8 Year Old Victoria “Tori” Stafford Missing Since 4/8/09 in Ontario, Canada

[Edward]

They deserve death.. by any manner. But that is just my humble opinion.

AND

WHY ? What was the motivator for this woman to deceive this child and hand her over to this man who murdered her ?

Was it for a purpose of rape ?
was it for revenge against the mother or father for some unknown reason?

What was the mindset of these 2 people to go to a level of brazenly walking into a school and in front of god and everyone walk this child out of that school ?

How did that happen ?


I have such a great deal of respect for LE of Canada for there search efforts in finding this child.. Canada is a open wilderness of forrests and farmland with a relatively low population of people. This is a socialist society and as such responded highly as most socialist societies do not respond well because of lack of funding as well as bureaucratic interference such as we had seen in Aruba.

 

[canadianmonkey]

A lasting memory
Posted By ELLIOT FERGUSON, SENTINEL-REVIEW
Updated 7 hours ago


 

A year ago, Victoria Stafford danced down the aisle at College Avenue Church.

She held a palm leaf over her head, waving it back and forth as she led a Palm Sunday procession.

It is a lasting memory for her family and, for most in the congregation, it is the last time they saw the girl.

"That was Victoria's first Palm Sunday here," said Linda Winters, Victoria's grandmother.


Later that afternoon, Winters helped Victoria sound out the word Jerusalem as they read the Bible story of Palm Sunday together with Victoria's brother Daryn.

Winters read the same Palm Sunday story from the same Bible to the children of College Avenue United Church at this year's service.

"You felt such comfort in Tori," Winters said. "A lot of people saw a little girl who danced around and caused a lot of commotion at school. But if you ever got to know her, the comfort was so overwhelming."

To mark the first anniversary of her disappearance, the church dedicated a figurine of Jesus holding an infant and a little girl.

"It's like a closure for the church family," Winters said.

"We've all grieved in our own way. We're still all going to grieve our whole lifetime but it was a way in such that we gathered together on another special Palm Sunday."

Church members Jill and Cliff Hanzel donated the figurines that are to be displayed alongside a plaque and photograph of Victoria near the sanctuary, in a hallway the girl walked through to get to Sunday school.

Victoria Stafford disappeared on April 8 last year while walking home from school. Her remains were found in late July near Mount Forest.

Two people have been charged with her abduction and murder.

With the first anniversary of the disappearance on Wednesday, Victoria's mother Tara McDonald said it would be up to her son Daryn to decide how the family would mark it.

"I'm leaving it up to Daryn," McDonald said. "If he wants to go out to the cemetery, if he wants to just look at pictures, if he wants to completely skip that day altogether, it's going to be his call. Whatever he wants to do."

Despite the tragedy, or perhaps because of it, Winters' faith has become even stronger.

The memorial figurines reassure her that Victoria is safe now, she said.

"The little girl looks so much like Tori, you know, blond hair, blue eyes," said Rev. David Duncan, who described Victoria as a little girl with a growing faith.

He remembers Victoria making a card for his wife, Brenda, who was ill for three weeks last year.

"I can still remember how Tori drew a get well card saying how much she was missing Brenda, missing her from the choir," Duncan said.

"We knew this year on Palm Sunday that we had to do something," he said. "We realized too that might be a very difficult Sunday for people.

"I was hoping that in the future when people see this memorial that it wouldn't just be a sad reminder of our terrible, tragic loss but also a reminder of the hope we have," he added.

http://www.oxfordreview.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2520631

[canadianmonkey]

Thursday marks anniversary of Tori's disappearance
  View larger image

 
Doreen Graichen (left) and Randi Millen, Victoria (Tori) Stafford's grandmother and aunt, tie a new bouquet of flowers with a photo of Tori to a pole at Millen's home in Woodstock, Ont., Wednesday, April 7, 2010. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Dave Chidley)
Updated: Wed Apr. 07 2010 8:07:36 PM

Alison Jones, The Canadian Press

It has been one year since Victoria Stafford's family last held the bright, smiling eight-year-old, heard her giggle or saw her trudge off to school with her beloved big brother.

She missed a lot in the past year: two family weddings, a new baby cousin and numerous holidays and milestones when the absence of a loved one is most acutely felt.

But she is still very much a part of her tight-knit family.

"We've taken her along with us," said her grandmother Doreen Graichen.

"There's nothing that we've done that we haven't had the feeling of her presence with us ... She's alive in us now."

It was April 8, 2009, when the girl, clad in her Hannah Montana jacket, failed to return home from school in Woodstock, Ont., setting off a desperate search that touched hearts countrywide. It was also likely the same day she was killed, though her remains were not found until more than three months later.

Thursday will be a lot tougher than April 8 last year for her dad, Rodney Stafford. Last April 8 there was hope.

"It's actually harder this year than it was last year," he said. "Last year I wanted to get the story out there to bring her home. This year I know she's not coming back."

The Stafford family is a close, loving clan and they are constantly reminded their bubbly girly-girl is no longer there.

"It's hard, it's really hard," Stafford said. "Everything we try to do we try to do as a family and it's just not a family without all of us."

Holidays and birthdays are especially tough, but the Staffords take care to include Tori.

Last Easter she had already been missing for four days and her dad bought her Easter treats to give his "baby girl" upon her return. This year for Easter, the family took some flowers to her grave.

For Halloween, her family brought to her grave a little witch decoration that cackled when the wind blew. It would have made Tori giggle, Graichen said. They visited her on Christmas, too, and her aunt Randi Millen left a candy cane on her grave.

The family tries to focus on the good times and the laughter they shared with Victoria, but they say they can't properly deal with their grief when they have no answers.

Two people -- Terri-Lynne McClintic and Michael Rafferty -- are charged with kidnapping and first-degree murder, but police have been tight-lipped about what they allege happened between when Tori was seen on surveillance video being led away from her school and when her body was left in a field far from home.

Tori's death spurred a review of Ontario's Amber Alert guidelines, giving police greater leeway for sounding the alarm in the critical first few hours of a child's disappearance.

The abduction unleashed a torrent of criticism against Oxford Community Police for not issuing an alert after the Grade 3 student disappeared. The force said the case didn't meet the criteria.

Previously, police had to confirm a child had been abducted, believe the child to be in danger of serious harm or death, and have descriptive information about the child and a suspect or vehicle.

Now, police only have to believe, and not confirm, that a child has been abducted and fear that they are in any type of danger. Authorities can also issue an alert without descriptive information about an abductor or vehicle.

Hearing what really happened to their little girl through court proceedings will be awful, but hopefully it will ease the terrible questions that plague them, Graichen said.

"I pray that this eases as time goes by, but not having any answers is the worst," she said.

"We don't want to know but we do want to know."

There are good days and bad days, but the bad days feel like their year-old wounds have been opened anew and their grief is as fresh as when Tori first vanished.

Graichen, who works at Cami Automotive Inc., started thinking about the prospect of staring down Tori's accused killers in court one day and broke down.

"I've been sent off line because I couldn't control myself," she said. "I couldn't breathe."

Her son Rodney Stafford is in Manitoba right now, setting up a second bike ride to raise money for Child Find Ontario in his daughter's memory. Last year he rode from Woodstock to Edmonton. This year he and his 11-year-old son Daryn are riding from Edmonton to Woodstock on a journey they're calling Kilometres for Kids 2: A Sibling's Story.

The bike rides are likely only the beginning for Stafford, who is now wholly dedicated to the cause of missing children.

"I know what happened to Tori, there's going to be a lot of good come out of it," he said.

"I am going to change Canada. I am, when it comes to children's safety. I don't care how long it takes me, I will do it."

Stafford is doing well and is busy organizing the bike ride, but has moments where he just breaks down and cries.

As the matriarch, Graichen finds the grief of her children -- Rob, Rodney, Randi, Rebecca and Russell -- almost too much to bear.

"Knowing that all of my kids are suffering and there's not a damn thing I can do -- I'm hurting, they're hurting," she said.

"But there's nothing worse than watching my son, who has lost his daughter, and seeing his heart broken."

Daryn spends a lot of time at Millen's house playing with her kids, and she said he seems to be doing all right, but only because everyone is keeping him occupied.

Graichen and Millen made a quilt for Daryn for Christmas, using some of Victoria's old clothing and some of his as well.

"(It's) something that he could wrap himself up in when he was missing her," Millen said.

Millen, who gave birth to a daughter months after Victoria disappeared, dreams about her niece almost every night and will wake up in a cold sweat after having nightmares about Victoria crying.

"I'm having a hard time coping," she said. "I think about her 20, 30 times a day."

Tori's young cousins are having a hard time coming to terms with her death, too. Millen's seven-year-old daughter, who spent a lot of time playing with Tori, has nightmares too, where she sees "bad things happening to Tori," Millen said.

"She's afraid of what happened to Tori happening to her," she said.

http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100407/tori_stafford_100407/20100407/?hub=TorontoNewHome

[canadianmonkey]

 One year after her death, Tori's mom doesn't think of should-haves
By RANDY RICHMOND, QMI Agency
         

Each and every day for the past 365, Tara McDonald tries to find her way, pulled in opposite directions by the forces of darkness and light. (QMI File/HO)
   
BRANTFORD, Ont. — How far will she stray into darkness?

What light can guide her back home?

Each and every day for the past 365, Tara McDonald tries to find her way, pulled in opposite directions by the forces of darkness and light.

“People keep thinking and saying to us... ‘I hope you guys are feeling better.’ We’re not,” McDonald says.

“It’s like this big dark cloud hanging over our future and we can’t get past it. We don’t know what’s past it. We don’t know what’s underneath it. We don’t know what it is going to be like to go through it. We just know that it is there.”

A year ago today, April 8, 2009, Tara McDonald’s eight-year-old daughter, Victoria (Tori) Stafford, was abducted while walking home from school in Woodstock.
   
After countless cross-country vigils and searches, and a much criticized police investigation that targeted McDonald as a prime suspect, two people were arrested for the little’s girl murder May 20. They remain before the courts.

Since the day a month later when Tori’s remains were found, McDonald has stayed in hiding, refusing all but the shortest of media interviews.

With April 8 approaching, she agreed last week to talk to QMI Agency.

She meets a reporter in a coffee shop because the family wants to keep its new home in Brantford, Ont., private.

Under the warm lights and amid the chatter of a Tim Hortons, McDonald pulls out photographs of her daughter and chats brightly about the past.

Two show Tori at a Palm Sunday Sunday school last year, days before she was abducted.

She sits with other children, pretending they are at the Last Supper.

“That frikking hat,” McDonald says, laughing at a Hannah Montanna cap perched on Tori’s head.

“I told her, ‘You are not supposed to wear a hat in church.’ Well, Tori Stafford just doesn’t care. That was her hat and she didn’t care if you are allowed to wear it in church or not.”

A few months ago, son Daryn showed his mom some videos of Tori the two had made on their grandmother’s laptop camera.

In one, Tori shows everything a lady must put in her purse. In another, she sings. In a third, she wipes lipstick off her mouth when she realizes it’s so thick she could get caught.

McDonald had never seen them. She hadn’t seen her daughter “walking, talking, moving” in so long.

“I burst into tears and I sobbed for an hour.”

She lay her head on Daryn’s lap.

“He’s patting me on the head and saying, ‘I’m so sorry, mom. I’m so sorry.’ ”

She explained to her son how happy she was to have the videos.

“I said, ‘Don’t be sorry. Mommy hasn’t seen Tori walking, talking, moving.’ ”

You never forget your child’s face or voice, but some of the little mannerisms fade.

“You have your own specific memories you pull out ... you forget the way they did something, or a certain face,” McDonald says.

The last time she saw Tori alive was “that day.” There is no need to attach a date to it for Tori’s family.

She thinks of the day often, but tries to see it in a good light.

“I never want to think of the could have would have should haves because so many people have said, ‘If you had of gone and got your kid that day.’ I can’t think of that because that would kill ... ” McDonald says.

Instead, she thinks of how good the morning was. Tori was never a morning person and she and her mother often scrapped over what to wear to school, over combing her hair, over putting on lip gloss.

“It was diva drama queen every morning,” McDonald says.

“That morning ... it was a special day because her friends were going to come over after school and watch High School Musical 3. So I let her wear a skirt. I let her wear leotards. I let her wear my headband. I let her wear my earrings. I put my lip gloss on her. There were days often I dolled her up and made her look so cute. She was my little girl.”

That morning, Tori was at her best, her cutest.

“I try to look back on that day. I look at it from when she left for school and that’s it. I don’t think about... ”

Yet McDonald still has a scrap of paper, on one side phone numbers of people she was calling to see if Tori was there. On the other side, a hasty note she posted on the door of the house.

“I’m out looking for Tori. I’ll be right back.”

Our conversation has moved out of the coffee shop and to a small table outside a variety store where McDonald can smoke. Afternoon is passing and the awning cuts out the sun.

McDonald begins to shiver as she talks. Her lip quivers and her voice begins to shake.

“That’s not cold,” she says. It is the coming darkness.

She plans to turn off the phone in April, keep Daryn from school and do whatever he wants. They might visit the cemetery. They will release some balloons — purple, because that was Tori’s favourite colour.

“What can you do?” McDonald asks. “It’s not a celebration. It’s not a happy memory. I am going to get up and take the day as it comes. I just want to get through it. I don’t want to think beyond it. I don’t want to think before it. I just want to keep trudging through everything.”

She talks of her fears, of being accused, of what might have happened, things she does not want to see in print.

She shakes even harder.

“It always happens whenever I go too deep.”

She gets up and wanders over to a set of bleachers at a nearby school. The wind picks up and clouds race over the sun. Light and shadow play on the ground.

McDonald still keeps in touch with her daughter’s friends and hopes she can watch them grow up.

“Not like living my daughter’s life through theirs but it’s nice to see — this is where Tori would be at.”

At the same time, some days she can barely see other women with their daughters.

“It just rips my heart out.”

When she goes to Wal-Mart for her favourite yogurt, she rushes in and rushes out, eyes straight ahead, “because I have to walk by the little girl’s dresses.”

The other day she exploded because her mother, by accident, used Tori’s name and the word ‘dead’ in a same sentence.

“I can’t handle the word murder, I can’t handle the word slain. They just sound so gruesome.”

She agrees to put a microphone on for an audio recording only. Faced with direct questions, she begins to lose her fragile hold on composure.

Can you be whole again? she is asked.

“Never, never ever ever again. Even family pictures. I always got family pictures done for Christmas because it is cheap. Me, James, Daryn and Tori.”

“I will never get my family pictures done again. It’s,” she begins to cry, “it’s a different family.”

What do you need most?

“Peace,” McDonald says and tries to stifle a sob.

“I just want people to respect us and remember. We’re not a spectacle. We’re not a circus. It’s a family that is going through this.”

McDonald, the woman accused of not crying enough after her daughter went missing, is crying uncontrollably now.

The darkness looms. The trials. Learning what happened.

“I’m just scared. I don’t want Daryn to go through this. Above and beyond her being missing and her being gone it is going to be the worst part of it.”

Daryn will want to know what happened.

“And I know that he has that right and he deserves to know, but I just don’t know how we’re going to do it. We had to sit down and tell him his sister was gone. How are we going sit down and tell him how or why? Because we don’t know, and this is what we are going to find out.”

How far will she stray into the darkness?

What light can guide her back home?

The mother who has lost her daughter knows in her heart she must find the answers before she loses herself.

She pulls the light out of her purse, more photographs of Daryn and Tori.

“If it wasn’t for Daryn... I wouldn’t... ” she says. “I would love to lose my marbles but I just can’t afford to.”

She shows a photograph of Tori, one taken in the summer of 2008 at a day camp, given to her only months ago.

“It is my new favourite photo,” McDonald says and she looks at it for a long time.

Her daughter’s eyes are a brilliant blue. Her face is bathed in light.

randy.richmond@sunmedia.ca

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2010/04/07/13502831-qmi.html

[canadianmonkey]

   Rest in Peace Tori.

[Northern Rose]

Dark cloud hangs over Tori's family

How far will she stray into darkness?

What light can guide her back home?

Each and every day for the past 365, Tara McDonald tries to find her way, pulled in opposite directions by the forces of darkness and light.

"People keep thinking and saying to us ... 'I hope you guys are feeling better.' We're not," McDonald says.

 "It's like this big, dark cloud hanging over our future and we can't get past it. We don't know what's past it. We don't know what's underneath it. We don't know what it is going to be like to go through it. We just know that it is there."

A year ago today, April 8, 2009, Tara McDonald's eight-year-old daughter, Victoria (Tori) Stafford, was abducted while walking home from school in Woodstock.

After countless cross-country vigils and searches, and a much criticized police investigation that targeted McDonald as a prime suspect, two people were arrested for the little girl's murder May 20. They remain before the courts.

Since the day a month later when Tori's remains were found, McDonald has stayed in hiding, refusing all but the shortest of media interviews.

With April 8 approaching, she agreed last week to talk to QMI Agency. She meets a reporter in a coffee shop because the family wants to keep its new home in Brantford private.

Under the warm lights and amid the chatter of a Tim Hortons, McDonald pulls out photographs of her daughter and chats brightly about the past.

Two show Tori at a Palm Sunday Sunday school last year, days before she was abducted.

She sits with other children, pretending they are at the Last Supper.

A few months ago, son Daryn showed his mom some videos of Tori the two had made on their grandmother's laptop camera.

In one, Tori shows everything a lady must put in her purse. In another, she sings. In a third, she wipes lipstick off her mouth when she realizes it's so thick she could get caught.

McDonald had never seen them. She hadn't seen her daughter "walking, talking, moving" in so long.

"I burst into tears and I sobbed for an hour."

She lay her head on Daryn's lap.

"He's patting me on the head and saying, 'I'm so sorry, mom. I'm so sorry.' "

She explained to her son how happy she was to have the videos.

"I said, 'Don't be sorry. Mommy hasn't seen Tori walking, talking, moving.' "

You never forget your child's face or voice, but some of the little mannerisms fade.

"You have your own specific memories you pull out ... you forget the way they did something, or a certain face," McDonald says.

The last time she saw Tori alive was "that day." There is no need to attach a date to it for Tori's family.

She thinks of the day often, but tries to see it in a good light.

"I never want to think of the could have would have should haves because so many people have said, 'If you had of gone and got your kid that day.' I can't think of that because that would kill ... " McDonald says.

Instead, she thinks of how good the morning was. Tori was never a morning person and she and her mother often scrapped over what to wear to school, over combing her hair, over putting on lip gloss.

"It was diva drama queen every morning," McDonald says.

That morning, Tori was at her best, her cutest.

"I try to look back on that day. I look at it from when she left for school and that's it. I don't think about... "

She plans to turn off the phone in April, keep Daryn from school and do whatever he wants. They might visit the cemetery. They will release some balloons -- purple, because that was Tori's favourite colour.

"What can you do?" McDonald asks. "It's not a celebration. It's not a happy memory. I am going to get up and take the day as it comes. I just want to get through it. I don't want to think beyond it. I don't want to think before it. I just want to keep trudging through everything."


http://www.stratfordbeaconherald.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2526016

[Northern Rose]

Victoria Stafford remembered (with video)

Victoria Stafford's disappearance set off a desperate search that touched hearts across the country, as people everywhere held out hope she'd be found alive.

A year later, we know Victoria was likely killed on the same day she was taken.

Two Woodstock residents now face first degree murder charges in her death.

Michael Rafferty and Terri-Lynne McClintic's trials will begin this year.

Tori's death has also brought changes to Ontario's Amber Alert system, giving police greater powers to sound the alarm in the first few hours of a child's disappearance.

Tonight on CTV News at Six, Joel Bowey sits down for a on-on-one interview with Tori's father Rodney Stafford.

Find out what he thinks about the upcoming court case... and how his life has changed over the past year.

http://southwesternontario.ctv.ca/news.php?id=7126

[Northern Rose]

Year later, still no answer why Tori Stafford abducted, slain

It is one year to the day since eight-year-old Tori Stafford vanished from the small southwestern Ontario city of Woodstock, forever changing the lives of her parents and the people of Woodstock.

Nearly 100 police officers, from all over the province, along with the girl's family searched for any clues into her mysterious disappearance, holding out hope, with the rest of the nation, that the happy, blond-haired third-grader would eventually be found alive.

Those hopes ended three months later on July 21, when investigators confirmed that remains found by a detective in a secluded field near Mount Forest, Ont., were "positively identified" as Tori's.

Two Woodstock residents —Terri-Lynne McClintic and Michael Rafferty — have since been charged with first-degree murder in the girl's death. The relationship between the accused and Tori, if one exists, has not been established.

Their criminal trials have yet to begin.

To Tori's family, the last year, beginning with her disappearance on April 8, 2009, has been a lifetime.

"It's hard to explain," said Tori's father, Rodney Stafford, his voice breaking. "Some days it feels like she disappeared just yesterday. Some days, it feels like it was forever ago."

He said one issue is that no one, not even the family, understands why Tori was snatched on her way home after school that day.

No one knows why surveillance video showed the trusting girl walk away hand-in-hand with an unknown woman.

Nor are there answers about why she was killed, or how little Tori ended up in that field, nearly 130 kilometres away from home.

"It is still hard, still really hard. We still don't have any answers to anything. Everybody has been really frustrated by it," said Stafford. "We've come to terms about what has happened, that there was nothing we could done about it."

This search for an explanation about his daughter's death has since pushed Stafford into becoming an unlikely advocate for missing children. Last August, he embarked on a solo 3,400-kilometre bicycle trip from Woodstock to Edmonton, raising $2,000 for Child Find Ontario in her memory.

"Honestly no, up until just before Victoria disappeared, I never thought I'd be doing charity work but I've changed my life," he said. "I've turned things around and it's been good."

During their daughter's disappearance, Stafford and his estranged wife, Tara McDonald, made numerous pleas for the return of their daughter during the three months that Tori was missing, as her photo was splashed across the front pages of newspapers and on televisions almost daily.

At times, the tension between the couple overshadowed the search for the girl, as the two blamed each other and publicly fought over Tori's disappearance.

Stafford said the couple have been trying to put their differences aside, for the sake of Tori's older brother, Daryn.

"I think he is doing really good. There is still a lot of stuff on the inside of him that I want to crack," he said. "I want to give him a little bit of time. Things will come out."

Daryn, 11, had blamed himself for his sister's disappearance. Stafford said he and his son will be doing a joint charity bike ride for Tori this year, in hopes that it will help with some of the boy's guilt.

The two will begin their 55-day journey on Father's Day in Edmonton and return to Woodstock in early August.

Meanwhile, McDonald has kept a low-profile in the wake of her daughter's body being discovered, a sharp contrast to her daily news conferences while the girl was missing.

Her cousin, Barb Derbowka, said McDonald has been focusing on her family.


Stafford said it is clear that the couple will stand united amid rumours that a plea bargain may be in the works for one of the co-accused. He said this was "not an option" and both will fight if it does become one.

McClintic's next court appearance has been scheduled for April 16. Rafferty will appear in a Woodstock courtroom again on April 23.

Tori's death has also brought about changes to the provincewide Amber Alert system, used to notify the public when a child is missing. In this case, police officials were heavily criticized for not sending an alert because, at the time, they felt that Tori's disappearance did not fit the system's criteria. Police did not have a description of a vehicle, or a knowledge of an abductor, or any indication that the girl was in danger of serious bodily harm.

Last October, these guidelines were relaxed so police could issue an alert more quickly if it is believed the child is in any kind of danger.

Woodstock Mayor Michael Harding said although no public memorial was planned Thursday for Tori, it is without a doubt that her disappearance and murder has forever changed the city of 35,000, west of Toronto.

"We've been made brutally aware, the importance of safety for our children," he said. "That will remain the overwhelming message for our people. We have learned to live with this event, and have worked through the many painful issues as a city."

Harding said he is looking at other small communities that have been able to move past horrific crimes, specifically St. Catharines, Ont., where serial killer Paul Bernardo lived.

"St. Catharines survived. We will survive this," he said. "But the name Tori Stafford will always come up in this city."

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/TORI/2777936/story.html

[Northern Rose]

'She's alive in us now,' Victoria Stafford's family says



It has been one year since Victoria "Tori" Stafford's family last held the bright, smiling eight-year-old or saw her trudge off to school with her big brother.

She missed a lot in the past year: two family weddings, a new baby cousin and numerous holidays and milestones when the absence of a loved one is most acutely felt.

But she is still very much a part of her tight-knit family.

"We've taken her along with us," said her grandmother Doreen Graichen.

"There's nothing that we've done that we haven't had the feeling of her presence with us ... She's alive in us now."

It was April 8, 2009, when Victoria failed to return home from school in Woodstock, Ont.

That day was also likely the same day she was killed, though her remains were not found until more than three months later.

Two people - Terri-Lynne McClintic and Michael Rafferty - are charged with kidnapping and first-degree murder.

Police have been tight-lipped about what they allege happened after Victoria was seen on surveillance video being led away from her school. Her remains were found in July, 2009 north of Guelph, Ont.

The case against McClintic has been held over until April 16. McClintic earlier waived her right to a preliminary hearing to allow the case to go directly to trial.

McClintic's co-accused, Rafferty, appeared in court in February via video link and was ordered remanded in custody until April 23. This year is a lot tougher than April 8 last year, said Victoria's dad, Rodney Stafford.

"Last year I wanted to get the story out there to bring her home," he said. "This year I know she's not coming back."

Stafford and his 11-year-old son Daryn are riding from Edmonton to Woodstock starting on June 20 on a journey they're calling Kilometres for Kids 2: A Sibling's Story.

It's the second bike ride to raise money for Child Find Ontario in his daughter's memory.

Last year he rode from Woodstock to Edmonton in Victoria's memory.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/windsor/story/2010/04/08/toronto-tori-stafford-anniversary.html

[Tracygirl]

Dark cloud hangs over Tori's family

How far will she stray into darkness?

What light can guide her back home?

Each and every day for the past 365, Tara McDonald tries to find her way, pulled in opposite directions by the forces of darkness and light.

"People keep thinking and saying to us ... 'I hope you guys are feeling better.' We're not," McDonald says.

 "It's like this big, dark cloud hanging over our future and we can't get past it. We don't know what's past it. We don't know what's underneath it. We don't know what it is going to be like to go through it. We just know that it is there."

A year ago today, April 8, 2009, Tara McDonald's eight-year-old daughter, Victoria (Tori) Stafford, was abducted while walking home from school in Woodstock.

After countless cross-country vigils and searches, and a much criticized police investigation that targeted McDonald as a prime suspect, two people were arrested for the little girl's murder May 20. They remain before the courts.

Since the day a month later when Tori's remains were found, McDonald has stayed in hiding, refusing all but the shortest of media interviews.

With April 8 approaching, she agreed last week to talk to QMI Agency. She meets a reporter in a coffee shop because the family wants to keep its new home in Brantford private.

Under the warm lights and amid the chatter of a Tim Hortons, McDonald pulls out photographs of her daughter and chats brightly about the past.

Two show Tori at a Palm Sunday Sunday school last year, days before she was abducted.

She sits with other children, pretending they are at the Last Supper.

A few months ago, son Daryn showed his mom some videos of Tori the two had made on their grandmother's laptop camera.

In one, Tori shows everything a lady must put in her purse. In another, she sings. In a third, she wipes lipstick off her mouth when she realizes it's so thick she could get caught.

McDonald had never seen them. She hadn't seen her daughter "walking, talking, moving" in so long.

"I burst into tears and I sobbed for an hour."

She lay her head on Daryn's lap.

"He's patting me on the head and saying, 'I'm so sorry, mom. I'm so sorry.' "

She explained to her son how happy she was to have the videos.

"I said, 'Don't be sorry. Mommy hasn't seen Tori walking, talking, moving.' "

You never forget your child's face or voice, but some of the little mannerisms fade.

"You have your own specific memories you pull out ... you forget the way they did something, or a certain face," McDonald says.

The last time she saw Tori alive was "that day." There is no need to attach a date to it for Tori's family.

She thinks of the day often, but tries to see it in a good light.

"I never want to think of the could have would have should haves because so many people have said, 'If you had of gone and got your kid that day.' I can't think of that because that would kill ... " McDonald says.

Instead, she thinks of how good the morning was. Tori was never a morning person and she and her mother often scrapped over what to wear to school, over combing her hair, over putting on lip gloss.

"It was diva drama queen every morning," McDonald says.

That morning, Tori was at her best, her cutest.

"I try to look back on that day. I look at it from when she left for school and that's it. I don't think about... "

She plans to turn off the phone in April, keep Daryn from school and do whatever he wants. They might visit the cemetery. They will release some balloons -- purple, because that was Tori's favourite colour.

"What can you do?" McDonald asks. "It's not a celebration. It's not a happy memory. I am going to get up and take the day as it comes. I just want to get through it. I don't want to think beyond it. I don't want to think before it. I just want to keep trudging through everything."


http://www.stratfordbeaconherald.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2526016

  My heart and prayers go out to Tori's family today.

[Edward]

Looks like Canada is just like the United States in its justice system.
Answers and Justice for the victim and there family is hard to find.

[Northern Rose]

First Anniversary of the Stafford Abduction

A tough anniversary for the city of Woodstock.

Today marks one year since the tragic abduction and murder of 8 year old Victoria Stafford.

Stafford was kidnapped while walking home from school.

Her body was found three months later near Mount Forest.

A trail date is expected to be set next Friday for one of the two accused with Stafford's murder.

Terri-Lynn McClintic will be back in court April 16.

While co-accused Michael Rafferty makes his next appearence on April 23.

Both McClintic and Rafferty are charged with abduction and first degree murder.

Stafford's disappearance set off a desperate search that touched hearts locally, nationally and even across the border.

http://www.cjbk.com/news/565/1112825

[Northern Rose]

Looks like Canada is just like the United States in its justice system.
Answers and Justice for the victim and there family is hard to find.

Very little will ever be made public up here.  We have a SO registry that not even the police have access to so as not to breach privacy rights of the SO's.  A judge will order a SO to register but there are no checks in place to ensure it has happened and no follow up.  The SO registry is only accessible by one area of the RCMP and all requests for searches of the databse must go through them and it takes months for them to get back to the police requesting the search.  I think the US is far ahead in so many respects. 

[Tracygirl]

NorRose you have nanners please

[Nut44x4]

Court appearance for accused in Tori Stafford death

Published: Friday, April 23, 2010

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2943352

WOODSTOCK, Ont. -- A preliminary hearing date has been set for a man accused in the killing of eight-year-old schoolgirl Tori Stafford more than a year ago.

Michael Rafferty made a brief court appearance via video Friday in Woodstock, allowing Crown and defence attorneys to schedule his preliminary hearing from June 21 to July 13.

Rafferty is charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping related to the disappearance of the third-grader. Terri-Lynne McClintic, another resident of Woodstock, also faces the same charges. She's scheduled to make a court appearance on April 30.

[Northern Rose]

Tori's dad says he'll ensure justice is served

WOODSTOCK, Ont. - The father of Victoria “Tori” Stafford vowed Friday he would “make sure justice is served” to everyone responsible for the murder of his eight-year-old daughter.

Speaking outside the Oxford County courthouse after a brief video appearance by Michael Rafferty, the man accused of Tori’s kidnapping and murder, Rodney Stafford said his daughter deserves no less.

“Not just for Tori,” he added, “but for all the kids.” Rafferty’s appearance was simply a formality, allowing his defence lawyer and the Crown attorney to confirm the dates for his preliminary hearing.

Standing in front of a wall at the Chatham Jail, a pale, bearded Rafferty was silent as the two lawyers agreed the hearing would run June 21 to July 13.

Stafford expressed some frustration that his second Kilometres for Kids journey, a 55-day fundraising bike ride across the country for the Child

Find organization, will prevent him from attending the hearing.

“I want to be here for (the preliminary hearing) but I don’t want to relive that day. I want to move forward and do something about what happened,” he said.

Rafferty was arrested for the kidnapping and murder of Tori Stafford in May, about six weeks after the Woodstock girl's family reported her missing. Woodstock is located in southwestern Ontario.


http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2010/04/23/13692861.html

[Northern Rose]

Preliminary hearing set for male Stafford accused

WOODSTOCK, Ont. — June 21 has been set as the start of a preliminary hearing for one of two people charged in the Tori Stafford case.

The eight-year-old Woodstock, Ont., girl vanished April 8, 2009 and her remains were found more than three months later. The hearing for Michael Rafferty, who is charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping, is expected to last about four weeks.

His co-accused, Terri-Lynne McClintic, is being tried separately on the same charges.

A preliminary hearing allows a judge to weigh the evidence and decide if the case can move forward to trial.

Tori's father, Rodney Stafford, was in court today and said he is disappointed he'll miss the hearing in June.

He will be starting his "Kilometres for Kids 2" fundraiser at that time, cycling from Edmonton to Woodstock with his son, Daryn, in support of Child Find Ontario.


http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100423/stafford_ph_100423/20100423/?hub=TorontoNewHome

[Edward]

I know there is justice here someplace... Or did Canada lose that along with the death penalty ?
Is it like the Netherlands and Aruba where you can get a Max 12 years for murder ?
I find myself impatiant with this whole scenario..

We are no better in the U

[Edward]

Nited States of fools and lawyers.. 
The Caylee Anthony case drags on and on by game players too.

[canadianmonkey]

Stafford accused was to appear in court
 Email story

WOODSTOCK, Ont. - A woman charged in the death of eight-year-old Victoria Stafford was scheduled to appear in court Friday but a temporary publication ban prevents any further information from being released.

Victoria, known as Tori, went missing on April 8, 2009 outside her Woodstock, Ont., school.

Terri-Lynne McClintic, 19, and Michael Rafferty, 29, were arrested in May 2009 and charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping.

McClintic was scheduled to appear in court Friday in Woodstock but the temporary publication ban prohibits the media from providing any further information until further order of the court.

Last week the court set June 21 as the date for Rafferty's preliminary hearing to begin.

The hearing, which allows a judge to weigh the evidence and decide if the case can move forward to trial, is expected to last about four weeks.

http://www.thespec.com/News/BreakingNews/article/761157

~~~~~~~~~~~

And there we have what Northern Rose predicted.  No information.  The privacy act will make sure nothing is known about what happened other then the sentencing.