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

[Edward]

I do not blame them ..The News media Tried to make the mom into the Culprit and many many people were buying into it.

[canadianmonkey]

Was this girl and her boyfriend standing at the candle light vigil for Tori ?

The only thing that has been mentioned is that Terri handed out flyers to find Tori until the video came out and then she commented to a friend that it could be her in the video and stopped handing out flyers and cut her hair.

[victorian]

I do not blame them ..The News media Tried to make the mom into the Culprit and many many people were buying into it.

I can't completely lay blame on the media. I think unfortunetly some of Tara's own behaviour worked against her.
Now we have a direct link between Tara and Terri. Micheal was also a regular at Good Time Charlie's where Tara went.
Not saying she was involved or deserved any of this, just pointing out that she can't win for losing based on what's been presented.

[Northern Rose]

I do not blame them ..The News media Tried to make the mom into the Culprit and many many people were buying into it.

I can't completely lay blame on the media. I think unfortunetly some of Tara's own behaviour worked against her.
Now we have a direct link between Tara and Terri. Micheal was also a regular at Good Time Charlie's where Tara went.
Not saying she was involved or deserved any of this, just pointing out that she can't win for losing based on what's been presented.

You are so right.  Tara wanted the media there everyday and invited them to be there.  It is hard to beg them to be there and then close the door and be mad when they are there.

[Northern Rose]

Newsnet is giving more details on Rafferty.  They have been chasing down his ex-girlfriends.  They are trying to meet with the on ex who went to the paper and said that he was into kinky sex, bondage, rough sex and that she dumped him after she claims money was taken from his bank account.

He has had a lot of gf's.  Has developed a reputation that goes through a lot of relationships and cheats on his woman. He is being described as a ladies man and on his Myspace he called himself a hopeless romantic but he has obviously had a lot of relationships.  Others are describing him as a free loader.  He moved in with his mother last year after losing his job in Guelph at a meat processing plant.

Talking about his last entry on his myspace on the day Tori vanishes "good things are coming my way".

[canadianmonkey]

I do not blame them ..The News media Tried to make the mom into the Culprit and many many people were buying into it.

I can't completely lay blame on the media. I think unfortunetly some of Tara's own behaviour worked against her.
Now we have a direct link between Tara and Terri. Micheal was also a regular at Good Time Charlie's where Tara went.
Not saying she was involved or deserved any of this, just pointing out that she can't win for losing based on what's been presented.

You are so right.  Tara wanted the media there everyday and invited them to be there.  It is hard to beg them to be there and then close the door and be mad when they are there.

I think you can look at this two ways.  She wanted the media there everyday to keep Tori's name in the publics eye.  Lets just take that at face value.  Now that she knows Tori's not coming home she wants it to all go away and doesn't want to speak to them.  Although I do think that maybe sending someone out with a statement from her might be a better idea.  She hasn't done that yet right?

[Edward]

"good things are coming my way".


Hang Him !

[pink angel]

I have been reading some about methadone maintenance programs in Canada and methadone patients are required to undergo regular urine testing in order to prove that they are staying clean and also that they are taking their methadone as required under the rules of the contract they sign to participate in treatment. So, if Tara was in a program, I doubt she was using Oxy anymore.

jmo

[pink angel]

Sue Scambati is on saying that Forensic Identification Unit is now on the scene. Scambati says this is significant as this is the first time they have come to the scene.

[pink angel]

Newsnet is giving more details on Rafferty.  They have been chasing down his ex-girlfriends.  They are trying to meet with the on ex who went to the paper and said that he was into kinky sex, bondage, rough sex and that she dumped him after she claims money was taken from his bank account.

He has had a lot of gf's.  Has developed a reputation that goes through a lot of relationships and cheats on his woman. He is being described as a ladies man and on his Myspace he called himself a hopeless romantic but he has obviously had a lot of relationships.  Others are describing him as a free loader.  He moved in with his mother last year after losing his job in Guelph at a meat processing plant.

Talking about his last entry on his myspace on the day Tori vanishes "good things are coming my way".

Thanks for all the updates.

[pink angel]

Sue Scambati is on saying that Forensic Identification Unit is now on the scene. Scambati says this is significant as this is the first time they have come to the scene.

http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20090520/090520_stafford_hub/20090520/?hub=CP24Home

[no rose colored glasses]

Sue Scambati is on saying that Forensic Identification Unit is now on the scene. Scambati says this is significant as this is the first time they have come to the scene.

Thanks, maybe they found Tori's remains?

[Northern Rose]

Terri-Lynne McClintic lies in the back of a police vehicle as it leaves a location outside Fergus, Ont., on Thursday, May 21, 2009. (Nathan Denette / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

http://toronto.ctv.ca/tl/photo.html?pname=http://images.ctv.ca/archives/CTVNews/img2/20090521/450_cp_McClintic1_090521.jpg&win_width=795.0&description=Terri-Lynne McClintic lies in the back of a police vehicle as it leaves a location outside Fergus, Ont., on Thursday, May 21, 2009. (Nathan Denette / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

[Tracygirl]

Was hoping there was news about Tori being found.

*Please read the following with a soft voice and an understanding heart*
I think everyone needs to just give this family their space and not put too much into any actions right now. The little girl they loved and wanted so desperately to find has been killed. I am sure very freaked out right now, especially since they are searching wood piles, lakes, dumpsters for her body. Lets please concentrate on Tori, finding her and laying her to rest. and of course the people that did this to her, the surly deserve to be ridiculed, but the family? Enough is enough I think. 

[Nut44x4]

Woman charged in Tori case helps police search for body
May 21, 2009 08:20 PM
Canadian Press
GUELPH – The search for Victoria Stafford's body focused on a farmer's field today, where the woman charged with abducting the Grade 3 student and being an accessory to her murder was taken by police who had investigated the site only one day earlier.

Terri-Lynne McClintic was seen sitting slumped down in the back of an unmarked police vehicle, hands behind her back, as it left the area near Fergus, Ont. – about an hour east of where Victoria, known as Tori, went missing six weeks ago.

"She's doing everything she can to assist the police fully in their investigation and to try to help them find Tori and to bring her home," said McClintic's lawyer, Jeanine LeRoy.

McClintic had been scheduled to go out with police Thursday to aid in the search, said LeRoy, who added she did not have permission to address the allegations against her client.

The officers and McClintic arrived at the field in the mid-afternoon in a minivan with tinted windows. The police sealed off a laneway leading to a flat plain and a collapsed barn. They had searched the area Tuesday with a canine unit.

Yesterday, they had spent more than half an hour going over the rubble before leaving.

Today, they parked under a tree, about a dozen metres from the rock pile. Fifteen minutes later, the officers left.

OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino told radio station CFRB that evidence led police to search the area.

The site now searched twice is located on Wellington Road 22, near the town of Ennotville. About a kilometre to the east, police singled out a roadside dumpster for investigation. It currently sits at the intersection of Jones Baseline and 22, sealed with forensic stickers.

Now into its second day, police continue the search for the remains of 8-year-old Tori. They maintain the girl was killed six weeks ago, hours after her abduction in Woodstock, about 80 kilometres from the site now being investigated.

Yesterday, police charged Michael Thomas Rafferty, 28, with murder and abduction, and McClintic with abduction and accessory to murder.

However, investigators have released no details about their belief that Tori, who was last seen being led away from her Woodstock school by an unidentified woman on April 8, is dead.

The roving search, conducted yesterday by helicopter that seemed to concentrate on rocky outcroppings close to the edges of back country roads, deeply rattled people living in nearby Fergus.

"Say if she's here — and I hope she's not — people will say, `That's the town where they found that poor little girl,' " said Rany O'Halloran.

"It'll just devastate this town," said Denise Seabrook.

The search has quickly consumed residents and dominates local gossip.

"That's all people were talking about at the bar last night," said local pub owner Jackie Mondoux, tearing up at the thought. "Why would someone do that? That's what we want to know."

Although arrests have been made, the search has still sparked fear.

"I'm nervous anyway, maybe overly so," said Patti Jackson, hovering over her three daughters, ages 9, 9 and 10. "And now this."

"It is kind of scary," said Jackson's 10-year-old, Alex. "But this is a good town."
http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/637536

[Northern Rose]

Woman charged in Tori case helps police search for body
 
May 21, 2009 08:20 PM
Canadian Press
CATHAL KELLY
STAFF REPORTER

GUELPH – The search for Victoria Stafford's body focused on a farmer's field today, where the woman charged with abducting the Grade 3 student and being an accessory to her murder was taken by police who had investigated the site only one day earlier.

Terri-Lynne McClintic was seen sitting slumped down in the back of an unmarked police vehicle, hands behind her back, as it left the area near Fergus, Ont. – about an hour east of where Victoria, known as Tori, went missing six weeks ago.

"She's doing everything she can to assist the police fully in their investigation and to try to help them find Tori and to bring her home," said McClintic's lawyer, Jeanine LeRoy.

McClintic had been scheduled to go out with police Thursday to aid in the search, said LeRoy, who added she did not have permission to address the allegations against her client.

The officers and McClintic arrived at the field in the mid-afternoon in a minivan with tinted windows. The police sealed off a laneway leading to a flat plain and a collapsed barn. They had searched the area Tuesday with a canine unit.

Yesterday, they had spent more than half an hour going over the rubble before leaving.

Today, they parked under a tree, about a dozen metres from the rock pile. Fifteen minutes later, the officers left.

OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino told radio station CFRB that evidence led police to search the area.

The site now searched twice is located on Wellington Road 22, near the town of Ennotville. About a kilometre to the east, police singled out a roadside dumpster for investigation. It currently sits at the intersection of Jones Baseline and 22, sealed with forensic stickers.

Now into its second day, police continue the search for the remains of 8-year-old Tori. They maintain the girl was killed six weeks ago, hours after her abduction in Woodstock, about 80 kilometres from the site now being investigated.

Yesterday, police charged Michael Thomas Rafferty, 28, with murder and abduction, and McClintic with abduction and accessory to murder.

However, investigators have released no details about their belief that Tori, who was last seen being led away from her Woodstock school by an unidentified woman on April 8, is dead.

The roving search, conducted yesterday by helicopter that seemed to concentrate on rocky outcroppings close to the edges of back country roads, deeply rattled people living in nearby Fergus.

"Say if she's here — and I hope she's not — people will say, `That's the town where they found that poor little girl,' " said Rany O'Halloran.

"It'll just devastate this town," said Denise Seabrook.

The search has quickly consumed residents and dominates local gossip.

"That's all people were talking about at the bar last night," said local pub owner Jackie Mondoux, tearing up at the thought. "Why would someone do that? That's what we want to know."

Although arrests have been made, the search has still sparked fear.

"I'm nervous anyway, maybe overly so," said Patti Jackson, hovering over her three daughters, ages 9, 9 and 10. "And now this."

"It is kind of scary," said Jackson's 10-year-old, Alex. "But this is a good town."

http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/637536

 

[Northern Rose]

Police seal off garbage bin as 'item of interest'
Counsellors brought in to Tori's school

Police searching for the body of eight-year-old Victoria Stafford sealed off a large garbage bin Thursday in a rural area about an hour east of where she went missing six weeks ago, calling it an item of interest.

Several officers were dispatched to watch over the scene just north of Guelph, Ont. – a move that came as a shock to Dean Smith, whose property houses the bin.

He said he returned from work to find a commotion and told police they were welcome to search the bin, which he said is emptied every few weeks and had been used the previous night.

“I'm more than just a little surprised, to tell you the truth,” said Mr. Smith, who added he didn't notice anything suspicious.

“I have a nine-year-old daughter. It's sickening.”

Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino told Toronto radio station CFRB that evidence led police to search the area.

Two people have been charged in Victoria's disappearance, and court documents suggest police believe the girl, better known as Tori, died the same day she was taken.

Michael Rafferty, 28, is charged with first-degree murder and abduction, and Terri-Lynne McClintic, 18, is charged with abduction and being an accessory.

At Tori's school Thursday, the flag flew at half-mast as counsellors helped students cope with the loss of the bright little girl.

The children at Oliver Stephens Public School were given the sad news Wednesday as the rest of the city learned what they had long feared, but had hoped would not be the case.

Next to the school is a row of townhouses in a co-op where Tori lived with her mother Tara McDonald and 11-year-old brother Daryn for about a year. They moved a few blocks away just five days before she was abducted.

On the front lawn three doors down from Tori's old home, neighbour Heather Baker set up a tea party memorial with a teapot, crackers, stuffed animals, flowers and lots of decorations in purple – Tori's favourite colour.

Tori and Ms. Baker's seven-year-old daughter Emma were best friends and would drag the table out from the backyard and have tea parties in front of her kitchen window all summer long, she said.

Since Tori went missing, Emma had been organizing all her stuffed animals, hoping that when Tori returned, they could have a tea party again, Baker said.

“They told her at school before she came home and she just cried,” Ms. Baker said.

“She knows the finality of death and she was just devastated. She wondered who did this. She wanted to know who did this to her best friend and why.”

Ms. Baker was devastated herself. The co-op is a close-knit community, and news of Tori's disappearance and death hit them all hard, she said.

“We can still see Tori running back and forth across the lawns in her bare feet,” Ms. Baker said. “I guess it occurred to all of us that this may be an outcome, but you just choose not to believe it.”

Police said Wednesday that Ms. McClintic “may be familiar” with Ms. McDonald.

Tori's father Rodney Stafford said he believes the two, who lived only blocks apart, were acquainted through wanting to breed dogs.

A source told The Canadian Press that Ms. McDonald used to buy OxyContin – which she has admitted to using in the past – from McClintic.

Ms. Baker recalled a different connection.

“Terri-Lynne, I had heard her name last year, speaking with Tara,” Ms. Baker said.

“I had a friend who was going to buy the couch that Tara had, and that fell through and I remember [Tara] saying, ‘Oh no, I'm going to give it to my friend Terri-Lynne.' ”

Mr. Rafferty and Ms. McClintic next appear in court May 28.

Woodstock Mayor Michael Harding said residents are “still in a bit of a state of shock” over Tori's death.

He told CBC the city has been through a range of emotions “from hopeful to anxious to impatient to a sense of very deep sorrow.”

As for suspicions that had been cast over Tori's family during the search for the girl, Mr. Harding said the community owes them an apology because the “scrutiny was relentless” and “it's been terrible for those folks.”

At Tori's school, Joanne Lewis dropped off her three grandchildren – aged 10, 11 and 13 – and said while they understand the situation, she's not sure they fully grasp the gravity of it.

“They're a little sad,” she said.

A woman who identified herself as Brenda said her seven-year-old daughter Cassidy walked to school every day with Tori and Daryn.

Cassidy has Asperger's syndrome, so Brenda said Tori's death needed to be explained to her in a different way.

“I don't think she's quite grasped the concept of how final this is,” she said.

“She's not able to really verbalize the emotions, so now it's just a matter of getting her to do a lot of drawing, a lot of colouring to express how she's feeling.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/police-seal-off-garbage-bin-as-item-of-interest/article1147200/

[Northern Rose]

Missing girl: Accused man into 'rough sex,' says ex

Wed, May 20, 2009
By JOE BELANGER, LONDON FREE PRESS, PATRICK MALONEY, LONDON FREE PRESS
 
WOODSTOCK -- What had been a forgettable online comment is now sending chills through friends of Michael Thomas Rafferty, the man charged with killing Victoria (Tori) Stafford.

It was just after 10 a.m. on April 8 -- five hours before an abductor lured Tori, 8, to her eventual death -- when Rafferty offered up a typically brief Facebook update that's taking on an ominous new tone.

Good things are coming my way, he wrote.

"It makes me sick to think what that could mean," said Melanie, a friend who spoke on condition her last name not be published.

"Just to read this, what could you have possibly meant?"

That was one of many questions being asked yesterday as a picture emerged of Rafferty, a 28-year-old neighbours say lived with his mother in a duplex on Tennyson Street in Woodstock.

Melanie recalled a charming, good-looking guy who used party drugs and seemed to rely on friends for shelter. She first met him at a Toronto club several years ago and became re-acquainted through Facebook last year.

"I was obsessed with (the Tori) case. This just blows my mind," she said of media reports of Rafferty's arrest.

"When I heard his name, I said 'That can't be right.' I was floored. I've actually hugged this guy."

Another former girlfriend described Rafferty as having aggressive sexual interests and a secretive personality.

"He never had any money and I would always pay for things," said Jennifer Etsell, a single mom in Hanover who met Rafferty through an online dating service in 2006. "He started lying about things (and) he was always very secretive.

"I didn't meet any of his friends. He wouldn't talk about any of his past relationships."

His interest in what she called "rough sex" and bondage -- he became angry when rebuffed -- strained the relationship. She ended it after $2,000 disappeared from her bank account.

While they dated, Rafferty lived in Guelph -- where police were searching for Tori's body yesterday.

He moved into his mother's Tennyson Street home about a year ago and neighbours in that Woodstock neighbourhood say he rarely came outside.

"He didn't do anything," one said.

Last month, police were called to the home after a violent confrontation between Tennyson and his mother's boyfriend, who neighbours say also lives there.

That kind of outburst doesn't fit with the man Melanie says she knew, who was friendly and not the least bit threatening.

"I found him attractive. I've never known him to be mean to anybody."

http://www.lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Local/2009/05/20/9518346.html

[Northern Rose]

Missing girl EXCLUSIVE: Mom breaks silence, lashes out at police

Thu, May 21, 2009
 By RANDY RICHMOND , SUN MEDIA
WOODSTOCK - Tara McDonald today lashed out at police and the people accused of killing her daughter, while denying reports her addiction to painkillers brought the abductors into her life.

“My daughter’s not coming home. I want the killers dead,” little Victoria (Tori) Stafford’s mother said in an exclusive interview with The London Free Press.

McDonald also had harsh words for police, who she said targeted her and her boyfriend for 42 days, even while having an accused abductor in custody almost the entire time.

“The three times I was interviewed by police, they said, we know it’s you,” McDonald said.

Breaking a two-day silence since the arrests for abduction and murder of her eight-year-old daughter, McDonald said she could barely bring herself to think about the final hours of her "beautiful little princess.”

“To think someone took my daughter and then . . . I can’t even think about it,” she said.

“I know there are sick and twisted people in the world but I had no idea. I don’t want to sound selfish and I wish this on no one, but I sometimes think, why did it have to be my daughter?”

Often accused of being emotionless throughout her ordeal, McDonald fought back tears several times in an hour-long conversation and several times failed to stop the flow.

“Every day I’ve been bawling my eyes out and I think, 'I’m going to wake up and it’s going to be back to normal.'“

She’s refused to make funeral arrangements until she sees Tori’s body with her own eyes, and won’t accept the fact of her death yet.

“That is the only thing that keeps me from going off my rocker.”

When police met her Tuesday night to tell her of the arrests, she thought they had good news about Tori.

“All I kept thinking, all along, was that she’s somewhere; she’s fine; someone is taking care of her. They just wanted a beautiful little girl for themselves and they took my beautiful girl.”

McDonald spent today and the day before hiding from the media horde that’s descended on Woodstock since the news of the arrests, avoiding her own home where cameras were set up all day.

“I am just not ready yet,” she said.

But she promised to make a public statement soon, perhaps tomorrow, to thank the thousands of people who helped to spread the word about Tori and searched for her.

“So many people helped me. They tried so hard to find Tori.”

She also vowed to hold police accountable for how they treated her, her son, Daryn, 11, her boyfriend James Goris and friends.

“One officer came into my house and said, 'You are my prime suspect.’ He said, 'I have been doing this job as long as you have been alive and I have never seen a mother behave like you.’ I said, 'You should have dropped off the mother’s handbook to me so I would know how I’m supposed to behave.’”

Even worse was the way police treated Daryn, she said.

Daryn was questioned without a family member present and subject to horrible suggestions, McDonald said.

“He cried all night when he come home.”

McDonald said police suggested to Daryn he knew where Tori was, that Goris was a pedophile and asked Daryn if he’d seen Goris hurt Tori.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do about it, but I’m going to do something about it,” McDonald vowed. “I don’t want anyone else to have to go through this.”

Police told her son he’d better go to school or end up “a mess like his mother,” she said.

“Police wouldn’t believe a thing we said,” Goris said. “None of them have even been man enough to apologize to us.”

Told of McDonald’s complaints about police behaviour, OPP Det. Insp. Bill Renton - heading the investigation - tonight said he could not comment.

Tori was abducted April 8 after dismissal from Oliver Stephens public school. A surveillance camera from a nearby high school caught a woman wearing a white puffy coat and with dark, long hair pulled back walking with the little girl.

On Tuesday, police arrested Terri-Lynne McClintic, 18, of Woodstock, for abduction and accessory to murder after the fact.

McClintic was taken into custody April 12 on unrelated matters, several sources said. Police confirmed yesterday one of the accused was in custody before the charges were laid.

Michael Thomas C.S. Rafferty, 28, was arrested for abduction and first-degree murder.

Police have yet to find Tori’s body, and continued to search the Guelph area today, with McClintic’s help.

Since the arrests, there’ve been media reports McDonald and Goris bought Oxycontin painkillers off McClintic’s mother, Carol, who lived with her daughter.

There’ve also been reports McDonald wanted to give furniture to the family.

McDonald confirmed she wanted to donate a couch to Carol the moment she entered the dingy apartment whose sole livingroom furniture, she said, seemed to be a futon.

She adamantly denied buying drugs off Carol or Terri-Lynne.

Soon after meeting Carol, she decided the woman wasn’t a responsible enough pet owner to trust for breeding, McDonald said.

They met at most three times, McDonald said.

Terri-Lynn was in the apartment once, but was so high on drugs she barely noticed their presence, McDonald said.

She never spoke to Terri-Lynne, or mentioned her children, McDonald said.

After Tori was abducted, police asked the couple for a list of potential suspects – perhaps people who were new in their lives or people who didn’t like them.

“It was our ex-partners first then McClintic. They asked if there was anyone new in our lives and she was,” Goris said.

After the video came out, both noticed the similarity of the woman in the video to McClintic.

Goris said he saw McClintic a few days after the abduction, just before she was arrested on outstanding warrants, and noticed her hair had been cut. He also learned there was a white puffy jacket in the apartment that had been dyed pink.

Goris said he told police about his suspicions, but they continued to focus their attention on himself and McDonald.

“It’s a huge screwup by police officers. They had her in custody four days after. Maybe they could have saved Tori.”

The couple struggled to figure out how Tori could walk away with someone she had never met.

“It could have been something as simple as someone mentioning she had a dog like the little girl,” Goris suggested.

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Local/2009/05/21/9530396.html

[no rose colored glasses]

Wow, thanks for those articles very interesting.