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

[Jezreel]

Crown should wrap up their closing today and hopefully the Judge will start on his charge to the jury, which has been said could take more than a day. The jury should be in deliberation by end of day Thursday or Friday. Sounds to me as the crown is doing a great job with their closing so far, I hope the jury see it the same way.

LFP - Michael Rafferty's voice filled the courtroom as the images played on the computer screens.

"My girlfriend, no . . ." he said of Terri-Lynne McClintic as the screen showed a photo he took of her in a hotel room.

"I don't know what I was doing" April 8, 2009, he said, as the screen played a video of his car, or one looking a lot like it, driving up the street outside the school of Victoria (Tori) Stafford that very day.

"I've never gone anywhere with her," Rafferty said, as a video showed him and McClintic at a Guelph Home Depot.

" . . . because you uh know you want to help . . . " he said, explaining why he kept his ears open for word of the missing eight-year-old Tori.

Is that so? Crown attorney Kevin Gowdey wondered in court Tuesday after that last bit of an audio-visual show was done.

Rafferty's words came from the audiotaped May 15, 2009, interview he had with police.

"It was the perfect opportunity to do the moral thing, the right thing to do, to tell them all about what Ms. McClintic had done..." Gowdey said. Instead, he lied, the Crown said.

With a combination of visual aids, drama and a methodical laying out of facts, Gowdey began the Crown's closing arguments Tuesday in Rafferty's first-degree murder trial.

The argument: Rafferty was no "innocent dupe" and McClintic was not, as the defence suggests, "the engine" behind the kidnapping, sexual assault and killing of the eight-year-old school girl.

Instead, Rafferty used his "violent pawn" of a girlfriend, McClintic, to get him a girl, buy the murder weapons with cash he gave her, keep the girl hidden when he had to leave the car, and help clean up and cover up the murder.

"He was leading the events of April 8 from start to finish and he completely controlled what happened after April 8," Gowdey said.

He reminded jurors they only have to find one of three things true to convict Rafferty of first-degree murder; that the kidnapping or rape of Tori resulted in her death, or that the killing was pre-planned.

"We say he is guilty of all," Gowdey told the jury.

His measured delivery gave a sombre tone to the arguments, and put in highlighted contrast his occasional bit of drama.

About 4:30 p.m. April 8, a worried Tara McDonald, Tori's mother, wondered if something had happened to her, Gowdey said.

"Indeed something was terribly wrong. At that very moment, about 4:30, Victoria Elizabeth Stafford was lying on the floor . . .," Gowdey said, and turned suddenly to point with both hands at Rafferty in the prisoner's dock ". . . of this man's car."

He quickly dismissed one of the defence's main arguments, that McClintic is such a violent liar her story can't be trusted.

"There is no question from time to time you are going to find she lied in her evidence," he said.

Even so, the defence never attacked "her evidence in any significant way," Gowdey said.

Rafferty at times rolled his eyes, scowled or muttered to himself during Gowdey's closing.

Tori's family had a different reaction. Aunt Rebecca Nichols, an Alberta resident, sobbed during one recess after seeing and hearing some evidence for the first time. Tori's dad Rodney Stafford left early, telling reporters if he sat in court any longer, he'd have an "outburst."

Rafferty, 31, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault causing bodily harm.

McClintic, 21, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in 2010 and testified against Rafferty. She told police in 2009 Rafferty directed the kidnapping, raped Tori and killed her, but at his trial, said she killed Tori.

Gowdey told jurors yesterday in a legal sense it doesn't matter who dealt the fatal blows.

"Michael Rafferty and Terri-Lynne McClintic were in this together. Together they did this to Tori Stafford. Together they are guilty."

The Crown presented its case in 12 chapters and Gowdey worked his way through seven Tuesday. Here are some of his major points:

Rafferty picked up McClintic and drove by Tori's school, the second time that day, before getting enough gas for a long trip out of Woodstock.

He then dropped McClintic off and parked up the street, hidden in a nursing home parking lot, with quick access to Hwy. 401.

If Rafferty really believed he was innocently picking up a child McClintic knew, as the defence suggested, why wouldn't he just park across the street from the school, Gowdey asked.

And why did he continue driving a girl to Guelph, who undoubtedly would have asked where they were going and why? Gowdey asked.

"When does the light go on for Mr Rafferty? Why would he not just turn the car around . . . unless he had evil intentions."

The intentions became clear in Guelph, Gowdey said. Rafferty took out cash from an ATM and gave it to McClintic. She used that money to buy the "murder tools": a hammer and garbage bags.

Just as when he parked on Fyfe Ave., he let McClintic expose herself to the danger of being caught and kept himself hidden and ready to drive away if need be, Gowdey said.

"Just because Mr. Rafferty is staying safely out of the picture, that doesn't mean he isn't controlling exactly what is going on."

Then he drove on to Mount Forest, with an eight-year-old girl he did not know in the backseat and murder tools in the trunk.

"No law-abiding person would continue . . . but on they went," Gowdey said.

McClintic didn't know the area, and in fact had trouble finding it later for police. Rafferty knew the area, 130 km away from Woodstock, and chose a spot unseen from the road, Gowdey said.

"Getting as far out of town was the best plan of all and that is exactly what they did."

The reason McClintic was able to observe so much of the scene, giving police detailed descriptions of silos and woods and rockpiles is because she wasn't the one busy raping Tori, he said.

McClintic testified Tori asked for help at a break in that rape, but she delivered the girl back to Rafferty.

"It is detail that could not make Ms. McClintic look any worse as a human being. You do not make that up," he said.

McClintic testified Tori had no clothing on her lower body as she was raped, only a shirt on top. Sure enough, that is how her body was found months later, Gowdey noted.

The rocks that were put on Tori's body were heavy, "clearly a two-person job," he said.

In his May 15 interview with police, Rafferty appeared forceful and confident.

"The lies just roll of his tongue."



As Tori's father has to leaves court because he just couldn't take anymore of listening to his daughters last hours as they must have been frightfully horrendous, her Aunt cries while hearing the evidence and seeing the autopsy photos of her niece after being found in the fetal position, Rafferty mutters and scowls - nice one!
Some articles state that when Gowdy was saying if the back seat wasn’t in the car and this was an innocent ride, where was Victoria sitting, Rafferty mouthed “Oh my God”. Also that when Gowdy was showing the autopsy photos one lady juror was close to tears. There are 7 women and 3 men on this jury, which could lead me to believe that they may well (hopefully) be thinking the same as the majority that he is in fact guilty on all charges (fingers crossed).

[Kip]

The prosecutor is laying out a very clear and compelling case for MR's guilt. I'm feeling hopeful again that the outcome will be a guilty verdict.

[Jezreel]

Rafferty has been quite animated today again, mutterng and skaing his head as the crown lays out their closing according to various tweets.

Morning update from LFP - Michael Rafferty was at “the top of his game” in the days after Tori Stafford’s murder, keeping girlfriend Terri-Lynne McClinitc “onside” by visiting her behind bars.

“He had her right where he wanted her in the palm of his hand,” Crown attorney Kevin Gowdey said Wednesday, day two of his final argument to convict Rafferty for the 2009 murder of eight-year-old Victoria (Tori) Stafford.

But Gowdey said that all changed after May 15 when he was interviewed by police.

Worried “the net was closing,” Rafferty bought hair dye, replaced his smartphone, looked for a replacement for the back seat of his car and the Puma shoes he wore April 8, the day the Woodstock girl vanished on her way home from school.

Rafferty, 31, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault causing bodily harm. McClintic, 21, his former girlfriend, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison in April 2010.

Going over Rafferty’s phone records on the day Tori disappeared, Gowdey noted it was not used around 7 pm because that would have been when Rafferty was raping and murdering the girl, but the chatty calls to girlfriends resumed an hour later. “He never skipped a beat.”

He also steered jurors to the eight and a half minutes of surveillance video of Rafferty’s car sitting in the Home Depot parking lot while McClintic shopped inside.

“Just think of what Tori endured sitting there” alone with Rafferty, the Crown attorney said, “tired . . . hungry . . . terrified.”

Rodney isn't in court today after leaving around noon yesterday

This from CBC article - It was all too much for Tori's father, Rodney Stafford, who left the courthouse saying it was too difficult to hear about the last moments of his daughter's life.

"It's too hard for me to sit back and not be able to say anything about it," Stafford said outside the courtroom, adding that he feared he could have an outburst and ruin everything.

"I have to allow all this to take its course. I'm fed up. I'm tired."

My heart really breaks for him

[/b]

[Kip]

My heart really breaks for him[/color]

Yes... I can barely stand to read about some of the horrors inflicted on children. I can't even begin to imagine the nightmare it must be to know about the pain and torture inflicted upon your own child.

[Jezreel]

My heart really breaks for him[/color]

Yes... I can barely stand to read about some of the horrors inflicted on children. I can't even begin to imagine the nightmare it must be to know about the pain and torture inflicted upon your own child.

I think I would remain heavily sedated for the rest of my life if I had to live through that. I have so much respect and admiration for the parents who come through it and work hard to make changes and raise awareness, I don't know that I would be strong enough.

[Kip]

I think I would remain heavily sedated for the rest of my life if I had to live through that. I have so much respect and admiration for the parents who come through it and work hard to make changes and raise awareness, I don't know that I would be strong enough.

I think you would be strong enough. You'd do it to honor your child. It would give your child's life an extra measure of meaning. And your efforts might prevent some other child from being harmed. I think having causes to work for are the only way some parents are able to cope.

[Jezreel]

So just a quick update as per some tweets.

The crown wrapped up it's closing this afternoon and thanked the jurors. Justice Heeney tells the jurors they will start early tomorrow at 9.30 so that he can try and get though his charge as it will be long and as he says 'boring'
He also said to the jurors to bring their toothbrushes and pajamas tomorrow as they might need them!

[Jezreel]

I think I would remain heavily sedated for the rest of my life if I had to live through that. I have so much respect and admiration for the parents who come through it and work hard to make changes and raise awareness, I don't know that I would be strong enough.

I think you would be strong enough. You'd do it to honor your child. It would give your child's life an extra measure of meaning. And your efforts might prevent some other child from being harmed. I think having causes to work for are the only way some parents are able to cope.

Very true Kip, I am sure that those causes do help get them through the hard times. You're right maybe I would be able to, I would do anythign for my lil girl.

[Jezreel]

Just a few tweets from LFP so far this AM, some interesting things the chargwe is 104 pages



RaffertyLFP: Court resumes - jury not in yet [via Twitter]

9:32

RaffertyLFP: On Wednesday Heeney warned them to "pack a toothbrush" Saw two women entering courthouse with suitcases - assume they were jurors [via Twitter]
9:30

RaffertyLFP: When Heeney is finished jury will begin their deliberations immediately, If necessary, they will be sequestered until they reach a verdict. [via Twitter]

9:30
Mike Knoll: @guest - Randy Richmond will host this feed tomorrow from the courthouse starting at 10AM. He will answer as many questions as he can about articles that will be printed in between now and then.

9:29
Comment From Guest
will a live twitter feed stay on while we wait for a verdict?

9:29
Mike Knoll: @Guest - Randy Richmond will be sitting at the courthouse until there is a verdict.

9:29
RaffertyLFP: Heeney will like take all day - have heard it is 104 pages. [via Twitter]

9:28
Comment From Guest
will LFP be notified that a verdict has been reached so that you will be able to cover it?

9:28
RaffertyLFP: Waiting for the final day of the Rafferty trial to begin. Justice Thomas Heeney will deliver his charge to the jury [via Twitter]

9:23
Mike Knoll: @guest - Rafferty will be in court for the charge. The deliberations are held VERY privately in a jury room - Rafferty will not be present for that.

9:23
Comment From Guest
does Rafferty stay in court for judges charge? as well the deliberation?

9:18
Mike Knoll: @Guest - chances are it would happen the same day. There may be impact statements from the victim's family as well following the verdict - depending on what it is.

9:17
Comment From Guest
so if found guilty does Rafferty come back later for his sentencing?

9:15
Mike Knoll: @Fergus - they will be immediately sequestered.

9:15
Comment From Fergus
Once the judge's charge is completed, is the jury immediately sequestered? (it was noted yesterday that the charge will take all day) Or would they come back in the morning and go into deliberations?

9:14
Mike Knoll: @guest - that's the impression we got from Justice Heeney yesterday. He told the jurors to bring toothbrushes and pyjamas.

9:14
Comment From Guest
Is the charge to take "all day" and as soon as it it done they deliberate?

9:09
Mike Knoll: Superior Court Justice Thomas Heeney will be charging the jury today. Here's a defintion of "charge to the jury":

The judge's instructions to the jury concerning the law that applies to the facts of the case on trial.

The opinion expressed by the court to the jury, on the law arising out of a case before them.

It should contain a clear and explicit exposition of the law, when the points of the law in dispute arise out of the facts proved on the trial of the cause but the court ought at no time to undertake to decide the facts, for these are to be decided by the jury.

[krystalshores]

I will be glad when this trial is over and I don't have to see it in the threads anymore. Everytime I see it, I cringe. I can't help to look because I want to make sure the asshole is convicted. I can't read it though, I just skim through to see. I hope he is senteced to death. Death by sodomy. Fucker....

[Jezreel]

Jury will be in deliberations TODAY!!!!!!

It seems that Justice Heeney is being very thorough in his charge, which is brilliant because then they should understand everything and come back with the right verdict. I have never heard or read a judges charge either so I don't know if this is more detail than most?

I wonder how long they will deliberate for, I have no idea whether it will be a short or long amount of time, anyone else?

Here's a brief update from LFP

UPDATE: 10:32 The final phase of the Michael Rafferty trial began Thursday with Justice Thomas Heeney delivering his charge to the jury.

Heeney's written charge is expected to take all day to deliver.

Rafferty, 31, has pleaded not guilty to first degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault in the April 2009 disappearance of eight-year-old Tori Stafford of Woodstock.

Most of Heeney's charge is standard advice given to all juries including their roles as jurors, the concept of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and the nature of evidence.

But Heeney told the jurors that defense lawyer Dirk Derstine asked a number of questions when cross-examining Terri-Lynne McClintic that suggested that she was the mastermind of Tori's Stafford kidnap and murder and Rafferty was not aware of what she had planned.

Heeney noted that McClintic rejected all of Derstine's assertions and he cautioned the jury that Derstine's questions were not evidence. Rafferty did not testify in the trial.

UPDATE: 11:32 Justice Thomas Heeney told jurors that a police statement Terri-Lynne McClintic made to police on May 24, 2009 can be considered as evidence.

In that statement McClintic said Rafferty actually killed Stafford.

She later changed her story and testified at trial that she killed Tori, explaining that she could not accept at first she was the murderer.

Heeney said the jury will have to decide which version is true.

Heeney also noted evidence that Rafferty had a number of girlfriends he met on online dating sites. He warned them not to assume Rafferty was guilty because of overall bad character.

Heeney said the fact that McClintic pleaded guilty to Stafford's murder and is serving a life sentence should not be considered in assessing Rafferty's guilt.

Heeeney said the jury will have to decide if the various "cover-up" activities by Rafferty after Tori's death were evidence of guilt or if there was some other explanation.

Heeney read the jury a summarized version of testimony from various witnesses in the trial.

UPDATE: 12:51 Justice Thomas Heeney told jurors that anyone who "aids or abets" a crime is considered guilty along with the person who actually commits the crime.

Heeney also went into an explanation of the individual charges against Michael Rafferty. He said the kidnapping charge is defined as confining or moving someone "through force or fraud" against their will.

He said the jury will have to decide whether the circumstances of Tori's disappearance were a kidnapping. Heeney spent some time summarizing the testimony of various witnesses relating to the kidnapping charge including Tara MacDonald, Tori's mother.

UPDATE: 2:41 Justice Thomas Heeney provided the jury with three "decision trees" to guide them on possible verdicts on the main charge of first-degree murder.

The first "tree" would be followed if the jury decided, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Rafferty was the actual killer of Stafford and intended to kill her.

The second tree would apply if the jury believed McClintic was the actual murderer but Rafferty "aided or abetted" in the murder. Both scenarios would trigger a first-degree conviction.

Heeney said the jury, depending on their assessment of Rafferty's state of mind, could also return a verdict of 2^nd degree murder or manslaughter

Rafferty's lawyer Dirk spoke with media today - http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/raffe...42271.html

And if anyone is interested, this is the Crown team, looking dapper in their court attire.

Lead Crown Attorney Kevin Gowdey, right, walks out of court during a lunch recess Tuesday with fellow crowns Michael Carnegie, Stephanie Venne, and Brian Crockett. Gowdey is the lead prosecutor in the Michael Rafferty murder case

[Jezreel]

And we are now on verdict watch...!!

[Jezreel]

Ok so now the jury is sequestered, media can report on all the legal discussions took place when the jury was not present. Here is the first article from LFP and wow I feel sick, fuck he really is a sick fuck, oh my gawd!!!

For three months leading to the murder of Victoria 'Tori' Stafford, Michael Rafferty searched the Internet for 'underage rape, real underage rape, real underage rape pictures, pre-teen nude, pre-teen model galleries and nude pre-teen.'
He also accessed a 'how-to-guide' on raping children and dozens of child pornography videos, including some featuring incest and one purporting to be a "snuff movie" involving a child.
On March 28, 2009, 10 days before the kidnapping, Rafferty watched a movie about a man using a story about his lost dog to abduct a blonde, eight-year-old girl walking home alone after school. She is taken away in the man's car and forced later to perform sexual acts.
On April 23, 2009, after the kidnapping, he downloaded a movie about Karla Homolka.
But none of his disturbing Internet activity could be considered as evidence that Rafferty wanted or planned to rape eight-year-old Tori, largely because it was found under a faulty OPP search warrant.
Rafferty, 31, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault causing bodily harm in the April 8, 2009 death of Tori.
After hearing 10 weeks of evidence and argument, the jury retired Thursday to begin reaching a verdict.
Because the jury is now sequestered, media can report information from search warrants, police reports, exhibits admitted during pre-trial and legal arguments when the jury was absent, and the legal arguments themselves, Included in the pre-trial exhibits released is a fascinating, almost four-hour long police interrogation of Rafferty after his May 19, 2009 arrest. Three experienced investigators play good cop and bad cop, but can't elicit a confession.
Playing the bad cop was-Det. Sgt Jim Smyth, known for getting confessions from several high-profile killers, including Rafferty's girlfriend Terri-Lynne McClintic and former military commander Russell Williams, convicted of killing two women.
Smyth calls Rafferty a psychopath, "pure evil" and a "sick puppy," at one point bringing McClintic herself into the room and challenging Rafferty to call her a liar to her face. McClintic had just confessed to the crime and implicated Rafferty.
Rafferty does not look at her, but says she is a liar.
McClintic, 21, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in 2010 and is serving a life sentence. For three years she had insisted Rafferty directed the kidnapping, raped Tori and killed her with a hammer. But on Jan. 14, two days before the pre-trial for Rafferty was to begin, she told police she was the one who killed Tori.
Court documents released show how the OPP's Smyth got the first confession in 2009, but had to listen to her reverse part of that confession in 2012.
The most explosive information comes from the OPP electronic crime unit's computer searches and other police reports:
- Rafferty 'joked' with girlfriends via emails that he'd like their young children as gifts, perhaps innocent, perhaps not. One woman texts him April 1, 2009 that she has two-year-old twin daughters. "lol, can I have one?" he texts back. To another, he admits he'd like to do "bad dirty stuff. . . things that some ppl would really take offence to." And, to yet another, he says he would like "ur first born" but "i cant say what i would like."
- Some of his girlfriends told police he exhibited strange behaviour toward their children.
- A London woman told police in January 2009 that Rafferty drugged her glass of wine while they watched a movie at her place. He tied her hands behind her back, choked her and forced to have anal sex, all the while telling her to pass out. When he was done he went to the bathroom, to clean up, then came back and untied her hands. He helped her into the bedroom, cleaned the wine glasses and left. Police determined the sex was not consensual, but the matter did not go to court.
- His desire for child porn extended back at least to 2006. A hard drive from an old computer found in Rafferty's house contained nine child pornography videos, "some with an outwardly coercive element," police reports say.
- He was also interested in adult and bestiality pornography and accessed necrophilia websites, including some that showed "apparently deceased bodies left in rural areas," police say. One image was of a dead woman in a field with no clothing from the waist down.
--- --- ---
Police obtained most of the information from searching Rafferty's laptop, BlackBerry and ipod Touch found in his Honda Civic and an older hard drive found in his house after his May 19, 2009 arrest.
Evidence of bad character is rarely allowed in trial.
But twice, before and during the trial, the Crown tried to get at least the Internet searches admitted in order to suggest motive and planning of Tori's abduction and to counter any defence allegations McClintic was responsible for the girl's murder.
In the pre-trial held in January and February, Rafferty's defence lawyer, Dirk Derstine, launched a blistering attack on the police search of the electronic items, saying the warrant for the car didn't cover the computer.
"Inexplicably, no efforts were made to obtain a warrant to search the contents of the computer and other electronics," he said.
In doing so, they breached Rafferty's right against unreasonable search and seizure under Sect. 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Derstine said. Under Sect. 24.2, a court can reject evidence obtained that way.
Derstine had support for his argument from the OPP itself. Det. Sgt Ken Falconer of the OPP's technical crimes unit asked in an email soon after the items were seized if a secondary warrant was needed to search the electronics found in the car.
The head of the search warrant team told him to go ahead, believing the search warrant for the car was sufficient.
Derstine also noted that police investigating Tori's disappearance in April 2009 prepared specific warrants to search the computers of Tara McDonald and Linda Winters, Tori's mother and grandmother respectively.
Justice Thomas Heeney agreed with Derstine, ruling Jan. 31 police breached Rafferty's rights when they searched the electronics without a specific warrant.
" . . . I find that their conduct was, at the very least, careless," Heeney ruled.
Under Supreme Court rulings, Heeney had to weigh the value of the evidence against how much Rafferty's privacy was invaded under Sect. 24.2 of the Charter.
Most of the valuable evidence could be brought out in another way, Heeney decided. Much of the rest was either not valuable or "bad character" evidence that would prejudice the jury, he said.
Allowing the Internet searches would be, he acknowledged, "a close call." But he decided against it.
The issue of the Internet searches surfaced again in trial, because Rafferty's lawyer suggested McClintic offered Tori to Rafferty as a sexual gift, but he refused.
Derstine's suggestion not only made McClintic look like someone who offers up little girls for sex, it made Rafferty look even nicer in contrast by refusing the gift, Crown attorney Michael Carnegie argued April 24.
It suggested that Rafferty has no sexual interest in children, the opposite of what the computer searches showed, Carnegie argued.
"There were other girlfriends, your honour, who have interesting and perhaps disconcerting things to say and conclusions drawn from various behaviours of Mr. Rafferty . . . towards their children," Carnegie noted.
The Crown had no intention of calling them in, he said. Nor did the Crown show any inclination to seek admission of suspect text messages between Rafferty and his girlfriends.
Even if he is found innocent, the exchanges raise questions. The OPP's electronic crime section prepared hundreds of pages in reports on the searches of Rafferty's laptop and other electronic devices. On March 30, 2009 he had this instant message exchange on his laptop with a girlfriend after an argument:
Girlfriend: well let me make it up to you. what would you like hun.
Rafferty: ur first born. i cant say what i would like.
Girlfriend: my first born.
Rafferty: thats up to u to be creative and if anything comes up i will call in my order. ur first born yes
Heeney decided he wouldn't re-open that door to the computer searches. Unless a witness agrees to a question, those questions aren't evidence. Because McClintic disagreed with the suggestion she offered Tori as a gift, that suggestion isn't evidence.
And that meant, there was no evidence at the trial that McClintic offered girls as sexual gifts or that Rafferty refused this particular gift.
The laptop would have helped the Crown in other ways, as well. Rafferty exchanged his old BlackBerry just before his arrest and information on it was wiped clean.
But that old BlackBerry was synched to the laptop. That meant some text messages from April 8 and 9, 2009 remained.
For example, Rafferty texted McClintic April 9 "Get it?" That corroborated McClintic's testimony he dropped off hair dye for her to change her appearance after Tori's murder.
Through phone company records and testimony from girlfriends, the Crown was able to show in trial Rafferty made contact with several girlfriends and arranged dates in the hours after Tori's death. That was hardly the response of a "horrified dupe" who merely witnessed a killing, the Crown argued.
With the laptop and the synched BlackBerry messages, the Crown would have been able to show some of the actual texts.
One girlfriend texted Rafferty at 10:28 p.m., April 8, 2009, only hours after Tori was killed by hammer blows to the head, stuffed in garbage bags and hidden under rocks.
"Hey baby, how's the work coming?" she asks Rafferty.
"Ick. Lol," Rafferty texts back.

[Kip]

For three months leading to the murder of Victoria 'Tori' Stafford, Michael Rafferty searched the Internet for 'underage rape, real underage rape, real underage rape pictures, pre-teen nude, pre-teen model galleries and nude pre-teen.'...

I get so angry that this kind of information can't be introduced as evidence. How would you like to be a member of a jury and acquit someone like this and then find all of this stuff out later?

It was the same thing recently in a case in England. A neighbor killed a young woman. It was very puzzling because the guy had a PhD, a great job, a girlfriend, no history of abusing women. There was no reason for him to attack a next-door neighbor he barely knew. The jury found him guilty anyway. After the verdict, they released info the judge wouldn't allow into testimony, that this guy was a big violent porn viewer, and viewed porn that showed women being choked - just what happened to his victim. Jurors were livid that they weren't given that information.

[heartbreaker6713]

- A London woman told police in January 2009 that Rafferty drugged her glass of wine while they watched a movie at her place. He tied her hands behind her back, choked her and forced to have anal sex, all the while telling her to pass out. When he was done he went to the bathroom, to clean up, then came back and untied her hands. He helped her into the bedroom, cleaned the wine glasses and left. Police determined the sex was not consensual, but the matter did not go to court.

- He was also interested in adult and bestiality pornography and accessed necrophilia websites, including some that showed "apparently deceased bodies left in rural areas," police say. One image was of a dead woman in a field with no clothing from the waist down.
--- --- ---

I know it said that rarely bad character is admitted into court but was the first instance brought into court for this case The first one, I don't think is bad character if it's an action he actually did, is it? I guess maybe i don't understand what bad character is on the stand when it comes to court. Any help there? The second one is eerily similar to the way Tori was found. It makes me sick to read the things that they could introduce to court, i really hope this jury finds him as guilty as i know in my heart he is...let's hope for Tori's family it doesn't take longer than it needs to be, they have already been through so much and they deserve justice.

[heartbreaker6713]

I also forget with the tweets to read them from the bottom up until I get about halfway through them. I'm always wondering why they either repeat themselves or don't make sense, then the light bulb goes off and i realize the time stamps are in reverse, duh. The simple things in life, I tell ya!

[Jezreel]

I do the same thing with the tweets, even the ones I post

I know what you mean about the date rape one heartbreaker, all I can think of is because maybe he wasn't charged with it? Hopefully we will find out more about that.
The warrant really bothers me too, especially as the judge didn't allow it in case the law changed? A very grey line indeed, the crown tried again during the trial to get just his searches about child rape allowed, but derstine was afraid that it would lead to him being a pedo and if they allowed the other searches as well (like naked epileptic fit, necrophilia, and a bunch of others) that it would show he was deviant. My gawd how does a defence attorney defend someone who they know is a rapist, murderer, pedo sick fucking bastard! I think TLM's first confession, rafferty killed this girl it wed his sick fantasy!

London free press has released a few more articles and video of his police interogarion. Blatchford has a detailed article and there are many more. Can't post a the links now as its a pain doing it on a phone. There are a lot of interesting details though.

Anyway the jury retired to a hotel at 9pm with no verdict and will begin again at 9am tomorrow.

[Jezreel]

Just some snippets from Christie Blatchford's article.....

National Post - After pre-trial arguments held two months before the jurors were even selected, Judge Heeney had kicked out a great swath of powerful evidence of Mr. Rafferty’s sexual interest in children.

The 31-year-old is pleading not guilty to kidnapping, sexual assault causing bodily harm and first-degree murder in the April 8, 2009, slaying of the little Woodstock, Ont., girl named Victoria (Tori) Stafford.

In a decision released Jan. 31, the judge ruled the jurors would never hear that forensic examination of Mr. Rafferty’s laptop revealed that in the months leading up to the eight-year-old’s slaying, he had done Google searches for “underage rape,” “real underage rape” and “best program to download child porn,” or that he had recently possessed substantial amounts of child pornography, including videos depicting “how-to instructions for child sexual assault” and others with what prosecutors called “a disturbing instructional purpose” and even several “snuff” films.

And in a decision made during the trial, when prosecutors tried to persuade the judge that the landscape had changed and he should re-consider his decision at least so far as the Google evidence was concerned, Judge Heeney again refused.

At one point during that argument, prosecutor Michael Carnegie snapped, “We always talk of the faith we have in the jury system [yet] we always seem to ignore it whenever we have evidentiary applications.”

If born in frustration, in his little “aria on the jury system” as he later self-mockingly called it, Mr. Carnegie nonetheless had put his finger on what is the white elephant in the sprawling criminal justice room.

It is this: Judges forever wax on about the strengths of the jury system yet routinely keep evidence — usually the very sort that to the layman would seem to be the most relevant — from them on the grounds they would misuse it or be “inflamed” by it.

To use the language of the courtroom, it’s a “reasonable inference” that this is because judges don’t wholly trust either jurors’ intelligence or judgment.

‘Judges so often exclude evidence the “What-the-jurors-didn’t-hear” story is now a staple’
The triers of the facts, which is the role jurors play at trial, often don’t have before them some of the most critical facts; things are kept from them, and the vaunted truth-seeking function of the trial is thus distorted if not outright foiled.

It raises the question of why, when the system doesn’t trust the triers of the facts, it even bothers with jury trials and doesn’t move to trial by judge alone, as happens in some parts of the world.

Still, even given all this — that judges so often exclude evidence the “What-the-jurors-didn’t-hear” story is now a staple of courtroom reporting — Judge Heeney’s reasons were surely curious.

Stripped to the core, the judge said that though the police had acted legally in getting search warrants for Mr. Rafferty’s home and car, and though they honestly believed that was sufficient to allow for a forensic examination of the hard drive, BlackBerry and laptop found therein, and though the law on such searches was then evolving, the police should have anticipated how it might change and sought another warrant to look at the devices.

In essence, Judge Heeney said, the police were good cops but bad lawyers.

As a “remedy” for what he called their carelessness, he deemed the search a violation of Mr. Rafferty’s Charter-guaranteed right against unreasonable search and seizure and threw the evidence out.

As well as the Google searches, also found on the laptop were download artifacts “indicative of the recent possession of known child pornography imagery” and two Hollywood movies dramatizing either child kidnapping (Gardens of the Night, which was downloaded just 12 days before Tori disappeared) or child sex killing (the 2006 film Karla, a fictional version of the Karla Homolka/Paul Bernardo sexual assaults and murders of three girls).

Also

In pre-trial arguments, Mr. Rafferty’s lawyer, Dirk Derstine, challenged almost everything about the search in trying to get the evidence tossed.

But Judge Heeney found the police had been honest and acted properly and legally — except that they sent the hard drive seized from Mr. Rafferty’s house and the BlackBerry and laptop found in his car to an OPP forensic examiner without getting a secondary warrant.

The law governing computer and electronic searches was then very much in a state of flux.

There had been judicial hints that without a secondary warrant, such searches might not survive a Charter challenge, but the matter simply wasn’t settled yet.

When the forensic examiner asked if he needed a secondary warrant, a senior OPP officer and head of the search warrant team, Detective-Sergeant Bryan Gast, told him he didn’t. He relied on his experience, his training and on his reading of a law book, Hutchinson’s Canadian Search Warrant Manual.

In the edition Det.-Sgt. Gast had, the author warned vaguely against wide-ranging police searches and concluded, “At present, these issues remain unresolved but it is likely … [they] will be challenged as over seizure.”

Sure enough, just two months after the police had examined Mr. Rafferty’s laptop, came that first decision, a case called R v Little, which said clearly that police should seek secondary warrants before looking through computers and the like.

Still, though the judge in that case found there was a Charter breach, she admitted the evidence.

Even Randy Schwartz, the prosecutor who argued this issue for the Crown, had to acknowledge that according to the current state of the law, there had been a technical violation of Mr. Rafferty’s Charter rights.

But he fought vigorously to have the evidence admitted anyway, just as the judge in the Little case had done.

Kicking it out, Mr. Schwartz told Judge Heeney, “would deprive the jury of the tools it needs . that’s what you would be doing if you were to exclude this evidence.”

But, while admitting that “at the time of the search, no binding authority indicated that the police were obligated to obtain a [separate] search warrant” to examine the laptop, Judge Heeney nonetheless found that Det.-Sgt. Gast took “the risk” the law might change.

This whole faulty search warrant really bothers me, the law was in flux at the time, the decision to not allow it was based on the fact the law could change? Am I interupting this right? LC, any thoughts on this, I know laws are different in the states, this seems incredulous to me?

[Kip]

My blood boils thinking about this evidence being excluded. It was perfectly fine to introduce secondary evidence of MR's behavior after Tori's murder (with the judge several times explaining to the jury that caddish behavior isn't necessarily indicative of guilt) was allowed in. I don't see how his pre-murder behavior is any different.

As to the legality, I think in any Western legal system, what would matter is what the law is at the time the warrant is issued.

The whole secondary search warrant for the computer seems stupid to me anyway. When a search warrant is issued for a computer, isn't the assumption that 99% of the time LE will be looking at emails, searches, files, deleted files, etc., rather than looking for fingerprints or blood evidence in the keyboard?

[Jezreel]

They had search warrants for the home and car but not separately for the laptop that was found in the car and the tower found at his mum's house. The thing is because the law was in flux at the time, and the OPP officer going by his book said it was ok (which at the it was)

The judges comments on it really bug me

Justice Heeney said they are great officers, but not great lawyers! Duh well of course.

Tori's family have said that they have known about this evidence during the trial and that the prosecution fought hard to get it admitted into evidence. This must have been so frustrating for them, explains why Rodney always seemed as though there was much more he wanted to say but couldn't.

So the jury started their deliberations at 9am, they asked to watch to video of TLM's confession, so everyone was back in court. It was about an hour and now the jury have gone to resume deliberations.