TORI STAFFORD MURDER TRIAL: ‘We should never speak of this again’: McClintic describes how Tori's murder was covered up

Between sobs and a wavering voice, Terri-Lynne McClintic, 21, testified at the Tori Stafford murder trial.

By Raveena Aulakh

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT: A day after Terri-Lynne McClintic gave shocking testimony that she dealt the hammer blows that killed 8-year-old Tori Stafford, she told the jury how she and her then boyfriend tried to cover their tracks.

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
LONDON, ONT.—A day after Terri-Lynne McClintic gave shocking testimony that she dealt the hammer blows that killed 8-year-old Tori Stafford, she told the jury how she and her then boyfriend tried to cover their tracks.
“He did not say anything ... just we should never speak of this again,” said McClintic as she described the moments after Tori was raped and killed.
“There wasn’t much conversation,” she told Crown Kevin Gowdey on Wednesday morning. “I was very uneasy and I cannot really describe how I was feeling.”
They also discussed what they would say if questioned about Tori’s disappearance, she said.
McClintic is the Crown’s star witness in the Tori Stafford murder trial.
Tori, 8, was abducted while walking home from school on April 8, 2009. 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 Woodstock, Ont., girl. His trial began on March 5; McClintic took the stand on Tuesday.
After Tori’s body had been covered by rocks in a secluded spot near Mount Forest, they pulled into a nearby side road where McClintic said Rafferty told her he wanted to get rid of their shoes. McClintic tossed her shoes out, he threw out his. Rafferty then gave her a pair of men’s shoes that were too big for her, said McClintic.
He put on a different pair of shoes and changed his shirt because it had blood on it, she told the jury. The couple then drove to Cambridge.
In Cambridge, McClintic, who admitted to have taken a cocktail of drugs that day including OxyContin and Percocets, said Rafferty pulled into a self-serve car wash.
He washed the car thoroughly, and vacuumed and shampooed inside.
Earlier, McClintic said they had thrown her white jacket, Rafferty’s shirt, Tori’s clothes, her Bratz bag and the hammer used to smash the little girl’s head into garbage bags. They took them out of the trunk of the car and threw them into a dumpster and a trash can near the car wash station.
“There were maybe four or five bags,” she told Gowdey.
On Tuesday, McClintic, her voice halting and sometimes barely audible, gave horrific and heartbreaking testimony: how she lured Tori from Oliver Stephens Public School, pushed her into Rafferty’s car, who then drove off to Guelph. There they stopped for coffee, Percocet and a hammer and garbage bags. The next stop, said McClintic, was a secluded rural place near Mount Forest.
It was there that Tori was violently raped and killed, said McClintic.
Before McClintic said she struck Tori in the head with a hammer, she told the jury how the little girl begged for help. McClintic said after Rafferty had raped Tori once, the little girl, bleeding and crying, wanted to urinate. McClintic took her a few metres away from the car where Tori instantly pleaded for help. “She said, ‘Just don’t let him do it again,’” a tearful McClintic recalled.
McClintic told Tori she was sorry. And took her 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.”
Tori was just wearing 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.
With quiet prodding from Gowdey, McClintic acknowledges she put a garbage bag on Tori’s head and started kicking the child.
Tori was then struck with a hammer, she said.
“Who struck her with a hammer?” Gowdey asked.
“Me,” said McClintic.
“Which part of the hammer was she struck with?”
“Both sides.”
“What part of Victoria was struck with the hammer?”
“Her head.”
She and Rafferty then put Tori into garbage bags and carried her to a pile of rocks and put stones on her.
“There was no discussion,” she said.
McClintic, who earlier admitted to being high on OxyContin or morphine most days, told the jury she met Rafferty at a New Orleans Pizza in Woodstock in February 2009. The same evening, they were having sex in his car, McClintic said.
She saw Rafferty a couple of times a week and regularly helped get OxyContin pills for him.
McClintic’s testimony is expected to take all week.
Rafferty, as he did on Tuesday, appeared to listen intently and scribbled notes.
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