LONDON, ONT. —Minutes before
Tori Stafford
was sexually assaulted a second time and then repeatedly struck in the head with a hammer, the little girl begged for help.
Terri-Lynne McClintic, 21, who admitted to wielding the hammer, described Tori’s last gut-wrenching moments to a jury on Tuesday.
Tori, 8, was abducted while walking home from school. McClintic and Michael Rafferty, then a couple, were arrested a month later and charged with abduction and murder. McClintic pleaded guilty in Tori’s death and was sentenced to life in prison in April 2010.
Rafferty, 31, is accused in the first-degree murder, sexual assault and abduction of the little girl.
His trial began on March 5; McClintic is the Crown’s star witness and she took the stand on Tuesday.
McClintic said after Rafferty had sexually assaulted Tori, the little kid, bleeding and crying, wanted to urinate. McClintic took her a few metres away from the car and Tori pleaded for help. “She said just don’t let him do it again,†said a tearful McClintic.
“I told her she was a very strong girl. She said like you? I said you are much stronger.â€
McClintic said she then took Tori back to Rafferty.
Rafferty`s former girlfriend told a packed courtroom that she walked the child back to Rafferty but Tori wouldn’t let go of McClintic’s hand. “She asked me to stay with her. I tried to hold on to her hand but I couldn’t stay because I knew what was going to happen,†said McClintic.
“I couldn’t be there for that. I left.â€
Tori wasn’t wearing anything but a shirt, there were no shoes on her feet.
A few minutes later, McClintic heard screams and when she went back to the car, Tori was on the ground.
McClintic, whose testimony was marked by quiet sobbing and long pauses, said she then put a garbage bag on Tori`s head and started kicking the child.
She then struck her with a hammer.
“Who struck her with a hammer?†Crown Kevin Gowdey quietly asked.
“Me,†said McClintic.
“Which part of the hammer was she struck with?â€
“Both sides.â€
“What part of Victoria was struck with the hammer?†he asked.
“Her head,†said McClintic.
Rafferty then started putting Tori into garbage bags, she said. “I helped him,†she acknowledged.
The two carried Tori’s body to a nearby pile of rocks and put rocks on her. The rock pile was under a tree and there was still snow on the ground, McClintic said.
“There was no discussion,†she said.
Rafferty, she said, had blood on his genitals which he tried to wash with water and then wiped with the white jacket McClintic was wearing that day. “He used a couple of bottles of water to wash himself,†she said. “He didn’t want to ruin his shirt.â€
Back in the car, McClintic said he asked her if she was okay. She was shaky but nodded, she said. “He said: And yeah, I am all right too. Considering.â€
Rafferty, in a white shirt, grey suit and a sharp new haircut, appeared to listen intently and took copious notes on a yellow pad. He seemed to frown sometimes, leaned forward other times.
Tori’s family, including her father, Rodney Stafford, and her mother, Tara McDonald, were in the courtroom as McClintic testified.
Earlier, McClintic described how she lured Tori from school and then took the girl to Guelph where they made three stops: for coffee, for Percocet and for a hammer and garbage bags.
They then drove for about 45 minutes and turned into a rural road where McClintic said Rafferty sexually assaulted the child in the front seat of his Honda Civic. At Gowdey’s urging, McClintic described the geography that included “shrubs, trees and swampiness.â€
There was a pile of rocks at the end of the laneway, she said.
When he stopped the car, McClintic said she quickly got out. “I got out of the vehicle . . . because . . . Mr. Rafferty . . . I knew it was going to happen. And I did not want to be there when it would happen,†she said, sobbing quietly.
“I believed he was going to rape Tori.â€
At one point, she heard noises and turned to look and saw Tori in Rafferty`s lap. “Trying to molest her . . .â€
At Gowdey’s prodding, McClintic told the jury how she met first Michael Rafferty in February 2009: while at a New Orleans Pizza in Woodstock, just a few months before Tori was murdered.
“I went to get pizza for me and my neighbour and my mom,†she said. Rafferty was inside and talking on the phone. The two struck up a conversation and McClintic remembers telling him her name. He then offered her a ride home. “I had a lot of stuff to carry and I said yes.â€
Rafferty took her home in his car but stopped in the driveway where the two started chatting.
McClintic said she was high on Oxycontin that day, like most other days.
She did not end up going inside the house because Rafferty asked her if she wanted to hang out and go for a drive and she said yes. “Went for a drive around Woodstock, around Ingersoll,†said McClintic, adding she was getting along well with him.
McClintic said he did some stunts with his car and then “we had sex in his car.â€
The main courtroom and the overflow courtroom were packed to capacity on Tuesday in anticipation of McClintic’s testimony. Reporters and members of the public lined up as early as 6 a.m. to get seats in the two courtrooms.
The trial continues.
ALSO FROM THE STAR