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

[Northern Rose]

Search For Tori's Body Continues
Friday May 22, 2009
CityNews.ca Staff
It is, in so many ways, like looking for a needle in a haystack.

The hunt for the body of Tori Stafford continues in the small town of Fergus, Ontario, a painstaking search that's literally leaving no stone unturned.

Officers with special forensics knowledge were back in the bushes on Friday, concentrating their search on places they've been led to by one of the main suspects in the case.

Terri-Lynne McClintic has been given special court permission to accompany searchers as they try to locate the area where the child's body may have been left.

Tori disappeared on April 8th and police are convinced she was killed soon after. McClintic and 28-year-old Michael Rafferty were arrested and charged on Wednesday.

Her lawyer confirms that the 18-year-old is trying to do all she can to help in the hunt. "She is doing her best to try to remember what she can and to provide that info to the police," Jeanine LeRoy assures. "She did indicate that the weather changes and the foliage changes (since April are making that tougher."

The advocate notes her client isn't receiving any special consideration for her help but seems to genuinely want to bring the case to an end.

Tori's mother, Tara McDonald has confirmed she won't be making any funeral arrangements until the body is found. "I'm not going to be able to go through that twice," she lamented on Friday, in her first public statement since the arrests.

Searchers zeroed in on several areas Thursday, reportedly towing a dumpster away for examination. But there's been no word on exactly what they've found or where McClintic may be guiding them 24 hours later, as the search entered its third day.

http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_34787.aspx

[Northern Rose]

Accused 'just enjoying helicopter rides': Tori's mother

May 22, 2009 05:41 PM
The Canadian Press

WOODSTOCK, Ont.–The woman accused of abducting Tori Stafford is aiding police in the search for the 8-year-old's body, but Tori's mother said today that she is putting little faith in those efforts.

If Terri-Lynne McClintic knew where the body was then police still wouldn't still be searching a large area near Guelph, Ont., said Tara McDonald.

"I honestly feel that she's just enjoying some helicopter rides and some fresh air because she's probably not going to be getting very much of that in the near future."

The six-week effort to bring Tori home safely turned into a grim search for her body Wednesday after two people in her hometown of Woodstock, Ont., were charged in her abduction.

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

Speaking out Friday, McDonald says she was called the No. 1 suspect by police during the investigation – an accusation that "disgusted" her.

"At one point, point-blank, one officer did come and say, `I'm just bringing you up to speed, and you are our prime suspect right now,"' she said.

"That was when I said, you know, obviously if I'm their prime suspect, they are looking really hard at us, and that is such a waste."

McDonald said she had met McClintic before Tori went missing outside her school on April 8.

"We were going to breed our dogs... We offered them furniture because when we went into their home, they didn't have any. They said that their stuff was in storage," McDonald said.

"I only met her on two or three occasions, and it wasn't like we were even talking to her, we were speaking with her mother."

When asked about rumours that she had bought OxyContin, a narcotic, from McClintic, McDonald replied: "absolutely not."

McDonald said she decided against breeding dogs with the McClintics because she found them to be "strange people."

"I just didn't feel comfortable there," she said.

A judicial order has allowed McClintic to remain in the custody of the Oxford Community Police Service to assist in the search for Tori's remains, which was taking place about an hour outside Woodstock, in Fergus, Ont.

McClintic's lawyer says her client wants Tori's family to understand that she is trying to return the girl's body to them.

"I know (Terry-Lynne McClintic) wants them to know that she is doing everything in her power to assist the police in bringing Tori home and I know that that's very important to her," lawyer Jeanine LeRoy said this morning. "It's important to her that they know that."

For the third consecutive day, McClintic was in the Fergus area trying to lead police to Tori's body. The search has been frustrated by McClintic's memory and the change of seasons — from wintry snow to balmy warmth - since the body was dumped, approximately six weeks ago.

"She did indicate that the weather changes and the foliage changes are making (the search) tougher," said LeRoy.

That would seem to indicate that Stafford's body was dumped very shortly after the alleged date of her killing, which police contend was on April 8th, the day she was abducted.

The OPP said this afternoon that they have still found nothing in the search for Stafford's remains, though they have air, ground and canine units involved in the search.

They called on residents of the Fergus area to search their properties for anything "unusual or out of the ordinary."

"We have no estimated time where (the search) will be concluded," said spokesperson Const. Joanna Van Mierlo.

"It's difficult to say what we're looking for," said Van Mierlo. "I don't think everybody needs to be going out excavating their land."

A pair of OPP officers with a cadaver-sniffing dog searched today through a stone pile in a farmer' s field near the town of Salem, aboout 10 kilometres west of Fergus.

The site was similar to one on Wellington Road 22 near Highway 6, midway between Fergus and Guelph, that the OPP searched the previous two days.

Tori's mother lashed out at McClintic and Rafferty in an interview yesterday with the London Free Press.

"All I know is my daughter's not coming home. I want the killers dead," McDonald said.

LeRoy has spoken to McClintic a number of times since agreeing to take her case.

"I spoke to her later (Wednesday) evening and again yesterday morning spent over an hour talking to her and she was very emotional in those conversations," LeRoy said. "This morning she was feeling much better and looking forward to the day, was happy with the extension of the (judge's order permitting her to assist in the search) in order to continue to try to help."

McClintic has yet to spend any time in jail since she was charged. She is being held each night in a cell at the Oxford Community Police station in downtown Woodstock, and shuttled up to the Fergus search area each morning.

The initial judge's order that allowed her release until last night has now been extended until Sunday evening.

At this point, LeRoy said she has not discussed a defence strategy with her client. Asked if McClintic's aid in the search is not a tacit admission of guilt, LeRoy would not comment. She did say that McClintic offered to help police before she retained counsel, and was not offered any consideration of her legal predicament in return.

LeRoy also said that it is too early to say if she plans to petition the court for a venue change out of Woodstock, where feeling against McClintic and Rafferty is running high.

"I can't imagine any parent not understanding the outrage that surrounds this case, but it's too early to make those kinds of decisions," LeRoy said.

http://www.thestar.com/Crime/article/638766

[Northern Rose]

The price of peace for Tori's family
May 22, 2009
Scott Tracey
Mercury Staff


The English society critic John Ruskin once suggested that peace can be either won or bought.

"Win it," he wrote, "by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil."

As the search for eight-year-old Tori Stafford's remains continues to play out all around us, speculation abounds that authorities may have decided to buy peace -- for the girl's family and the wider community -- by compromising with suspected evil.

It has been widely reported the female suspect, 18-year-old Terry-Lynne McClintic, has been co-operating with police, and may even have been inside that blue and white OPP helicopter that's been seen flying north and east of the city the last couple of days in a search for the girl's body.

We can only assume someone has given officers information that has brought this aspect of the investigation into our own backyard, and that person is someone who would have reason to know where Tori's remains can be found. Jeanine Leroy, McClintic's lawyer, told CTV her client was assisting the police "voluntarily, she feels a real obligation to do this, and genuinely wants to help."

Maybe so. But the apparent willingness of the female suspect to help police is raising terrible memories of other young girls stolen from us.

Outraged citizens have been quoted in the media and posted messages online warning that police "better not make another deal with the devil," a reference to the highly controversial plea-bargain reached with schoolgirl killer Karla Homolka.

Homolka received a 12-year sentence, in 1993, after pleading guilty to two counts of manslaughter. In exchange for that deal, she agreed to testify against former husband Paul Bernardo, who was convicted of two counts of murder and later declared a dangerous offender and locked up forever.

At the time police made that deal with Homolka, they were unaware of videotapes that suggested she was more willing participant than put-upon helper.

But when the deal was made, the police needed Homolka to get Bernardo. As distasteful as Homolka's 12-year sentence continues to be, imagine if she and Bernardo had both walked free because police could not prove them responsible for the deaths of Kristin French and Leslie Mahaffy.

Sometimes deals simply have to be cut.

Peace must be bought.

Evil must be compromised with.

Before this week, there was no reason to believe Guelph or Wellington County could be directly connected to the terrible story, and presumably no reason to believe the search would have come here without some insider information. Without that information, it is possible Tori's family would never have the sad closure that will come with the discovery of her remains.

It is not possible to underestimate the importance of finding the girl's body.

"Right now, they're saying they have enough evidence to verify that Victoria has passed," her father, Rodney, told reporters after the arrests, "but I myself, as Victoria's father, refuse to believe that until I actually see remains of my daughter, or my daughter's body.

"I love her with all my heart and until I see her, I will not lay this to rest."

Though most of us have felt it unlikely for some time Tori would be found alive, we all understand why her parents would cling to hope until they had evidence to the contrary.

For many reasons, the police must get that evidence, even if the method leaves a bad taste.
http://news.guelphmercury.com/News/article/484740

[Northern Rose]

CTV Toronto

[Northern Rose]

CTV Toronto

Police are asking for the publics assistance around the Fergus area to check their properties.  If anything looks disturbed call police.

It is being reported that T-L has not been able to help much as she is disoriented with the foliage on the trees now.

[Northern Rose]

Newsnet

Searchers continued to focus on rock piles in the Fergus/Salem areas today.  The search will continue tomorrow.

Neighbours of Tori have started a garden in her honour.

[no rose colored glasses]

I keep hearing about rock piles, are there a lot of rock piles in the area that they are looking at, or is there one or two piles they are interested in? I feel that Terri is playing some sick game with the police.

[Northern Rose]

I keep hearing about rock piles, are there a lot of rock piles in the area that they are looking at, or is there one or two piles they are interested in? I feel that Terri is playing some sick game with the police.

That area has many farms.  In the spring the farmer usually goes out with a "rock boat" (very flat trailer behind a tractor) and drives up and down his fields picking up the rocks so that when they work the field the equipment does not get damaged.  Most farmers have a pile (or more based on how many fields they have) that they put these rocks.  There would be at least one rock pile for each farm.  It seems they must have taken her body to one of these piles based on OPP checking out different rock piles.

[Kat_Gram]

I don't know what to make of Terri " helping" the police. But she has found nothing yet. I don't think she is playing a sick game, but having her in a helicopter is no good as she wasn't in one before, she was in a car. Tara said that when she saw Terri, she was out of it on drugs, maybe the same thing with this. The police better not screw this search up. Or this investigation or there will be heck to pay. I am in Canada, not close to there. It is so rural. I have driven in that area before on the way elsewhere. Frankly one place, one dirt road looks like another. What they need to do is map the area and get landmarks from Terri. Then give it to the public to report where there is a pile of refuse near a bin off that road to Fergus. If they don't find her, Rafferty could get off. Based on what has been released so far and I am not liking the looks of this case at all.

   

[no rose colored glasses]

I keep hearing about rock piles, are there a lot of rock piles in the area that they are looking at, or is there one or two piles they are interested in? I feel that Terri is playing some sick game with the police.

That area has many farms.  In the spring the farmer usually goes out with a "rock boat" (very flat trailer behind a tractor) and drives up and down his fields picking up the rocks so that when they work the field the equipment does not get damaged.  Most farmers have a pile (or more based on how many fields they have) that they put these rocks.  There would be at least one rock pile for each farm.  It seems they must have taken her body to one of these piles based on OPP checking out different rock piles.

Thank-you 

[no rose colored glasses]

I don't know what to make of Terri " helping" the police. But she has found nothing yet. I don't think she is playing a sick game, but having her in a helicopter is no good as she wasn't in one before, she was in a car. Tara said that when she saw Terri, she was out of it on drugs, maybe the same thing with this. The police better not screw this search up. Or this investigation or there will be heck to pay. I am in Canada, not close to there. It is so rural. I have driven in that area before on the way elsewhere. Frankly one place, one dirt road looks like another. What they need to do is map the area and get landmarks from Terri. Then give it to the public to report where there is a pile of refuse near a bin off that road to Fergus. If they don't find her, Rafferty could get off. Based on what has been released so far and I am not liking the looks of this case at all.

   

I sure hope you are wrong I was thinking that she may have been high and has no idea where Tori could be located.

[Northern Rose]

I don't know what to make of Terri " helping" the police. But she has found nothing yet. I don't think she is playing a sick game, but having her in a helicopter is no good as she wasn't in one before, she was in a car. Tara said that when she saw Terri, she was out of it on drugs, maybe the same thing with this. The police better not screw this search up. Or this investigation or there will be heck to pay. I am in Canada, not close to there. It is so rural. I have driven in that area before on the way elsewhere. Frankly one place, one dirt road looks like another. What they need to do is map the area and get landmarks from Terri. Then give it to the public to report where there is a pile of refuse near a bin off that road to Fergus. If they don't find her, Rafferty could get off. Based on what has been released so far and I am not liking the looks of this case at all.

   

It is pretty simple.  If they truly took her body to a rock pile then send out an announcement to ask all the farmers to go to their rock piles , do not distub anything and report if things look amiss or if there is anything indicating that someone was there. 

We can tell when someone has been out on the filed, new tire track that don't quite fit in the grooves the tractor has made, brush that is clearly trampled on that the deer would not do etc.  Why they are not asking the farmers to check their land is beyond me.  Farmers worth their salt know their fields well.

[Northern Rose]

Police seek suspect car in Stafford murder case
National Post 
Published: Friday, May 22, 2009


Investigators searching for the body of murdered eight-year-old Victoria (Tori) Stafford are appealing for public help in locating the remains of the Woodstock, Ont., girl.


Ontario Provincial Police have released a photograph of a suspect vehicle involved in the abduction and murder of Stafford on April 8, 2009, in hopes that someone may recall seeing it in the Woodstock of Guelph areas.


The vehicle is described as a 2003 Honda four-door car, blue with black spraypaint over portions of the vehicle. Investigators believe that the vehicle, suspects and victim may have been in and around the area of the Home Depot parking lot in Wellington Country near Guelph during the early evening hours of April 8 and are looking to speak with anyone who may have information.


Police are also asking property owners within a 50-minute drive of Guelph to check their property and report any suspicious or significant changes they notice to landscape or familiar landmarks.


"Our focus remains on recovering Victoria Stafford to provide closure for her family," stated OPP Inspector Bill Renton.


Terri-Lynne McClintic, one of two people charged in the abduction and murder of Stafford, has another three days to help police find the eight-year-old girl's body.


Thursday, Ms. McClintic, 18, accompanied police in a van and in a helicopter through rural southern Ontario as she tried to guide them to the girl's body while released from jail under a judge's order that expired at 10 p.m. ET.


Friday, the special release order was extended for another three days, according to Jeanine LeRoy, Ms. McClintic's lawyer.


Ms. McClintic is returning to an area near Fergus, Ont., a 90-minute drive west of Toronto and 90 minutes north of Woodstock.


Tori was last seen walking with a woman away from her Woodstock school on April 8. Court documents allege she was killed soon afterwards.


"When I spoke to [Ms. McClintic] Wednesday evening and again on Thursday morning she was very emotional and this morning I would describe her as hopeful; hopeful that the investigation will soon be completed with her help," said Ms. LeRoy.


Finding Tori's body "is her goal."



The cooperation was Ms. McClintic's idea and not related to a plea agreement, she said.


"She was assisting the police pursuant to a judge's order on Wednesday, before she ever talked to me. This is not her lawyer's idea. She wanted to do this. She knew she didn't have to and it is her idea to assist in this way," she said.


"She is cooperating based on the situation she found herself in, what happens in the future she has no control over."


Ms. LeRoy confirmed police accounts reported Thursday by the National Post that the change in season has played an important part in Ms. McClintic's imprecise assistance.


"She indicated that the change of season has caused some difficulty but she is still hopeful and still trying her best," said Ms. LeRoy.


Thursday, an investigator said: "She is directing officers at the scene but does not have a very clear idea of where she is going ... The landscape has changed since then. Things look different six weeks later."



April 8 started with snow showers and a wind chill of -7C in the area and the foliage had not yet started to bloom.



Ms. McClintic's help in the search was secured on Wednesday evening in discussions with police after a brief court appearance earlier that day, an investigator said.


Late on Tuesday night, police arrested Ms. McClintic, who lived in a ramshackle row house in Woodstock with her mother, charging her with abduction and aiding her boyfriend, Michael Thomas Rafferty, 28, who is charged with abduction and first-degree murder.


In announcing the arrests, police said the focus was now on reuniting Tori's remains with her family.


"We will not stop until we are able to find the remains of Victoria Stafford," Ontario Provincial Police Det. Insp. Bill Renton told a news conference Wednesday in Woodstock.


"Our focus is to gather the evidence and follow it and allow it to take us to where Victoria is."


National Post

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1621086

[Northern Rose]

Wow, they must have read my post....

 Police in Woodstock have released an image of a car that may be linked to Victoria Stafford's murder.

Investigators say they have cause to believe that a blue, 2003 4-door Honda with black spray paint over portions of the vehicle was in and around the Home Depot in Guelph on the night that Tori disappeared.

They are hopeful someone may recall seeing the vehicle in Woodstock or in the Guelph area.

Investigators are also asking property owners to check their fields and report any suspicious or significant changes they notice to landscape or familiar landmarks.

http://www.680news.com/news/headlines/more.jsp?content=20090522_200440_6744

[Kat_Gram]

I was thinking about farmers as they do know their areas and their own land.
Give the public the landmarks. Northern Rose, you must farm or something to know of rock piles.
..
Surly that B must have a clue how long they drove for, what they were near, how far from the road ? Was it something the other pos was familair with, he used to live in Guelph ? 

[no rose colored glasses]

Wow, they must have read my post....

 Police in Woodstock have released an image of a car that may be linked to Victoria Stafford's murder.

Investigators say they have cause to believe that a blue, 2003 4-door Honda with black spray paint over portions of the vehicle was in and around the Home Depot in Guelph on the night that Tori disappeared.

They are hopeful someone may recall seeing the vehicle in Woodstock or in the Guelph area.

Investigators are also asking property owners to check their fields and report any suspicious or significant changes they notice to landscape or familiar landmarks.

http://www.680news.com/news/headlines/more.jsp?content=20090522_200440_6744

It sure looks like most of the blue car has been sprayed with black, except for a small portion, hopefully easy for someone to remember seeing this car.

[Nut44x4]

Sorry if this has been posted.....

She was the prettiest little girl in the world, says Tori Stafford's mother
Fri, 2009-05-22 20:23

WOODSTOCK, Ont. - The mother of Victoria Stafford emerged from her home Friday to once again face a barrage of questions and a wall of television cameras, but the message of hope she delivered almost daily for her daughter's return became instead a grieving parent's remembrance of a beautiful child.

"All you have to do is look at her," said Tara McDonald, her large dark sunglasses not able to conceal the tears she was fighting back.

"Just remember her because she was the prettiest, most beautiful little girl in the world."

Victoria, known as Tori, was abducted on April 8 outside her school. For the past six weeks McDonald and her ex-husband Rodney Stafford fought to keep Tori's story in the news, hoping that the pictures of their beaming daughter printed and broadcast all over the country would lead to her safe return.

Even when the stories focused on suspicion surrounding McDonald she faced the cameras.

On Friday, she said some community members have apologized for doubting her. But McDonald lashed out at police for zeroing in on her as their prime suspect.

"Maybe somebody should have dropped me off a handbook on how I should have been behaving or how you behave when your child's missing," she recounted snapping at the police.

Former Toronto Police superintendent Tony Ellis, who has been involved in six similar murder investigations involving children, said police have to treat parents as suspects, even though hurt or angry feelings are often the result.

"The primary concern is to get the child back in the best possible condition as fast as possible, everything else is secondary," he said Friday.

"You need to be, obviously, sensitive to the family and try to be nice and so on but at the end of the day it's the child that's the key focus."

Now McDonald's emotions and those of her partner James Goris - who glumly clutched a giant teddy bear as McDonald spoke - have run the gamut, she said.

"Disgust, sadness, anger - there's a million. Every feeling that you can imagine, we've felt."

Six weeks after Tori vanished, police charged Michael Rafferty, 28, with first-degree murder and abduction and Terri-Lynne McClintic, 18, with abduction and being an accessory.

McDonald said she had met McClintic and her mother Carol McClintic before when they were discussing breeding their dogs, but she didn't trust them.

"They were just strange people," she said. "I just didn't feel comfortable there."

McDonald and Goris suspected McClintic after seeing surveillance video of Tori and a woman with long, dark hair walking away from her school and again after a composite sketch was released, McDonald said.

Goris told police shortly after the video was released that McClintic had cut her hair and that the pair thought she looked like the woman in the video, she said.

At one point McDonald was confronted with the allegation that she looked like the woman in a composite sketch released by police - a suggestion she has called laughable.

McDonald also denied Friday that she had bought OxyContin, a drug she has admitted using in the past, from McClintic.

Unrelated to Tori's case, police announced 38 charges against 14 people Friday as the result of a three-month investigation into OxyContin in Woodstock.

"During 2008 the Oxford Community Police Service began to notice a trend in which Oxycodone was quickly becoming the drug of choice of a large number of drug dependant persons in the City of Woodstock," a news release said.

A judicial order has allowed McClintic to remain in the custody of the Oxford police to assist in the search for Tori's remains, which is taking place about an hour outside Woodstock, in Fergus, Ont.

In a release late Friday, police asked to speak with anyone who may have seen a blue 2003 four-door Honda with black spray paint over portions of it in Woodstock or in Guelph.

Investigators said they believe that the vehicle, suspects and Tori may have been in and around the parking lot of a Home Depot in Guelph during the early evening of April 8.

Police have been keeping one or two officers and police cars outside the suspects'homes, but on Friday several forensic identification vans and several more officers were outside McClintic's house.

McClintic's lawyer Jeanine LeRoy said Friday that her client has a message for Tori's family.

"She wants them to know that she is doing everything in her power to assist the police in bringing Tori home," LeRoy said outside court in Guelph, Ont., where she was appearing on unrelated matters.

"It's important to her that they know that."

McDonald scoffed when told of the message.

"I think that if she knew where our daughter was at this point then they wouldn't be searching," McDonald said.

"I honestly feel that she's just enjoying some helicopter rides and some fresh air because she's probably not going to be getting very much of that in the near future."

But until her daughter's remains are found, she can't truly begin to deal with her heartbreak, McDonald said.

Despite McClintic's co-operation, the search has lasted three days.

"She is doing her best to try to remember what she can and to provide that info to the police," LeRoy said. "She did indicate that the weather changes and the foliage changes (since April are making that tougher."

LeRoy said neither she nor her client have discussed a deal with the Crown attorney in exchange for her co-operation.

"It was her idea (to help), not counsel's," LeRoy said of her client. "She was involved with police in assisting them in the search well before she even talked to a lawyer."

Rodney Stafford spoke Wednesday and Thursday about how he is trying to cope with the devastating news of his daughter's death, but took Friday to spend time with his son, Daryn.

The sweet, sensitive 11-year-old was Tori's best friend, their parents say, and is understandably having a hard time.

After telling Daryn "that his sister has gone to heaven," he went into the backyard and took out his aggression on a metal mop handle, breaking it, McDonald said. He told his parents on Tuesday night that jail wasn't punishment enough for whoever was responsible for taking his sister away from him.

http://www.cjad.com/news/14/932711

[Northern Rose]

I was thinking about farmers as they do know their areas and their own land.
Give the public the landmarks. Northern Rose, you must farm or something to know of rock piles.
..
Surly that B must have a clue how long they drove for, what they were near, how far from the road ? Was it something the other pos was familair with, he used to live in Guelph ? 

Grew up on a very large farm in AB.  On an acerage now but really miss the farm.  I am getting a sense from the news that because he worked in Guelph he knew some of the back roads when he lived there.  They are also now saying on the news that he took her at night so if you do not know the roads, yes one looks like another .

[Kat_Gram]

I work for the big ag programs. Some of my co workers are from out of town. They get sick ( sort of like a love sick ) for the land in the spring. Most of them go home to help at critical times.
..
I live in the city, close to the end of the sidewalk. I know my area and where a person could put stuff where it would never be found in the little forest and the bush surrounding here.

[Tracygirl]

How does one not remember where you put a dead child's body? Call me crazy but it would seem it would be an event burned into your memory! I don't know if she is pretending to help, knowing it will play good for her or if she is really trying. she doesn't strick me as a person who would really care too much. After all she did  lure the girl so she could be assulted and killed.

As a mother it would be the ultimate blow to not be able to bury a child who was killed. Knowing that the body is out there, somewhere...just aweful. Sending tons of prayers they find her soon so she can be laid to rest properly.