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

[Sieko]

I feel terrible for doubting Tara at one point.

I hope those two sick #@%$#% fry in hell.

R.I.P. little Victoria Stafford.

[Northern Rose]

Mom doubts accused can help find Tori
 
 
By Becky Rynor, and Linda Nguyen, Canwest News ServiceMay 23, 2009
 
Victoria Stafford's mother said yesterday she was "disgusted" police considered her to be the prime suspect in the disappearance of her eight-year-old daughter.

"For all the fingers that were pointed in my direction, they were wrong," Tara McDonald said, in her first meeting with the media since two suspects were arrested earlier in the week.

"We did our lie detector tests. We told them repeatedly we had nothing to do with this, and still not only the police but the community, I'm not saying the entire community, there are people who still had their doubts. Even though we said we had absolutely nothing to do with it."

Victoria went missing April 8 and was last seen near her home in Woodstock, Ont., on a surveillance tape, walking away willingly after school with an unknown woman in a white jacket. Her disappearance was classified by the Oxford Community Police as not suspicious until it was upgraded 10 days later to an abduction.

Terri-Lynne McClintic, 18, has been charged with abduction and accessory after the fact to murder.

Her boyfriend, Michael Rafferty, 28, faces one count of first-degree murder and one count of abduction. Both were charged Wednesday in Woodstock, following a 42-day search for the Grade 3 student.

According to court documents, it is believed the young girl was killed the same day she disappeared.

OPP officers and K-9 dogs, along with McClintic continued their search Friday in an area of farmland near Fergus, about 80 kilometres northeast of Woodstock.

"I think that if she knew where our daughter was at this point, then they wouldn't be searching," McDonald said. "I honestly think she is just enjoying some helicopter rides and some fresh air, because she probably isn't going to be getting very much of that in the near future."

Yesterday, the Oxford Community Police Service released new information about the suspect vehicle -- a 2003 Honda four-door car, blue with black spray paint over portions of the car -- and appealed for more public help in their search.

Investigators hope someone may recall seeing the car and/or suspects either in Woodstock or in the Guelph area.

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

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/doubts+accused+help+find+Tori/1623604/story.html

[Northern Rose]

Search Continues For Body Of Tori Stafford
Saturday May 23, 2009
CityNews.ca Staff
The search is continuing for the body of Victoria (Tori) Stafford.

The eight-year-old girl was kidnapped after school on April 8, just over six weeks ago.

Police have arrested a man and a woman they believe are responsible for her abduction and murder and now, one of the accused is helping officers with their investigation.

Terri-Lynne McClintic, 18, is onboard as officers scour a rural area near Guelph. McClintic is facing charges of abduction and accessory to murder. Her boyfriend Michael Rafferty, 28, has been charged with first degree murder.

For her part, Tori's mother doesn't believe McClintic can help.

If she knew where Tori was, Tara McDonald said, the search would be over. McClintic was arrested on Wednesday.

McDonald has stated numerous times that she would not plan her daughter's funeral until police find her remains.

"She was an angel," she said. "All you have to do is look at her. You know what I mean? People have discussed her personality. You'll see videos. Just remember her, because she was the prettiest, most beautiful little girl in the world."

http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_34798.aspx

[Northern Rose]

Oxford County : Suspect Vehicle Sought in Stafford Murder
Posted by Jen Waumsley 


Police are now turning their focus in the murder of 8-year-old Victoria Stafford to a suspect vehicle. In the hopes that someone may recall seeing the vehicle in the Woodstock or Guelph area, a description and photo of the 2003 Honda has been released. The vehicle is described as a 4-door car, blue with black spray paint over portions of it that may have been carrying the suspects or victim around the area of Home Depot in Guelph during the early evening hours of April 8th, the day Stafford disappeared. Police are also asking any property owners within a 50 minute drive of Guelph to check fields and report anything suspicious. Police are now into day four of the search for Stafford's remains with the help of accused 18-year-old Terri-Lynn McClintic.

http://cd989.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=16451

[Northern Rose]

Relatives dispute media reports of drug connection
Posted By SAL BOMMARITO
Posted 2 hours ago
 

The Brantford aunt of Tara McDonald says media reports that there was a drug connection between her niece and one of the people accused in McDonald's daughter's abduction and murder are false.

City resident Terri Muise, who is the sister of McDonald's father, Jim, who lives in London, said Tara only met 18-year-old Terry-Lynne McClintic once.

"It's not true that Tara knew (McClintic)," said an upset Muise, who visited Tara and her family earlier this week.

"She met her through a friend after they talked about breeding their dogs. She met (McClintic) for about 15 minutes. After the meeting she said, 'I would never leave my dog in that house.'"

McClintic, of Woodstock, is charged with abduction and accessory to murder in the death of Victoria (Tori) Stafford. McClintic's boyfriend, Michael Thomas C. S. Rafferty, 28, is charged with abduction and first-degree murder. They were arrested on Tuesday in connection with Tori's disappearance on April 8. Police continue to search for Tori's remains in a farmer's field near Fergus.

Muise said Tara was disturbed by media accounts that she had a relationship with the McClintic.

"She cried about it. She said, 'How can people think that I would have anything to do with those people?'"

Tara's stepmother Sharon confirmed that there was no friendship between Tori's mother and McClintic.

"They weren't friends. They were thinking of breeding their dogs. But after they met, Tara decided she didn't want anything to do with them. She said they were weird."

Sharon said Tara told her: "They're not responsible enough to have puppies.'" Despite denials, the attacks on Tara th in the print media and the Internet.

Muise said she was so fed up with one person's attack on Tara on a Facebook page that she felt compelled to respond.

http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1580422

[Northern Rose]

Tori case casts light on Woodstock's drug habit
City residents say abuse of OxyContin is pervasive and deadly

May 23, 2009 04:30 AM
Raveena Aulakh
STAFF REPORTER

WOODSTOCK, Ont. – "Welcome to Woodstock. If the trains won't kill you, the drugs will."

This is how Tyler Douglas, a 20-year-old OxyContin addict, describes the place where he was born and raised to visiting friends.

"That sounds strange but it is a fact a large population is addicted to drugs," he said yesterday. "People have been high and have (gone) dangerously close to the railway tracks. If they are not run over, the drugs eventually kill them. I have lost five friends to overdoses in two years. And it is all OxyContin."

It's no exaggeration. Many residents say the use of OxyContin is pervasive in Woodstock, a city of 35,000, about 140 kilometres southwest of Toronto.

"For a small town to have its own methadone clinic, it says a lot about how widespread the problem is," said Dr. Don Fuller, who works at the clinic, which is treating 250 to 300 people at any given time.

There are no hard figures for OxyContin users in Woodstock but yesterday Det. Sgt. Greg Fletcher announced the Oxford Community Police drug squad had charged 14 people and seized drugs worth $105,000 – mostly OxyContin pills.

The debate about OxyContin abuse in Woodstock has captivated people across the country ever since 8-year-old Victoria "Tori" Stafford went missing early last month. Within days, rumours about drugs and debts involving her mother, Tara McDonald, were circulating furiously on the Internet.

A week ago, McDonald told a news conference she has been battling an addiction to OxyContin for two years and a relapse had forced her to return to the methadone clinic eight months ago.

OxyContin is a popular painkiller developed in 1995 for people with chronic pain, such as those suffering from cancer. It contains oxycodone–a synthetic opiate with effects similar to those of morphine, heroin, codeine and methadone.

When used as prescribed, it provides a slow, 12-hour pain release. But drug abusers soon learned to crush the pills, then snort or inject the drug for a rapid high. Called "hillbilly heroin," a $4 prescription pill can sell for as much as $45 on the street.

A Star investigation earlier this year revealed OxyContin is an increasingly popular and deadly narcotic in Ontario: an estimated 464 people died of oxycodone overdoses between 2004 and 2008. In comparison, 49 died from heroin and 641 from cocaine from 2002-2006.

Following the Star report, Ontario's health ministry launched a review into oxycodone abuse.

In Woodstock, it is extremely easy to buy the little pills on the street.

"Give me $20 and two minutes and I will get you (OxyContin) in minutes," said factory worker Chris Gibbons, sitting in a tiny park opposite the methadone clinic on Dundas St. "Yes, it is that easy."

Christina Morrison, a 32-year-old former drug user and a convicted OxyContin dealer, may be exaggerating when she says almost 40 per cent of the town is hooked on the drug, but she remembers there were always at least 10 clients crammed into her downtown Woodstock apartment at any time when she was trafficking.

"And there was always a lineup outside. Always," she said grimly.

Fletcher points out it is not a problem unique to Woodstock. It's prevalent in other towns in southwestern Ontario and hits across society.

"There are 14- and 15-year-olds and older people who are users. There are virtually no boundaries," said Fletcher. But local police have recently cracked down on OxyContin dealers and it's not as easy to procure it now, he said.

Attempts to reach the mayor of Woodstock for comment last night were unsuccessful.

Until two or three years ago, crack cocaine, ecstasy pills and crystal meth were the most-used drugs. OxyContin gradually got popular because it was cheap and easy to use. But that has changed. The tablets are pricey now – a 40-mg pill can cost about $20. Some addicts are known to take 500 mg a day – that costs about $250.

It is very easy to get addicted, said Fuller. Sometimes all it takes is popping them a couple of times.

In a town like Woodstock, where young people complain there is nothing to do, dallying with drugs can be simply to fight boredom.

"Many other people pop them to get through boring and repetitive jobs," said Fuller.

"There is no escaping it in this town," said Morrison, who served 10 months in jail in 2007. "Everywhere you look there are Oxy users. You can spot them with their fidgety scratching, and their pupils, which contract when they've taken a pill or two."

Douglas, meanwhile, is starting treatment at the methadone clinic.

"I have been pretty stupid. Sold everything I owned to buy Oxys," he said. "I hope I stay off it."

http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/639199

[Northern Rose]

Mom weeps as searchers scour fields for Tori

Susan Clairmont
Mercury News Services

FERGUS

She is a tiny child in a vast countryside, waiting to be found.

For six weeks Tori Stafford has been here. A wee, eight-year-old weighing 63 pounds. Somewhere amid Wellington County's 2,660 square kilometres of fields, streams and woods.

Plucked from her Woodstock neighbourhood, murdered and disposed of.

Already dead when her community began praying for her safe return. Already dead when her likeness was plastered on storefronts and lampposts.

Her mother just wants her "prettiest, most beautiful little girl in the world" to come home.

For the first time since a man and woman were charged this week with her daughter's murder, Tara McDonald stood in front of her house in Woodstock yesterday and spoke publicly.

While the search for Tori carried on an hour's drive to the east, her mother's voice wavered as she talked of the desperate need to find her.

"We need to be able to deal with this," she said. "And this is just keeping it wide open."

A police van drives past a wall of journalists and pulls into a barren field.

This land north of Guelph has become the focus of attention and speculation since Wednesday, when Terri-Lynne McClintic, 18, appeared in court charged with abducting Tori and being an accessory to Michael Rafferty, 28, who is charged with her first-degree murder.

Police say Tori was killed April 8, the day she was kidnapped on her way home from school.

McClintic has been helping with the search.

Flying in an OPP helicopter and now being brought to this field. Her lawyer says McClintic is working with police because she genuinely cares about returning Tori to her family.

The van drives down a long dirt path and stops under a large tree, beside a pile of rocks.

McClintic walks to the pile, one of many rock piles in many fields around here.

At day's end, police leave the scene. It does not appear to have yielded any clues.

The long, intense investigation has now shifted to finding Tori's body and reuniting her with her family.

Tori's father, Rodney Stafford, said that even after the murder charge was laid, he still had a vague hope his daughter would be found alive. After learning McClintic was out there, looking for his child's body, that hope dissolved.

"It's been a long two days," OPP Sgt. Rob Huntley says late Thursday afternoon. He yawns, then apologizes for it.

Huntley, and the 15 others involved in the ground search, have been working from sun up to sundown. And then some.

"We're hoping for the family's sake we can come up with something.

"This is a very complicated investigation," he says cautiously. "I don't want to say anything to jeopardize it."

He does explain some basics, though.

OPP helicopters have been flying over Wellington County nearly non-stop.

"When you see the 'copters going around to other areas," he says, "they're following up on tips."

The hope is to find a few kilometres that seem like good possibilities from the air, then put canine units on the ground.

Huntley is out there most of the time, searching with the rest of his team.

The sergeant also co-ordinates tips flowing in about where Tori's remain might be. And, if he decides that he needs more resources than the OPP can muster, he will contact some of the municipal police services that have volunteered to help. But the reality is the OPP is the best at conducting searches. They are the experts everyone else calls when help is needed.

A kilometre down the road from the rock pile, an industrial dumpster is tucked beside cedars. It gets picked up every month or so.

Now the bin, brimming with garbage, has been sealed with police tape. An OPP cruiser guards it. The dumpster may contain "items of interest" police say. The OPP bring in a truck and carry the whole container away.

Tracking dogs are taught to sniff out "a footprint on the ground," says Dave Walker, who runs the Oakville-based volunteer organization Search and Rescue Dogs Ontario.

"Air scenting dogs" catch the smell of a live human being in the air.

Dogs trained to search for cadavers know the difference between the scent of a live human and a dead one. They can distinguish between human remains and animal carcasses.

Walker, who works with Hamilton Police and the OPP -- although he is not involved in the search for Tori -- says cadaver dogs do not need to be given an article of clothing to sniff before searching for someone. They are trained to find any and all human bodies.

A typical canine grid search takes place in an area no bigger than one square kilometre. "The dog could cover that in a half-hour or 45 minutes."

The OPP "have the best dogs in the country searching right now," he says. "Their cadaver dogs have been very successful" in the past.

The search carries on.

There was no OPP helicopter yesterday. It has been called to another case.

A pair of dog handlers were out there though, with four dogs between them.

And the plan is to continue searching -- dawn to dusk -- throughout the weekend.

Though Huntley will not discuss -- or even confirm -- McClintic's involvement with the search, a judicial order allowing her to leave jail to be out with police has been extended until Sunday.

On Monday, Huntley says, the search will be re-evaluated.

If Tori has not been found.

http://news.guelphmercury.com/News/article/485171

[no rose colored glasses]

Very interesting articles Northern Rose, thanks 

[Northern Rose]

Spring growth hinders hunt for Tori's body

Rural residents asked to watch for anything 'unusual' on their fields

May 23, 2009 04:30 AM

FERGUS, Ont. – Perhaps it's in Oustic. Or Aboyne. Or Belwood.

Those are a few of the dozens of villages and small towns north of Guelph, some not big enough to merit a traffic light, where there's a farmer's field in which Tori Stafford's slender frame was secreted.

Yesterday, for the first time since the search began Wednesday, authorities asked anyone living within a "50-minute" drive of Guelph to survey their property for anything "unusual or out of the ordinary."

Ontario Provincial Police Const. Joanna Van Mierlo, noting the need to balance public input with maintaining crime scene integrity, was quick to add: "I don't think everybody needs to be going out excavating their land."

Yesterday morning, the search turned to a field in the town of Salem, five kilometres west of Fergus. In what has become a familiar routine, officers arrived with a cadaver-sniffing dog. Once there, they focused on a pile of rocks at the field's edge. After a few moments, they packed up and moved on.

The problem is that piles of rocks, dug up and put to the side during decades of tilling, are as common in this part of the world as bird feeders in big-city backyards.

"It's difficult to say what we're looking for," said Van Mierlo.

After hours of fruitless plugging away at a search beginning to sprawl over hundreds of square kilometres, police began preparing anxious locals for a lengthy process.

"We have no estimated time where (the search) will be concluded," Van Mierlo said. "It's a very detailed, slow process to do correctly. I can appreciate that people are anxious for information ... but we need to just take our time."

This despite the fact that police are working hand in hand with the person accused of helping to put the body there.

For the third day running, alleged abductor Terri-Lynne McClintic, 18, accompanied the OPP's Emergency Response Team into the field but couldn't contribute much.

"She did indicate that the weather changes and the foliage changes are making (the search) tougher," said McClintic's lawyer, Jeanine LeRoy, by way of explanation. Six weeks ago this area was bleak and wintry. This week it has been in full bloom.

As well, investigators released a photo yesterday of a four-door 2003 Honda, blue with black spray paint over parts, in the hope someone may recall seeing it in Woodstock or the Guelph area.

Speaking in Woodstock, Tori's mother expressed frustration with the quality of McClintic's help.

"If she knew where our daughter was, at this point they wouldn't be searching," said Tara McDonald. "I honestly feel that she's just enjoying some helicopter rides and fresh air because she's probably not going to be getting very much of that in the near future."

Speaking on behalf of her client, LeRoy said McClintic's offer to help police came before she had retained counsel. She also said McClintic feels an "obligation" to find and return Tori's body to her parents.

"It's important to her that they know that," said LeRoy.

McDonald dismissed those sentiments: "If included in that there is absolutely no apology or no remorse, it makes her even sicker than I thought."

LeRoy has now spoken to McClintic on several occasions. She portrayed the accused as anxious to find Tori's body.

"She was very emotional in those conversations (earlier in the week)," said LeRoy yesterday. "This morning she was feeling much better and looking forward to the day, was happy with the extension of the (search) time in order to continue to try to help."

Once again, however, she couldn't lead investigators to the right spot.

McClintic has been spending her nights in downtown Woodstock, locked in a holding cell at the Oxford Community Police station. She was initially jailed on an unrelated probation violation shortly after Tori's disappearance and has now been in custody six weeks.

According to LeRoy, McClintic has had no communication with her boyfriend, Michael Rafferty, Tori's accused killer, since police made arrests last Tuesday evening.

For now, the search will go on with her help. The judge's order placing her into police custody has been extended until tomorrow evening.

Is that enough time for McClintic to summon a clear enough memory to locate a small, makeshift grave?

"I think she would count herself as hopeful," LeRoy said.

   
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/639154

[Northern Rose]

Very interesting articles Northern Rose, thanks 

Good morning.  Yes they are.  The picture of the Honda shows the original paint still on the front bumper which seems to be the same colour blue in the picture of the Honda he is sitting in in his photo account.  Wonder when he bought the paint bombs to cover the colour up?

I am also concerned that they are saying they will reevaluate the search on Monday if nothing turns up this weekend.  Surely they will not stop? 

[Northern Rose]

SUSPECT ACTED OUT OF REVENGE: TORI'S MOM
Charles Lewis and Adrian Humphreys, National Post 
Published: Saturday, May 23, 2009

Terri-Lynne McClintic turned Michael Rafferty in to police -- telling officers about the abduction and murder of Victoria "Tori" Stafford -- only after she learned he was dating another woman while she was in jail, said the dead girl's mother.

"From what I am told, and I don't know if it stands true or not, but the only reason that she confessed was that she found out he had found another girlfriend out here and that was pretty much her way of getting back," Tara McDonald said.

Ms. McDonald spoke publicly yesterday for the first time since Ms. Mc-Clintic and Mr. Rafferty were arrested on Tuesday in connection with her eight-year-old daughter's murder.

Ms. McClintic, 18, has since also volunteered to assist police in the search for Tori's body. A judge has granted special permission for her to be released from jail for three days to accompany police searching rural farmland in Southern Ontario. Ms. McClintic's lawyer, Jeanine LeRoy, said her client volunteered to help police for the sake of Tori's family and not to earn leniency.

"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," Ms. LeRoy said. "I would describe her as hopeful; hopeful that the investigation will soon be completed with her help," she added.

Ms. McDonald, however, not only doubts Ms. McClintic's motive, but also her ability. "I think that if she knew where our daughter was at this point then they wouldn't [still] be searching. I honestly feel she is just enjoying some helicopter rides and some fresh air because she is probably not going to be getting much of that in the near future."

Wearing a black dress and dark sunglasses, her voice barely controlled, Ms. McDonald said she had met Ms. McClintic "on two or three occasions" before Tori went missing when she visited with the accused woman's mother to discuss dog breeding. The McClintics lived around the corner from where Tori lived with her mother.

"We were going to breed our dogs," she said. "After we had met with the mother twice she had asked that we drop our dog off there for a day or two and I said absolutely not. I'm not taking my dog over there. I don't want to breed my dog with their animal. They were just strange people. Like, the mother was a very shifty individual, she was twitchy and weird and I just didn't feel comfortable there."

Even so, she said she offered to help them. "We offered them furniture because when we went into their home they didn't have any. They said their stuff was in a storage unit....We offered, when we had our truck to move in here, to help them get their things."

Ms. McDonald confirmed that she and her boyfriend, James Goris, had suspicions about Ms. McClintic's involvement early in the investigation and told police.

She said Ms. McClintic's mother confirmed her daughter knew Tori before she went missing. "At that time Terri-Lynne's mom said, 'Oh, well, she knew who Victoria was' and she said she had seen Victoria walking her dog. Now, I don't know if that meant she had seen Victoria walking our dog or if that meant that she had seen Victoria while out walking their dogs. She did make it clear that Terri-Lynne knew who Victoria was," she said.

She also suggested that perhaps a strap around the puffy coat on a woman who was seen on a surveillance video leading Tori away from her school on the day in April she went missing might, in fact, have been attached to a small dog. The dog might have allowed Tori to be so easily lured away. "If Victoria saw a little puppy, she would be all over it," Ms. McDonald said. Police had arrested Ms. Mc-Clintic after Tori's abduction on an unrelated matter. They questioned her while she was in custody about Tori's case because several tips had suggested she might be the woman seen in the video. She was still in custody on Tuesday night when she was arrested along with her boyfriend, Michael Rafferty.

Ms. McDonald said she did not know Mr. Rafferty. During the 25-minute meeting in front of her house, standing before a tangle of media microphones, Ms. McDonald spoke of her disgust with police focusing too much attention on her as a suspect and of her thanks for the community's efforts in searching for Tori. "When they said there was 100 police officers that were working on this case and said only five were focused on us, I said that that was five too many.... Any one person that was not spent looking in any other direction other than ours was wasting time," she said.

She said since the arrests many members of the community offered apologies for suspecting she was involved in Tori's abduction. She has yet to hear an apology from the police, she said. Ms. McDonald did say she understood it was the job of the police to put pressure on people to make sure they are telling the truth. She felt it went on far too long.

As far as she knew, she was considered the prime suspect up until Tuesday, when Mr. Rafferty and Ms. McClintic were arrested.

One officer told her that in all his years of experience, he had never seen anyone react with as little emotion as she did in such a circumstance. Ms. McDonald said she told the police officer that perhaps they should give out a "handbook" that tells people how to act when your child is stolen.

She said no one knows how they might behave until they face the gravity of the situation themselves. She had warm words for her community, however, and said she faced the media yesterday in order to thank them for their efforts in the search for Tori. Speaking of her daily press conferences while Tori was missing, she said: "I did it for my daughter. I did it because every single day we came out to the media because we knew they would post it in the newspaper, they would post it on the Internet, they would post it on television and that is why we did."

Several family members were there in support as she addressed questions of her child's death. Tori's brother had been "a mess" since learning of the arrests, she said.

She refuses to make any funeral plans until the body of her daughter was found, she said. When asked about what she thought her daughter's last moments would have been like, she said, "I can't even think about it."

With a sense of finality, one reporter asked the grieving mother how she wanted the world to remember Tori. "Just remember her because she was the prettiest, most beautiful girl in the world," she said.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1622098&p=2

[Northern Rose]

Mom says thanks

Sat, May 23, 2009
By RANDY RICHMOND, LONDON FREE PRESS
 

WOODSTOCK -- After six weeks of suffering through not just the loss of her little girl but also daily accusations of guilt, of being a drug addict, of being a terrible mother -- Tara McDonald yesterday offered thanks.

"We wanted to thank anybody who helped in any way in the last six weeks," McDonald said to begin what may be one of her last large news conferences since the April 8 abduction and slaying of her eight-year-old daughter Victoria (Tori) Stafford.

"We wanted to express our thanks to the media, to all the people who sent their prayers, their flowers, the teddy bears, the cards, the phone calls. We wanted to thank all the communities that pulled together and handed out flyers."

McDonald had one last tearful favour to ask people on behalf of Tori. "Just remember her because she was the prettiest, most beautiful little girl in the world."

McDonald had not spoken to the media at large since the arrest Tuesday of Terry-Lynne McClintic, 18, and Michael Thomas Rafferty, 28, in the abduction and killing of Tori.


McClintic has been helping investigators trying to find Tori's body, without success.

Just as she did in an interview with The Free Press two days ago, yesterday McDonald had harsh words for the accused.

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

McDonald repeated her criticism of police for spending resources trying to pin the crime on her.

She was especially angry at a detective who came to her house and said she was the prime suspect.

"I was disgusted," McDonald said. "I said obviously if I am their prime suspect, they are really looking hard at us and that is such a waste. I proceeded to get a little excited. I asked him to leave. I didn't want him in my home."

So difficult was the ordeal of being the prime suspect, McDonald had unusual advice for anyone else who loses a child to abduction.

"As sad as it is write down every single thing . . . so that way when they ask you where you were, what you were doing, who was with you, who you called -- you can give them those answers so that you're not a suspect," she said.

"I didn't have those answers. You are in such despair."

McDonald reiterated that she and her boyfriend James Goris met McClintic through McClintic's mother over a plan to have the two families' dogs breed.

She also tried to help the McClintics get furniture for their apartment, but the brief relationship ended because she didn't trust the McClintics to take care of her dog, McDonald said.

The target of vicious rumours, especially on Facebook, McDonald said she comforted herself every day with the knowledge she was innocent and a good mom.

"A lot of people who have said 'We doubted you' have sent letters, have sent e-mails and have said, 'We are very very sorry for ever doubting you.' "

Police, McDonald said, have not apologized.

McDonald began holding daily news conferences on her lawn shortly after the abduction and rarely shied away from tough questions.

Yesterday, though, there were some she could not answer.

Until the arrests Tuesday, she had encouraged people to look for her daughter, even though it appears from the court charges Tori had been killed soon after being picked up.

About that, McDonald said, breaking down, "I don't really have any thoughts."

Of her daughter's last hours in the hands of abductors, McDonald could only stammer, "I hope . . . I don't even like to think about it. Maybe it's just me in denial, but I don't want to think about it."

She won't plan a funeral until she has Tori's body back home, McDonald said.

"It's not that I don't believe what's going on. I know what's going on, but I am not going to be able to go through that twice."

For six weeks, McDonald had begged the world's help in bringing her little girl home and alive.

Now McDonald just wants Tori's body back.

"We need to be able to deal with this. This is just keeping it wide open."

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Local/2009/05/23/9544736-sun.html

[Northern Rose]

Peter Cheney

Woodstock, Ont. — From Saturday's Globe and Mail, Friday, May. 22, 2009 10:16PM EDT

There is a well-charted arc to the case of an abducted child, and eight-year-old Tori Stafford's has entered its dark finale: To the east, helicopters and police dogs are hunting for her body, guided by a woman charged in her slaying. And here, on the street where Tori lived until six weeks ago, her mother came out to speak for the first time since learning her daughter is dead.

“I have a million feelings,” Tara McDonald said. “Disgust, sadness, anger – there's a million. Every feeling that you can imagine, we've felt.”

Ms. McDonald's appearance yesterday marked a dramatic shift in the high-profile case. For the past several weeks, she and her ex-husband have been under a cloud of suspicion, coping with open speculation that they may have played some role in Tori's disappearance.

That changed this week, when police arrested 28-year-old Michael Rafferty, and his 18-year-old ex-girlfriend, Terri-Lynne McClintic. Mr. Rafferty is charged with first-degree murder. Ms. McClintic is charged as an accessory – police believe she abducted Tori from her schoolyard and delivered her to Mr. Rafferty.

Ms. McDonald spoke yesterday in front of a bank of television cameras that would have done justice to a presidential inauguration. She wore a black dress and wrap-around sunglasses as she addressed a long list of topics, including her feelings about Ms. McClintic telling police that she was helping them find Tori's body to give the family a sense of closure.

Ms. McDonald shook her head: “I think they should raise her charges,” she said. “She's just as responsible as he is.”

Although Ms. McClintic has spent the past two days leading police on a land and air search for Tori's remains, Ms. McDonald said she doubts that her information is valuable.

“I honestly feel that if she really knew where our daughter was, they wouldn't still be searching,” she said. “She's just enjoying some helicopter rides. She's not going to be getting many of those in the future.”

According to Ms. McDonald, the break that led to the arrest of Mr. Rafferty and Ms. McClintic came on April 12, just four days after Tori disappearance, when Ms. McClintic turned on Mr. Rafferty.

She said Ms. McClintic had been arrested on other charges, and decided to talk to police after learning that Mr. Rafferty had taken up with another woman.

Ms. McDonald said she had met Ms. McClintic several times, but not Mr. Rafferty. Ms. McDonald said Ms. McClintic had hoped that they could breed their dogs, but Ms. McDonald turned her down because she didn't like the atmosphere at Ms. McClintic's home, partly due to the woman's mother, an aging ex-stripper: “She was a very strange person,” Ms. McDonald said.

“Shifty. Weird. I didn't feel comfortable there.”

Ms. McDonald said police told her Tori was selected at random when Ms. McClintic went looking for a child for Mr. Rafferty. According to Ms. McDonald, Ms. McClintic told police that she had no idea that Tori was her daughter, and that if she'd known, she would have chosen a different child.

One of the more tragic codas to Tori's death has been the suffering of her 11-year-old brother, Daryn, who walked her home from school each day.

On the day Tori was abducted, he had agreed to walk two disabled children as well, and was apparently distracted.

Ms. McDonald said she told her son about Tori's death this week. “We told him two people were in custody, and his sister has gone to heaven.”

A short time later, Daryn broke a steel mop handle, she said. “He's a mess.”

Ms. McDonald seethed as she addressed the way police had turned the investigative spotlight on her and ex-husband Rodney Stafford.

At one point, she said, police told her that she was the “No. 1 suspect.”

“When they said 100 police were working on the case, and only five were focused on us, well, that was five too many,” she said. “We told them we had nothing to do with this, and we took our lie detector tests. Any person that was sent looking at us was sent in the wrong direction ... I said it from the beginning. We had no part of this. We were good parents.”

Ms. McDonald, who gave daily press conferences in front of her home after Tori's disappearance, said she resented those who interpreted her calm demeanour as a sign of guilt.

“Everyone's different. Everyone handles grief in their own way. ... The reason I didn't come out here every day and cry is because that's who I am as a person. ... No one gave me a handbook.”

As Ms. McDonald spoke yesterday, police continued the hunt for Tori's body. The search has centred on a rural area north of Guelph, about an hour east of Woodstock. Ms. McClintic has spent hours in an OPP helicopter, apparently attempting to locate a body dump site. OPP identification unit officers have combed through a series of rock piles, and taken samples from a dumpster in the area.

Ms. McDonald said she hopes the hunt for her daughter's remains ends soon. “We need to be able to deal with this,” she said.

“And this is just keeping it wide open.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/innocent-all-along-mother-left-with-a-million-feelings/article1149441/

[Northern Rose]

The seedy side of small-town Ontario
The slaying of eight-year-old Victoria Stafford has put the spotlight on a community suffering the scourge of drug abuse

Joe Friesen and Lisa Priest

Woodstock, Ont., and Toronto — From Saturday's Globe and Mail, Friday, May. 22, 2009 10:22PM EDT

There is a hollow look to the young addicts who wander Woodstock's main street.

Their cheeks are pulled tight, their limbs gaunt, their eyes dull and vacant. They have followed a high to its logical end, and are now trying to scrape themselves back off the bottom.

They gather daily at the bustling methadone clinic across from the city square for their medicine, a narcotic cocktail called “the drink” made palatable by fruit flavouring. In a city of 35,000, 300 people are on the patient rolls.

“I've lost my whole family pretty much,” says Casey, a 25-year-old OxyContin addict. “I'm not your normal street fiend. I've been raised by a good family. My parents both work at Toyota. I was in the interview process to get a job there too, but the drugs were more important so I lost that shot.”

This is the unseemly side of Woodstock, a side that has been thrust into public view with the abduction and slaying of eight-year-old Victoria Stafford. The girl's mother, Tara McDonald, confessed to an addiction to OxyContin, and the woman accused in her daughter's homicide, Terri-Lynne McClintic, is also a user, according to neighbours.

Although there's no suggestion that OxyContin contributed to Victoria's killing, the incident has focused public attention on a scourge that is ripping through this blue-collar town – one of many in North America, usually small and suffering economically, where the drug has cut a swath.

Surrounded by some of the most fertile soil in Canada, Woodstock was the hinterland of Upper Canada when it was settled at the turn of the 19th century by Loyalists fleeing the United States. It has always been at the centre of a farm belt, famous for its statue of a prized cow, but from its origins to the present day the “dairy capital” has wagered its own future on manufacturing.

Throughout the 20th century, that strategy helped Woodstock prosper: This was Ontario's heartland, with ready access to rail and roads linking auto parts and machinery destined for Detroit and textiles and furniture for Southern Ontario. In the city's museum, a 1983 promotional film proclaims “industry chooses Woodstock,” over a stream of pictures of molten metal and moving machinery.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-seedy-side-of-small-town-ontario/article1150283/

[Northern Rose]

A series of photos


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/innocent-all-along-mother-left-with-a-million-feelings/article1149441/#photos

[Northern Rose]

Tori murder accused 'intelligent' and 'weird'

Online date says Rafferty 'friendly' as another pal says there was something 'a little off about him'

May 22, 2009 04:30 AM
Kenyon Wallace
Staff Reporter

WOODSTOCK, Ont.–It wasn't the first time Melanie Munger had been put ill at ease by Michael Rafferty. But the Facebook message she received in October 2007 from the self-proclaimed "hopeless romantic" set off alarm bells.

"He said he worked in a meat packing plant in Guelph and worked under a knife all day," Munger, 30, said yesterday. "I thought there was something strange about that message. There was just something a little off about him."

Nearly a year and a half would pass before his name would resurface in Munger's mind. Rafferty, 28, was charged Tuesday with the murder and abduction of 8-year-old Tori Stafford. Terri-Lynne McClintic, 18, was also charged with abduction and being an accessory to murder.

The picture former friends and acquaintances of Rafferty paint is of a man of contradictions. While most describe him as intelligent and even funny, "weird" and "odd" are also common adjectives. But the thought Rafferty could be capable of kidnapping and killing a little girl never existed. Until now.

Munger, a St. Thomas resident, says she first met Rafferty in Toronto in 2001 when he was living at a friend's house on Queen St. W.


She said Rafferty, then unemployed, was nonetheless well dressed in the latest fashions. "It's kind of hard for someone without money but you could tell he wanted to look good to impress the ladies."

But there were hints of strangeness, enough that Munger felt no urge to keep up regular communication. "He would end his Facebook messages with comments like `I miss you' and `You are one of the best ones.' He was just a weird guy."

Tina, a Woodstock resident who asked that her last name not be used, met Rafferty on the dating site plentyoffish.com a year and a half ago. She says Rafferty quickly wanted to escalate their friendship to a romantic level. When she balked, he became distant – except when he needed money or drugs.

"I mentioned ... one day that my Dad has some medical problems and uses OxyContin," recalled Tina, 26. Then "he started phoning me up asking for Oxy. At one point he said he needed it for his mom and then for himself. For a while that's all he would call me about."

Tina says the two hung out "all the time," going for coffee or for drives.

"He was friendly, nice, and seemed intelligent. He talked a lot about fashion, girls and claimed he was a dance instructor," she said.

Rafferty claimed on his MySpace page to have graduated from Alexander Mackenzie High School, but the Richmond Hill school says it didn't happen. Rafferty only attended from Sept. '95 to March '96, acquiring just one credit, a York Region school board spokesman said.

Rafferty also claimed he studied to be a chef at George Brown, but on a cursory search the college found no record, a spokesperson said.

Jim Bender, owner of Lady Godiva's Adult Emporium, which is also Woodstock's pipes and bongs supplier, says Rafferty used to come in often to buy water pipes. "He looked worse for wear the last time I saw him" early this year, he said.

 http://www.thestar.com/article/638574

[no rose colored glasses]

A series of photos


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/innocent-all-along-mother-left-with-a-million-feelings/article1149441/#photos

Thanks, and the OxyContin problem, wow 

[Northern Rose]

A life of bars, sports cars and women

Dale Anne Freed
Kenyon wallace
Staff Reporters

At 10:01 a.m. on April 8, about five hours before Tori Stafford was abducted, the man now accused of murdering her wrote on his Facebook page: "Good things are comming (sic) my way."

Michael Thomas C.S. Rafferty, 28, hasn't posted anything on the social networking site since then, a former friend, who asked to be identified only as Stacey W., said in an interview with the Star.

Her recollections, along with details on Rafferty's MySpace page, paint a picture of a clean-cut ladies' man and self-proclaimed "romantic," who routinely sabotaged his relationships through infidelity.

He also has a son, said Stacey, who last saw Rafferty about three years ago. "But there was some reason he didn't have contact with his son."

Rafferty graduated from Richmond Hill's Alexander Mackenzie High School in 1998, later studied culinary arts at George Brown College but last year was working in construction in Guelph.

On his MySpace page, Rafferty described himself as a Scorpio who likes "dancing, music, camping ... electronics," and "all that mushy stuff that couples do."

"I'm full of romance and love and I wear my heart on my sleve (sic)! I am a hopeless romantic ... but can also stand my ground."

He liked to party. When Rafferty lived in Toronto about a decade ago, he was a regular at a Peter St. bar and could sit at the bar or dance with "a variety of different women" said Stacey, who was a waitress at the bar.

"Mike is a real ladies' man. Did he hit on women? Yes," said Stacey.

She was surprised, several years later while working at a convenience store in Guelph, to see Rafferty walk in.

Later, after he moved to Guelph, they became friends and lived across the street from each other. "Mike, in my eyes, was a great person," said Stacey.

"He had a steady girlfriend who was going to school as a veterinarian assistant. They were living together in her apartment."

"He was always whining to me about how his girlfriend was going to leave him because he always f---ed up. He was always cheating on her. She'd go home and he'd stay at the bar. The next day, he'd wonder why she was mad at him."

After he moved to Woodstock, he often spent evenings in Good Time Charlies, a popular bar on the main street. By day, he was seen driving around town in a blue sports car.

However, he wasn't a hit with teens playing on neighbourhood streets.

"We would be out here playing street hockey and he would come flying down the street going between 60 and 90 km-h," said Justin Carson, 16, who lives five doors down from Rafferty's mother, Deborah Murphy, whose home on Tennyson St. was the scene of Tuesday's arrest.

"We knew when he was coming because you could hear the bass pumping from his car stereo."

http://www.thestar.com/article/637413

[Northern Rose]

Picture #9 is of Carol McClintic - mother of T-L

http://www.thestar.com/fpLarge/photo/637156

[Northern Rose]

A series of photos


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/innocent-all-along-mother-left-with-a-million-feelings/article1149441/#photos

Thanks, and the OxyContin problem, wow 

For a very small town to have their own clinic it must be bad.