Victoria (Tori) Stafford, 8 - Canada, Murdered. The trial of Michael Rafferty

[Jezreel]

that's what I thought of Derstine's closing yesterday. I understand he does not have to show proof of anything, but I don't get how he can say that if TLM was not the mastermind and she had ample opportunity to save Tori, why didn't she? My question is why didn't Rafferty then if he is so innocent?

LFP - The defence lawyer boiled down 10 weeks of evidence against Michael Rafferty into a lengthy argument about the Crown's key witness lying and his client acting, if not with morals, at least without guilt.

The mother boiled down the years of raising Michael Rafferty into a few short but firm statements about her son.

"He's not guilty and it hurts like hell. It hurts," Deborah Murphy said outside court Monday.

" . . . My son's innocent. And this could happen to any man that's walking around right now. Terri-Lynne McClintic has wrecked our lives and I just hope that justice is served and that he's freed."

It was the first time Murphy has said anything publicly about the charges against her son after his arrest in 2009 for the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of Victoria (Tori) Stafford. Murphy said she attended court last week, but Monday was the first time the media noticed.

Besides proclaiming her son's innocence, Murphy said little else. About lawyer Dirk Derstine's closing arguments, she said: "I think he's got a good lawyer."

Just how good remains to be seen, but Derstine took all day to dissect the Crown's case against Rafferty, largely by dissecting its key witness, McClintic.

"Clearly Ms. McClintic has proven herself to be a prolific and accomplished liar," Derstine said about the woman who lied to police several times in 2009 and tripped up at times on the witness stand.

"She has perjured herself over and over and over again. It is dangerous if not impossible to rely on her testimony in order to convict (Rafferty)."

Rafferty, 31, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault causing bodily harm in the death of the eight-year-old Woodstock girl. McClintic, 21, pleaded guilty in 2010 to first-degree murder.

McClintic has testified that on April 8, 2009, she suddenly took a young girl she didn't know because Rafferty challenged her to do it.

Rafferty drove to Guelph where he bought coffee at a Tim Hortons and drugs at a friend's house, before making her buy a hammer and garbage bags at a Home Depot, she said. He then drove to Mount Forest where he raped Tori in the back of his car, she said. On the way back to Woodstock, he told her to cut out chunks of the backseat that they could not clean.

After her arrest in 2009, McClintic told police Rafferty killed Tori, but at his trial, said she snapped and "savagely murdered that little girl."

That may be the only time McClintic is telling the truth, Derstine said.

Besides being a liar, McClintic remains a violent and dangerous woman, as shown in her journal entries, musical choices and actions in and out of jail, including several assaults, Derstine said.

He re-read several of the most vicious of those entries, where McClintic wrote she was feeling "like a vampire in heat" and "thirsty for blood."

"Wow," Derstine said after reading one segment, looking at the jury and shaking his head.

McClintic never lost her "sickenly violent and horrifying in the extreme" thought processes, he said, noting she's been charged with stomping and kicking a fellow inmate after luring her into a room by pretending she wanted the woman to be a mentor.

"Think about what this means about her. Think about what this means about her assertion . . . that (violence) was in the past and I never really acted it out."

After dispensing with McClintic's credibility, Derstine analysed the Crown's case against Rafferty:

The visit to Guelph:

If Rafferty had a kidnapped girl in his back seat, why would he go to a busy Tim Hortons to get coffee, where anyone could see the girl? Derstine asked.

Why would he spend time casually chatting with a drug dealer in Guelph while leaving Tori alone with McClintic? Derstine asked.

Why would he then park in a busy Home Depot parking lot where anyone might see the child?

"Are those the actions of somebody who believes there's a kidnapped little girl in the car?"

Why would a grown man need a hammer to kill a little girl? Why wouldn't a man continuing fixing up his car not have a hammer in his car already, as he did when he was arrested? Derstine asked.

"Maybe a smaller woman would feel more comfortable in buying a tool," he said.

If McClintic had picked up Tori on a "lark" a "dare," and was heartsick over it, then why did she walk into the Home Depot like someone on a mission and in eight minutes buy a hammer and garbage bags.

"She was the one who was much more deeply enmeshed in this."

The kidnapping:

McClintic said she picked Tori because she was walking alone and talked to her the whole way up the street from her school to Rafferty's car.

Derstine noted McClintic knew the neighbourhood well, often passed in front of Tori's front door while walking in the area, and knew Tori's mother and boyfriend."And what a shocking coincidence it was this girl of all girls this woman would pick on that particular day," Derstine said.

One parent testified a woman who looked like McClintic walked into the school. That parent and another testified McClintic rushed ahead of Tori up the hill, not talking at all to the little girl chatting behind.

"Who is that a child follows unquestioning?" Derstine asked. "A person they trust or someone they know."

After the killing, McClintic wrote in her journal several times, preparing for a possible police interview, "I don't know Tori Stafford." Why write it down so often, "Unless you're afraid you'll blurt it out," Derstine said.

The backseat:

The backseat was not in Rafferty's car after the killing, suggesting he got rid of it after McClintic cut out the pieces.

But a neighbour said he saw Rafferty take the seat out before April 8 and store it in a shed, Derstine noted. The neighbour also saw the same seat about April 15 at the curb and there were no chunks of it missing.

The evidence suggests there never was a backseat bench in the car April 8, he argued, "utterly at odds" with what McClintic said.

Forensic and DNA evidence:

The fact Tori was wearing only a shirt does not prove beyond doubt she was sexually assaulted, Derstine said. "There are lots of other ways at looking at that piece of evidence." The girl could have been killed, for example, while urinating in the snow.

Rafferty was a young man with an active sex life living with his mother. Of course there would be his DNA and DNA from females in his car, Derstine said. To say unanalysed DNA from a female probably would belong to Tori "would be a grievous error."

The evidence can prove Rafferty's and a woman's DNA were mingled on a gym bag. It can say Tori's was also on the gym bag but it cannot say how Tori's got mixed, or when. The most likely hypothesis: Tori's DNA got mixed in after the woman and Rafferty's.

Facebook:

Rafferty wrote on his Facebook page the morning of April 8, "everything good is comming (sic) my way."

All that proves is his client is a poor speller. Considering Rafferty's lifestyle, he may have been checking out girlfriends' pages and contemplating doing something with them.

Post-offence conduct:

Court heard Rafferty continued to have several girlfriends after April 8, even texting one that evening to arrange a date.

Neither than, nor declining to go to police, prove he kidnapped, raped or killed Tori, Derstine said.

"You have to be very careful about how you use that evidence. It is not to his credit but it doesn't make him a murderer. Does a leopard change his spots?"

The Crown might say Rafferty was hardly horrified by what McClintic did because he continued to stay in touch, and video from her detention centre will show a loving couple, Derstine said.

First, she initiated that contact, he said.

Second, it could be neither one wanted the other to go to police, so they kept up the relationship, he suggested.

"It was in his interest for Terri-Lynne . . . not to implicate him."

As soon as Rafferty said he wouldn't be coming around much anymore, McClintic went to police, Derstine noted.

Link to Rodney Stafford speaking yesterday:
http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2012/...27211.html

Rafferty's mother speaking briefly:
http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/raffe...29241.html

National Post - As it was outside the courthouse here, where Michael Rafferty’s mother was proclaiming the innocence of her son and blaming Terri-Lynne McClintic for “ruining our lives,” so it was inside it, where Mr. Rafferty’s lawyer, Dirk Derstine, was warning jurors not to believe a word McClintic said.

“She perjured herself over and over and over again,” Mr. Derstine said of the 21-year-old convicted killer.

He was making his closing argument to the jurors Monday.

More here: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012...der-trial/


Michael Rafferty's lawyers Dirk Derstine and Laura Giordano arrive at the courthouse in London, Ontario


Michael Rafferty's mother Deborah Murphy and her partner David Riddell emerge from the courthouse Monday following closing arguments by her son's lawyers


Sweet Tori