-old now on trial.
Terri-Lynne McClintic, now 21, will be the star witness here, where her former boyfriend, broad-chested and seemingly serene in the prisoner’s dock, is pleading not guilty to first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault.
According to Mr. Gowdey, the harm the two did the little blonde was unimaginable: An autopsy showed Tori died from repeated hammer blows to the head, but that other injuries she suffered — blunt force trauma sufficient to lacerate her liver and fracture many of her ribs — would have been fatal on their own.
She was discovered wearing only her Hannah Montana T-shirt and the butterfly earrings she had borrowed that morning from her mother, Tara McDonald, because she was going to christen her new bedroom in her mom’s new house by hosting a movie night for some young friends.
“Excited by this prospect,” Mr. Gowdey said, “Tori dressed up for school that day” and to make the outfit complete, Ms. McDonald allowed her to borrow the earrings.
Ms. McDonald will be among the first witnesses to testify, a task Mr. Gowdey described as a hard one for her to do and a hard one for the jurors to hear, but necessary.
While it seemed at first that Tori had vanished into thin air, police quickly seized surveillance video from a nearby high school, which showed the little girl walking with a young woman dressed in a white winter coat and with her dark hair in a ponytail.
Parents waiting for their kids saw the two chatting, but, as Mr. Gowdey said, “They thought nothing of it at the time. They assumed that Tori was with family or a friend.
“After all,” the prosecutor said, invoking the audacity of the crime with six simple words, “it was broad daylight.”
The mystery woman was Terri-Lynne McClintic, and she led Tori to a nearby parking lot, Mr. Gowdey said, where Mr. Rafferty “sat in his Honda Civic, waiting.”
The car was caught on video near the school three times in total that day.
The pair, with their stolen girl cargo, then hit the 401 Highway and headed east on a bizarre trip — first to Guelph, where Mr. Rafferty allegedly stopped to buy some Percocet pills from a friend and then went to an ATM, and Ms. McClintic bought a hammer and green garbage bags at a Home Depot, and then into Wellington County and the countryside.
The video cameras ubiquitous in the modern world, Mr. Gowdey said, caught Mr. Rafferty at the ATM, and Ms. McClintic at the Home Depot.
Tori wasn’t seen on any of the video, but she was indisputably in the car: Her DNA was later found in blood detected on the rear passenger door of the Civic.
In one spot, on a gym bag found in the car, Tori’s blood was mixed with Mr. Rafferty’s.
The trial began with some uniquely Canadian touches — a mysterious and unexpected delay to a proceeding already almost three years in the making; warnings galore to the jurors about the horrors of the evidence to come, and courtly euphemisms.
For instance, the jurors were told by Ontario Superior Court Judge Thomas Heeney that while Mr. Rafferty may be occasionally referred to as “the accused,” they were to take no negative inference from the term because “it is simply a label to describe one of the participants in a trial.”
That is surely a most delicate take: The accused is merely a participant, like the lawyers and the judge? Really?
Mr. Gowdey, meantime, told the jurors that after they hear from Ms. McClintic, “you will unquestionably be disturbed by the choices she made with Michael Rafferty to bring this all about.”
Terri-Lynne McClintic is now a convicted killer: Surely the jurors will be more troubled by the results of her “choices,” than by her decisions.
Tori Stafford’s poor battered body was found inside garbage bags of the same colour and size as the brand Ms. McClintic bought that day at the Home Depot: One bad choice, one appalling result.
The disturbing details of Tori Stafford’s murder: Christie Blatchford | National Post
Terri-Lynne McClintic and Michael Rafferty
Jurors heard Tuesday about the chilling final hours of Victoria (Tori) Stafford’s life from the woman who previously pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder of the eight-year-old.
Terri-Lynne McClintic was called to testify at the London, Ont., trial of Michael Thomas Rafferty, who is accused in Tori’s death.
Rafferty, 31, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, sexual assault causing bodily harm and abduction.
McClintic was sentenced to life in prison in April 2010.
She told the court Tuesday about the last day of Tori’s life, when the Grade 3 student was allegedly lured to a waiting car that McClintic said was driven by Rafferty, taken far from her hometown of Woodstock, Ont., sexually assaulted and killed with a hammer. Her remains were left under a pile of rocks.
Terri-Lynne McClintic said that on April 8, 2009, she, Rafferty and Tori drove away from Woodstock, after luring the young girl away when she was walking home from Oliver Stephens Public School.
Tori asked a number of times where they were headed. McClintic told her they were “going for a drive,” though she testified that she, too, did not know where they were going.
McClintic said Tori was under a black pea coat, which had been placed over the girl on the instruction of Rafferty. Tori was on the floor behind the driver’s seat.
After leaving Woodstock, they travelled along Highway 401. McClintic said Rafferty told her that “we just can’t keep her and we can’t take her back.”
They drove to Guelph, Ont. where they made several stops, first at a Tim Hortons.
Terri-Lynne McClintic testified she mouthed the words “I’m sorry” to Tori, after Rafferty said to keep the girl covered when he came back to the car after stopping at the coffee shop.
They then travelled to the home of one of Rafferty’s friends, McClintic testified, before driving to a Home Depot at the north end of the city.
McClintic said she went into the store to purchase a hammer and garbage bags, because she had been “instructed” to do so by Rafferty.
McClintic said they then headed out of the city and into a rural area. She testified that Rafferty began masturbating as they turned down a laneway.
They eventually stopped but McClintic left the vehicle because she knew what was going to happen.
“I believed he was going to rape Tori,” McClintic said Tuesday.
McClintic said she turned away and heard screaming.
She said she did not watch what was happening though she heard much of what was going on.
Terri-Lynne McClintic also said she delivered the blows the Crown alleges ultimately killed the young girl.
She said she placed a garbage bag over the girl’s head and struck it several times with the hammer. McClintic also said she kicked Tori before hitting her with the hammer.
Terri-Lynne McClintic said she and Rafferty then moved Tori’s body to the base of a pine tree near a rock pile and covered her with stones.
After it was over, Rafferty cleaned himself using water bottles and McClintic’s winter jacket.
They made efforts to mess up the tire tracks the car had left at the scene, then drove away.
Terri-Lynne McClintic told the court that she had waited outside Oliver Stephens Public School in Woodstock, earlier that day, after Rafferty had urged her to prove she wasn’t “all talk” and to kidnap a little girl.
She said Rafferty had told her what to say.
“They’ll be getting out of school now. Just talk about dogs or candy,” McClintic said she was instructed to say by Rafferty.
Terri-Lynne McClintic told the court that while she was waiting she saw “a bunch of kids getting out of school.”
Those children included Tori, with whom McClintic began talking.
Terri-Lynne McClintic said she approached Tori because she was the only child who was walking by herself.
The two talked about dogs, with McClintic telling her that she had a Shih Tzu, which was the same type of dog that Tori had.
They walked over to the parking lot of a nearby retirement home where Rafferty’s car was parked.
As they got close to the vehicle, Rafferty yelled at her to hurry up, and McClintic pushed Tori into the car.
Terri-Lynne McClintic had only known Rafferty for several months on the day that Tori disappeared
She told the court she often helped Rafferty obtain drugs and the two had sex on several occasions.
The court also heard details about McClintic’s upbringing, including that she was given up for adoption and raised in a household where violence and substance abuse were prevalent.
Terri-Lynne McClintic told the court she had a “very addictive personality” and began smoking tobacco, as well as marijuana, when she was only eight years old.
As she got older, she would eventually use opiates, painkillers, OxyContin and morphine.
When she was 17, she was living in Woodstock, Ont., so that she could look after her adoptive mother.
“My day-to-day routine was getting high,” McClintic said. “That was pretty much it.”
The Crown also brought up McClintic’s criminal record as a youth, which included assault convictions in Bracebridge, North Bay and Sudbury.
The trial is set to continue on Wednesday.
