‘A million tears will never be enough’

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This article was published 10/12/2010 (5597 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WOODSTOCK, Ont. — The news travelled like a laser beam through the small snow-covered southern Ontario town Thursday: a woman had confessed and had been sentenced for the slaying of eight-year-old Victoria (Tori) Stafford.

Now the family of the girl who loved butterflies and shopping, is grappling with how to get through the holiday season as key details of Tori’s killing in 2009 are made public.

“We wanted to at least get through Christmas,” Stafford’s father, Rodney, said Thursday, an hour after the reports began to finally emerge that Terri-Lynne McClintic, 20, had pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and had been sentenced to a mandatory 25 years in prison.

That news, and other details, had been kept under a sweeping publication ban since last April. A Supreme Court decision Thursday softened the ban.

“We can’t change what happened. Unfortunately, we were forced to be a part of this,” Rodney Stafford said.

Tori was abducted in April 2009 because she was the first kid her kidnapper spotted. For three months, more than 100 police officers pored over thousands of tips and her family made desperate pleas for the safe return of the Grade 3 student. However, the girl’s remains were already buried under a rock pile hours away from the spot where she had been snatched.

The court’s ruling Thursday means it can be revealed that McClintic, 20, had pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. The surprise plea was entered in court on April 30 in Woodstock, about 150 kilometres southwest of Toronto.

Until Thursday, the proceedings were cloaked from the public. Anyone in court to witness McClintic’s plea, including reporters, was prohibited from revealing her guilty plea. But the Supreme Court decided it would not hear an application on behalf of McClintic’s co-accused to extend that ban.

Many details are now public, including that Ontario Superior Justice Dougald McDermid sentenced McClintic to life with no chance of parole for 25 years. “No sentence imposed can take that pain away or bring Tori Stafford back,” McDermid told a courtroom in April.

The primary basis upon which McClintic accepted responsibility for first-degree murder was that the girl’s murder took place during the commission of the offence of kidnapping and forcible confinement.

At the hearing, McClintic’s eyes were downcast and her voice low.She mumbled that she wanted to enter a guilty plea because “a little girl lost her life.” The admission proved too much for some members of Tori’s family, who ran out of the courtroom.

A pale McClintic hung her head as she read a statement: “I didn’t wake up on that morning thinking I was going to take a child,” she whispered. “Every day I think that maybe if I hadn’t walked down the street that day, that precious little angel would still be here. Every day I ask myself why.”

“A million tears will never be enough and a million words would never be able to express how truly sorry I am,” she said.

 

— Postmedia News

 

Father’s reaction to guilty plea, Timeline A18

Chronology

Apr. 8, 2009 — Tori Stafford is reported missing after she didn’t return home from school. Normally, her older brother would have walked her home, but special arrangements had been made that day for her to walk alone. Police treat it as a missing persons case, rather than issuing an Amber Alert, which would have signalled a child abduction.

Apr. 9 — Police release a videotape, from a school surveillance camera, showing Tori walking away from school with a woman in a white coat. Her parents are unable to identify the suspect. Police receive tips from callers, including ones who name the woman as Terri-Lynne McClintic. Police initiate a search.

Apr. 12 — Police question McClintic as a person of interest. Police subject Tori’s estranged parents to lie detector tests. Woodstock residents hold candlelight vigil.

Apr. 13 — Woodstock police end search, say there is no reason to suspect foul play.

Apr. 15 — Local police turn to Ontario Provincial Police for help.

Apr. 17 — OPP take over investigation, say they believe Tori was abducted.

Apr. 22— Police release a composite sketch of the young women seen in surveillance camera with Tori. Rumours persist that suspect looks like Tori’s mother, Tara McDonald. McDonald says she does not recognize the woman in sketch.

Apr. 28 — Police offer a $50,000 award for information leading to an arrest and conviction. McDonald tells media of a meeting in a Toronto hotel with an unidentified benefactor who offered to put up the reward.

May 12 — Police question McClintic for a second time.

May 19 — McClintic gives a statement to police, takes a polygraph test. She admits to being the woman in surveillance video.

May 20 — Police charge McClintic, 18, with child abduction and being an accessory to murder. Michael Rafferty, 28, faces a first-degree murder charge.

May 21 — McClintic, who has been co-operating with police since admitting her involvement, helps police in the search for Tori’s body, but she is unable to zero in on the secluded, wooded location, which had been covered with snow on Apr. 8. She continues to help find Tori over the next two months.

May 28 — McClintic charged with first-degree murder.

June 7 — Memorial service held for Tori in Woodstock.

July 19 — A lone OPP officer finds the remains of Tori during a search of heavily bushed, rural private property north of Guelph, Ont. Dental records are used to identify her. Cause of death is cited as multiple blunt force impact.

Apr. 30, 2010 — McClintic is sentenced to life imprisonment after pleading guilty to first-degree murder.

 

— Postmedia News