04-03-2012, 10:13 AM
Canada.com - MOUNT FOREST, Ont. — Just about the only features Terri-Lynne McClintic didn't tell police about in this almost garishly bucolic place where Victoria (Tori) Stafford died were the decorative bridge, small silver-bladed windmill and that curious statue of a be-hatted black farm worker seated by a pond.
Otherwise, McClintic's descriptions — and the crude but detailed maps she drew to illustrate them — of the area where the sunny eight-year-old was killed on April 8, 2009 were uncannily accurate.
The 21-year-old, who almost two years ago pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the little girl's slaying, first confessed to Ontario Provincial Police Det.-Sgt. Jim Smyth on May 19 that year, about six weeks after Tori vanished on her way home from school in Woodstock, Ont.
McClintic's former boyfriend, 31-year-old Michael Rafferty, is now on trial in London for kidnapping, sexual assault causing bodily harm and first-degree murder.
He is pleading not guilty to all charges.
On Monday, Rafferty himself, Ontario Superior Court Judge Thomas Heeney and the jurors, court officials, lawyers and even the media covering the case travelled about two hours from London to the isolated spot south of Mount Forest where Smyth discovered the little girl's remains on July 19, 2009.
It was a discovery born of McClintic's drawings and the copper's urgent desire, common to the huge police task force whose members scoured so much of southwestern Ontario looking for Tori, to find the missing child's body.
The entire scene McClintic had described — but for the little bridge, windmill and statue on the grounds of a neat bungalow set on an unusual angle to the Concession 6 side road and the adjacent property across the road — was briefly deemed to be Heeney's de facto courtroom.
He cautioned the jurors last week that the site visit, unusual but not rare in a criminal trial, was to increase their appreciation for the evidence they already have heard and will hear at trial.
What the sombre excursion arguably did most was inform the jurors of a central fact — that though McClintic, as her testimony in court amply demonstrated, may be a violent and irredeemably damaged human being and though she only recently confessed to being the actual killer, she remembered the killing ground with striking accuracy and appears to genuinely have wanted to help police find the little girl's remains.
She even sketched two sorts of trees — the evergreens (it was beneath one large pine tree where Tori's body, stuffed into garbage bags and underneath the tail end of a huge rock pile, was found), and the stand of leafless deciduous trees, wind-bent, which overlook the rock pile.
The latter were bare still Monday, during the jurors' visit, just as they were in April three years ago.
Other geographical features — the culvert running underneath the country track; the broken-down fencing; the rise to the path and the curve at the top of the hill to the left to the location of the enormous rock pile — were right on the money.
But it was the views McClintic described that were probably most compelling and which were really brought into sharp focus by the tour.
Though she changed her story earlier this year and reiterated it at trial to say she was the actual murderer, in her first confession May 19 and then again on May 24 that year, McClintic admitted having lured Tori away, but blamed the killing on Rafferty.
But what has remained consistent throughout is her allegation that the kidnapping was Rafferty's idea, that it was sexually motivated and that he violently raped the eight-year-old in his car by that rock pile.
According to McClintic, the duo parked the car by the rocks.
As Rafferty began to sexually assault the little girl, McClintic said, she couldn't bear to watch and with Tori's pleas for help ringing unanswered in her ears, she walked away from the vehicle to a section of the fence.
From that vantage point, she said, she could clearly see — when she dared look back — Rafferty, naked from the waist down through the open door of the rear passenger seat, assaulting Tori in his lap.
Sure enough, the sightline she described and which the jurors saw would have afforded a clear view.
Other times during the assault, McClintic told police and testified at trial, she would look away, toward farmers' fields and, in the distance, silos.
Sure enough, the site is surrounded by dun-coloured fields and off in the distance in no fewer than two directions are silos.
In the first version of McClintic's confession, after Rafferty finished assaulting the little girl, he kicked her and then hit her in the head with a hammer she bought just hours before, allegedly at Rafferty's insistence, at a Home Depot in Guelph, Ont.
In the more recent version, she said that when she saw the little girl being assaulted, it brought back her own unspecified childhood trauma and she snapped — and that she was the one who kicked and killed the little girl.
Reporters and photographers were allowed on the site only after the jurors, judge, lawyers and Rafferty left the scene.
The jurors, with three constables, travelled in a bright teal bus bearing the company's slogan: "Miles of Smiles." There were none to be seen, not this day, not on this terrible hallowed ground.
Here is what the jurors were asked to observe while there:
LondonFP - Here's what jurors were asked to observe, and what reporters could observe on their own later:
Yellow lettered markers in various places that matched letters in a guidebook with instructions.
At site A, jurors were asked to look across the road at a house. The house is a nice bungalow with an arched doorway that sits at an angle to the road.
At site B, halfway to the top of the laneway, jurors were asked to notice a creek and look up the laneway to a bend. The creek does indeed run through several metal tubes, or culverts.
At spot C, the bend at the top of the laneway, jurors were asked to look north to the rock pile and east for a fence if possible. The fence and rock pile were visible, the rock pile close.
At site D, the rock pile itself, jurors were told to look back toward the house. To reporters, it was clear the house could not be seen from the rock pile.
Site E marked an area near a fence east of the rock pile. Jurors were asked to look back northwest to the rock pile. The rock pile was visible, and it took this reporter 45 steps to walk the distance from fence to rock pile.
The next two sites were not marked in reality, but only in the guidebook. To the north from the fence, jurors were told to look for silos, marked as F in their books. Those silos could be discerned, but not at a glance, through far away tree branches.
To the southwest, they were to look for more silos. Several silos rose above the treeline, easily spotted.
Finally, at site H, jurors were told to look to the north of the rock pile. When OPP Det. Staff Sgt. Jim Smyth found Tori's body July 19, 2009, he had to push lower branches aside and move one rock to make sure of his find. On Monday, the lower branches and rocks were removed so jurors could get a clear view of where Tori's body was left.
Here is a video of the media as they visit the site of where Tori's remains are found showing the areas the jurors were asked to look:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012...visit.html
Testimony will continue today with Dr. Michael Pollanen, Chief of the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service, expected to take the stand to discuss the autopsy results.
Otherwise, McClintic's descriptions — and the crude but detailed maps she drew to illustrate them — of the area where the sunny eight-year-old was killed on April 8, 2009 were uncannily accurate.
The 21-year-old, who almost two years ago pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the little girl's slaying, first confessed to Ontario Provincial Police Det.-Sgt. Jim Smyth on May 19 that year, about six weeks after Tori vanished on her way home from school in Woodstock, Ont.
McClintic's former boyfriend, 31-year-old Michael Rafferty, is now on trial in London for kidnapping, sexual assault causing bodily harm and first-degree murder.
He is pleading not guilty to all charges.
On Monday, Rafferty himself, Ontario Superior Court Judge Thomas Heeney and the jurors, court officials, lawyers and even the media covering the case travelled about two hours from London to the isolated spot south of Mount Forest where Smyth discovered the little girl's remains on July 19, 2009.
It was a discovery born of McClintic's drawings and the copper's urgent desire, common to the huge police task force whose members scoured so much of southwestern Ontario looking for Tori, to find the missing child's body.
The entire scene McClintic had described — but for the little bridge, windmill and statue on the grounds of a neat bungalow set on an unusual angle to the Concession 6 side road and the adjacent property across the road — was briefly deemed to be Heeney's de facto courtroom.
He cautioned the jurors last week that the site visit, unusual but not rare in a criminal trial, was to increase their appreciation for the evidence they already have heard and will hear at trial.
What the sombre excursion arguably did most was inform the jurors of a central fact — that though McClintic, as her testimony in court amply demonstrated, may be a violent and irredeemably damaged human being and though she only recently confessed to being the actual killer, she remembered the killing ground with striking accuracy and appears to genuinely have wanted to help police find the little girl's remains.
She even sketched two sorts of trees — the evergreens (it was beneath one large pine tree where Tori's body, stuffed into garbage bags and underneath the tail end of a huge rock pile, was found), and the stand of leafless deciduous trees, wind-bent, which overlook the rock pile.
The latter were bare still Monday, during the jurors' visit, just as they were in April three years ago.
Other geographical features — the culvert running underneath the country track; the broken-down fencing; the rise to the path and the curve at the top of the hill to the left to the location of the enormous rock pile — were right on the money.
But it was the views McClintic described that were probably most compelling and which were really brought into sharp focus by the tour.
Though she changed her story earlier this year and reiterated it at trial to say she was the actual murderer, in her first confession May 19 and then again on May 24 that year, McClintic admitted having lured Tori away, but blamed the killing on Rafferty.
But what has remained consistent throughout is her allegation that the kidnapping was Rafferty's idea, that it was sexually motivated and that he violently raped the eight-year-old in his car by that rock pile.
According to McClintic, the duo parked the car by the rocks.
As Rafferty began to sexually assault the little girl, McClintic said, she couldn't bear to watch and with Tori's pleas for help ringing unanswered in her ears, she walked away from the vehicle to a section of the fence.
From that vantage point, she said, she could clearly see — when she dared look back — Rafferty, naked from the waist down through the open door of the rear passenger seat, assaulting Tori in his lap.
Sure enough, the sightline she described and which the jurors saw would have afforded a clear view.
Other times during the assault, McClintic told police and testified at trial, she would look away, toward farmers' fields and, in the distance, silos.
Sure enough, the site is surrounded by dun-coloured fields and off in the distance in no fewer than two directions are silos.
In the first version of McClintic's confession, after Rafferty finished assaulting the little girl, he kicked her and then hit her in the head with a hammer she bought just hours before, allegedly at Rafferty's insistence, at a Home Depot in Guelph, Ont.
In the more recent version, she said that when she saw the little girl being assaulted, it brought back her own unspecified childhood trauma and she snapped — and that she was the one who kicked and killed the little girl.
Reporters and photographers were allowed on the site only after the jurors, judge, lawyers and Rafferty left the scene.
The jurors, with three constables, travelled in a bright teal bus bearing the company's slogan: "Miles of Smiles." There were none to be seen, not this day, not on this terrible hallowed ground.
Here is what the jurors were asked to observe while there:
LondonFP - Here's what jurors were asked to observe, and what reporters could observe on their own later:
Yellow lettered markers in various places that matched letters in a guidebook with instructions.
At site A, jurors were asked to look across the road at a house. The house is a nice bungalow with an arched doorway that sits at an angle to the road.
At site B, halfway to the top of the laneway, jurors were asked to notice a creek and look up the laneway to a bend. The creek does indeed run through several metal tubes, or culverts.
At spot C, the bend at the top of the laneway, jurors were asked to look north to the rock pile and east for a fence if possible. The fence and rock pile were visible, the rock pile close.
At site D, the rock pile itself, jurors were told to look back toward the house. To reporters, it was clear the house could not be seen from the rock pile.
Site E marked an area near a fence east of the rock pile. Jurors were asked to look back northwest to the rock pile. The rock pile was visible, and it took this reporter 45 steps to walk the distance from fence to rock pile.
The next two sites were not marked in reality, but only in the guidebook. To the north from the fence, jurors were told to look for silos, marked as F in their books. Those silos could be discerned, but not at a glance, through far away tree branches.
To the southwest, they were to look for more silos. Several silos rose above the treeline, easily spotted.
Finally, at site H, jurors were told to look to the north of the rock pile. When OPP Det. Staff Sgt. Jim Smyth found Tori's body July 19, 2009, he had to push lower branches aside and move one rock to make sure of his find. On Monday, the lower branches and rocks were removed so jurors could get a clear view of where Tori's body was left.
Here is a video of the media as they visit the site of where Tori's remains are found showing the areas the jurors were asked to look:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012...visit.html
Testimony will continue today with Dr. Michael Pollanen, Chief of the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service, expected to take the stand to discuss the autopsy results.
The only reason people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.