Victoria ‘Tori’ Stafford was born on July 15, 2000, in Woodstock, Ontario, to Tara McDonald and Rodney Stafford. Family and friends described her as a bright, bubbly child, and her early years were shaped by a split home life.
Tori’s parents divorced when she was just two and a half years old. Following the split, she and her older brother, Daryn, lived with their mother and her new partner, James Gloris. Tori’s home life was loving but chaotic.
Her mother also struggled with a severe addiction to OxyContin. Tori later attended Oliver Stephens Public School.
In the months leading up to her abduction, Tori and Daryn had been living with their maternal grandmother, Linda Winters. In the mornings, Linda would usually drop the two kids off at a town hall complex near the school.
Daryn and Tori then walked to school with a group of kids. At the end of each school day, they would walk back home with the same party.
Tori Stafford Goes Missing
On April 7th 2009, Tori spent the night at her family’s new home with her mother. The next day would be special because she would walk home from school on her own for the first time.
The walk home from school was only a few blocks, and that day, she was specifically not to be accompanied by her brother Daryn. Tori also invited several friends to her house after school to watch a video together.
On April 8th, dismissal time for students walking home was 3:25 pm, and Tori lined up with other kids at her school’s southeast gate. As she was leaving, she realized she had left her butterfly earrings in the classroom.
She was given permission to retrieve her earrings from the classroom. The eight-year-old returned to the line as the bell rang and left the school premises along with other students. The walk home took 20 minutes, and she was expected to arrive by 3:45 pm.
In the meantime, her brother had walked to the nearby townhouse complex with one of the kids he usually accompanied. After dropping off the younger child, he went to his cousin’s home and borrowed a bicycle, and rode home to 647 Frances Street.
Tara then informed him his sister was not back yet, and Daryn rode back out looking for his sister. Around 5:00 pm, he reached his cousin’s house to return the bicycle.
His mother had called there at the same time and said Tori was still not home. At approximately 5:20 pm, Tara called her mother, Linda, and informed her that Tori was missing.
Linda immediately drove to Tara’s house, and the two then drove around the area looking for the girl. At 5:40 pm, they approached an Oxford Community Police Services (OCPS) officer and asked for help.
At that time, the officer was involved in another investigation and directed them to the Police headquarters. At 6:04 pm. Tori’s grandmother reported her missing to the OCPS.
Law Enforcement immediately launched an investigation and began searching for Tori. Knowing the first 24 hours are most critical in finding a missing child, they conducted a thorough ground search of the area.
OCPS searched the area around the school and the surrounding neighborhood, including her mother Tara’s current and former residences. The next day, they expanded the search area with help from the Woodstock Fire Department.
The Abduction of Tori Stafford
On April 9th, 2009, police retrieved CCTV surveillance footage from College Avenue Secondary School. The footage shows Tori being led down Fyfe Avenue at 3:32 pm, accompanied by an unidentified woman.
This led the nature of this investigation to quickly change from a search operation to a criminal investigation concerning the abduction of a minor. Law enforcement released the footage to the media and broadcast channels in hopes of identifying the woman holding Tori’s hand.
The police department also began receiving tips from the public about the woman’s possible identity. Early tips suggested the woman in the video was 18-year-old Terri Lynne McClintic.
Law enforcement checked McClintic’s name in the criminal database and found an outstanding warrant for a minor offense. McClintic was listed as a person of interest and immediately arrested on 12th April.
During the initial questioning, McClintic denied being the person in the video or having any involvement in Tori Stafford’s abduction. By April 15th, the investigation had expanded exponentially as local law enforcement received over a thousand tips.
OCPS then requested assistance from the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) to investigate the case thoroughly. On May 12th, investigators questioned McClintic a second time and asked her to recount her activities on April 8th.
She told investigators that she went to the Employment Center and went for a pickup of OxyContin pills. She recalled walking down Fyfe Avenue across from College Avenue Secondary School but claimed she did not stop anywhere.
McClintic also admitted to being under the influence of illegal drugs, and she was subsequently detained.
McClintic’s Chilling Confession
On 19 May 2009, investigators obtained an order from the Superior Court of Justice to remove McClintic from the detention center where she was being held, for the purpose of providing a statement in relation to the abduction of Tori.
She was read her rights as per the procedure. Interestingly, McClintic declined a lawyer, indicating she was voluntarily participating in the interview. She also took a polygraph test.
What followed was a shocking account of the abduction, rape, and subsequent murder of 8-year-old Tori Stafford. On April 8, McClintic came across Tori walking down the street.
McClintic had been waiting outside Oliver Stephens Public School in Woodstock earlier that day. Her boyfriend Michael Rafferty, whom she had met only a few months ago, urged her to prove that she wasn’t all talk and kidnap a little girl.
According to CBC News, Rafferty told her, “They’ll be getting out of school now. Just talk about dogs or candy.” She approached Tori and told her that she had a Shih Tzu. Stafford had the same breed.
McClintic asked Tori if she would like to see her dog and lured her to a nearby parking lot where Rafferty’s car was parked. The couple then forced Tori into Rafferty’s car and began driving.
They placed her on the floor behind the driver’s seat and covered her with a black pea coat. Tori repeatedly asked the two where they were taking her.
According to CBC News, McClintic responded that they were “going for a drive.” She later testified that she, too, did not know where they were going. The couple drove outside Woodstock towards Guelph and made a series of stops before heading out of the city into a rural area.
McClintic and Rafferty first stopped at a Tim Hortons. McClintic told the court she mouthed “I’m sorry” to Tori when Rafferty asked her to keep the girl covered. She claimed Rafferty told her, “We just can’t keep her, and we can’t take her back.”
Then the couple drove to a friend’s house before stopping at a Home Depot at the north end of the city. McClintic went into the store to buy garbage bags and a hammer. After buying the items, they drove outside the city into a rural area.
As they drove down the empty streets, Raffetry began masturbating while driving. When he stopped the car, McClintic quickly stepped out and walked away.
Crescent International reported McClintic’s statement saying, “I believed he was going to rape Tori. I knew it was going to happen. And I did not want to be there when it would happen.”
At some point, McClintic heard the child screaming and turned to look at what was happening. She saw Tori sitting in Rafferty’s lap. He was trying to molest her. After Rafferty had sexually assaulted Tori, she was bleeding heavily, crying, and wanted to urinate.
McClintic took her a few meters down the road to relieve herself. According to Global News Canada, Tori repeatedly asked McClintic for help, but she coldly replied, “Just don’t let him do it again.” Despite her pleas, McClintic took Tori back to the car and surrendered her to Rafferty.
Tori wouldn’t let go of her hand, but McClintic forcefully removed it, leaving the terrified girl to a sexual predator. She told the court, “I couldn’t be there for that. I left.”
Rafferty began sexually assaulting the child for a second time. A few minutes later, when McClintic went back to the car, she saw Tori lying on the ground with blood on her crotch. She was crying and begging for help.
McClintic then put a garbage bag on Tori’s head and began kicking her in the ribs. Then, she began repeatedly hitting her head with the hammer. Rafferty had asked McClintic to put the garbage bag on the child’s head so the blood wouldn’t splatter all over.
McClintic later changed her testimony, saying she hit Tori when Rafferty was putting her in the garbage bag. The little girl’s body was dumped under a tree and covered with rocks so it couldn’t be found.
McClintic later recounted that after dumping the body, Rafferty tried to wash the blood off his genitals using a couple of bottles of water. He wiped himself with the white jacket Tori was wearing that day because he did not want to ruin his shirt.
When they entered the car, Rafferty asked McClintic if she was okay. She replied in the affirmative. In response Rafferty said that he was also alright, considering.
The Search for Tori Stafford’s Body
The search operation for finding Tori’s remains was still ongoing. Law enforcement went to great lengths, logging more than 18,000 kilometers in search of the girl. The Ontario Provincial Police took over the case from the Woodstock Police Department, and an unprecedented amount of resources were deployed in order to find Tori Stafford’s remains.
According to Vancouver City News, Sgt. John Stirling testified, “Literally, we went 1 1/2 times around the moon. To this date, it’s the largest search in the OPP’s history, and I would say probably our nation.”
Officers searched on land, in the air, and underwater. The search operation deployed cruisers, helicopters, ATVs, and cadaver dogs. They sifted through 830 tonnes of garbage at a landfill outside Woodstock for 20 days.
Immediately following her arrest, McClintic was taken to the Guelph area to assist the investigators in finding Tori’s body. In Guelph, McClintic also identified a Home Depot on Woodlawn Road where she purchased garbage bags and the hammer.
Law enforcement confirmed the location through CCTV footage. McClintic was seen purchasing the items on 8 April at 5:12 pm. She also identified the residence along the dirt road near which Tori’s body was hidden.
McClintic fully cooperated with law enforcement and helped in the search for Tori’s remains. She spent most of her time in the air during the search in an effort to identify the site where they had hidden Tori’s body.
They flew about 1,000 kilometers, but McClintic couldn’t identify the area. Officers also walked 51 kilometers along Highway 401, where McClintic and Rafferty had traversed the road while returning home after killing Tori Stafford.
The landfill, highway, and helicopter searches failed. Officers did not find any items of clothing, the murder weapon, or any other clues they were looking for.
Tori’s body was finally found using Rafferty’s cell phone records from the day she disappeared. On July 17, law enforcement learned that Rafferty’s BlackBerry was used to send a series of text messages and make a phone call near Mount Forest, Guelph, at 7:47 pm on 8th April 2009.
Mount Forest was north of the search area law enforcement was working. On July 19, OPP’s Detective Staff Sergeant Jim Smyth decided to take a drive around the area. During the drive, he identified the house where Tori’s remains were hidden using a sketch of the building.
This sketch was prepared based on McClintic’s testimony, in which she described the crime scene. He drove across the road and found the child’s remains wrapped in garbage bags, under a pile of rocks in a secluded field.
He was just 6.8 kilometers away from the northernmost edge of the massive search grid. The body had entered a late stage of decomposition.
The autopsy revealed the cause of death was at least four blows to the head with a hammer. Tori suffered multiple head fractures, and two-thirds of her ribs were broken. She also had a six-inch laceration in her liver. Autopsy confirmed she received the laceration while she was still alive.
The significant decomposition made it impossible to confirm if she was sexually assaulted. However, when law enforcement found her, she was wearing only a Hannah Montana T-shirt.
Arrests, Trial and Sentencing
On 30 April, 2010, McClintic pleaded guilty to the charge of first-degree murder. She was sentenced to life in prison without a possibility of parole for 25 years.
Police arrested Rafferty on May 20, 2010. He pleaded not guilty to the charges of first-degree murder, sexual assault causing bodily harm, and kidnapping in the death of Tori. Law enforcement searched his car and home and found evidence linking him to the crime.
Police found a missing girl poster of the child he was alleged to have raped and killed. Police also found a black pea coat in his closet, identical to the one McClintic described in her testimony.
A mixture of Tori and Rafferty’s blood was found in his car, on the floor behind the driver’s seat. Because of the extreme outrage surrounding the case, the defense argued that Rafferty could not receive an unbiased trial.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Thomas Heeney ordered a change of venue, and the motions began in 2012.
The prosecution also brought McClintic from prison to testify against Rafferty at trial. After hearing 10 weeks of evidence, the jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict. On May 25, 2012, Rafferty was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Aftermath
The untimely and senseless death of Tori devastated a family, community, and a nation. Friends and strangers alike sent wishes and prayers to the grieving family from across the country.
Although investigators arrested one of the perpetrators early on, many people blamed Tori’s mother for what happened. Her mother said she often left the children at her house to go to parties and see boyfriends.
She didn’t report Tori missing until two hours after the child didn’t arrive home when she was expected. Tara also had a substance problem. All her life, she struggled with an addiction to OxyContin.
She had even crossed paths with her daughter’s killer, McClintic, when she bought OxyContin at her house. Tori’s mother told the court she had taken some OxyContin in the hours before her daughter was expected to arrive home.
On 27 September, 2011, she was arrested by Woodstock police, along with her boyfriend, in a drug bust. She was charged with possession of illegal substances like crack cocaine, marijuana, and stolen property. She was ultimately released.
On January 30, 2012, McClintic was under the spotlight once again when she assaulted another inmate who was also serving a life sentence. McClintic later claimed Aboriginal heritage and sought transfer to a healing lodge. Her claimed heritage was not confirmed.
In fall 2018, McClintic was transferred from a high-security prison to the Saskatchewan Healing Lodge for Aboriginal women, causing significant outrage. Media outlets and think tanks even called for prison reform.
Tori’s father, Rodney Stafford, posted on Facebook to express his anxiety about the transfer. He urged the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, to review the transfer and send McClintic back to prison so she can spend the rest of her sentence behind bars.
Following public outcry, McClintic was transferred back to a secure prison facility on 7 November 2018. In her final court statement, McClintic expressed remorse for her actions. She told the court she made a major mistake.
Toronto City News reported her statement, saying, “I will never forget what happened, the mistakes I made, the failure I was. A million tears will never be enough, and a million words would never be able to express how truly sorry I am. I allowed my own issues, my own past, to affect the future of an innocent girl.”
Tori’s father, in his final statement to the court, shared his experience of living with the fact that his daughter is gone. Tori’s death caused irreversible damage to the Stafford family. Her brother, Daryn, was forever traumatized by what happened to his sister.
CBC News Canada reported his tearful statement, which read, “The hardest part of my last year has been watching my 12-year-old son try to continue through life trying to figure out why the pod now only has one pea?? Who split the pod, and why?? Best friends torn apart.…
“He misses his sister, and feels guilt every day because he never walked her home. It kills me inside to see him cry, and for me to know that the one thing he wants now in life, that could make him happy and put that smile back on his face, I can never give to him.“
He thanked friends, community, countrymen, media, and thousands of strangers who gave their support in the quest to bring Tori’s murderers to justice. He also urged them to respect their privacy as they try to return to a normal life.
For more true crime stories involving murders, check out our articles on Etan Patz and Janet Chandler.
