LONDON, Ont. — Eight-year-old Victoria (Tori) Stafford died of repeated blows to the head with a hammer, the jury in the long-awaited criminal trial of the man accused of killing her heard Monday.
Lead prosecutor Kevin Gowdey warned the jury in his opening address that the evidence they will hear will be "disturbing."
"This trial will be hard on all of us," he said. "The evidence in the trial will often be hard to listen to. At times, it will be graphic and unsettling.
"This will be a difficult story to tell and a difficult one to hear."
For more than an hour, Gowdey read aloud a statement to the 12-member jury describing the evidence the Crown will present of its version of the events of April 8, 2009 — the day the Grade 3 student was last seen alive.
Stafford went missing when she failed to make it home from school in Woodstock, Ont., a small city about two hours west of Toronto.
The last image of the petite, blond, blue-eyed girl was a grainy surveillance video that showed her walking hand-in-hand with a woman in a white jacket.
Her remains were found in July 2009 following an exhaustive police search near Guelph, in Mount Forest, Ont., about 200 kilometres away from her school.
Michael Rafferty, 31, of Woodstock, pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault causing bodily harm. He has been in police custody since his arrest in May 2009.
In April 2010, his ex-girlfriend, Terri-Lynne McClintic, was sentenced to life in prison without a chance of parole for 25 years after she pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. She confessed that she was the woman in the white jacket and had lured Stafford away with the promise of meeting a puppy.
Gowdey told the jury that Stafford was driven in Rafferty's Honda Civic with McClintic to the rural location in Mount Forest that evening when she was abducted.
The girl's body eventually was found in a garbage bag buried under a rock pile. She had died of multiple blows to the head with a hammer.
Stafford was also naked from the waist down when she was discovered and was wearing only a Hannah Montana T-shirt and her mother's butterfly earrings, Gowdey said.
"What we could also tell you is that Tori was subjected to blunt force trauma to her torso, sufficient to lacerate her liver. That trauma also caused many fractures to her ribs," he said. "These injuries were almost certainly caused before the fatal hammer blows."
Blood was also found on the frame of Rafferty's car and on his gym bag that was highly likely to be Stafford's, the crown alleges.
Dressed in a grey suit, with a stripped blue tie and wearing glasses, Rafferty sat composed and expressionless in the prisoner's dock throughout the address. At times, he took sips of water from a glass but continued to stare straight ahead.
The Crown says one of Rafferty's former friends will testify that he and McClintic stopped at her house that evening to buy a large number of prescription painkillers. The Crown also promises to present surveillance video and receipts showing that McClintic made a stop at a Home Depot along the way to Guelph to purchase a claw hammer and garbage bags.
Although police never recovered a hammer, the garbage bags were the same brand that Stafford's remains were found in.
Gowdey said McClintic will testify in the upcoming days about her relationship with Rafferty and how he even spoke and visited her multiple times in jail before he was placed in custody.
The Crown says investigators also found a script at McClintic's house coaching her on what she should tell the police if she was ever suspected of being Stafford's abductor.
Posters of the missing girl, which were plastered all over Woodstock and across the country, were also found at both McClintic and Rafferty's homes, said Gowdey.
"In the end, it is not necessary that you determine exactly who did what," he said, adding that jurors need only determine whether the two "acted together."
The jury was told that McClintic's credibility will be put into question once she testifies, but that her knowledge of the disturbing details of this case showed that she had played a role in Stafford's death.
To find Rafferty guilty, they do not need to determine that Rafferty was the one who delivered the blows that ultimately killed the girl, he said. Instead, they only need to determine that her death was deliberate or carried out during the commission of a kidnapping or sexual assault.
"You have been chosen to be the judges of this case," said Gowdey. "Tremendous trust has been placed in you. It will be serious and challenging work."
Outside the courthouse, Rodney Stafford was eager for the trial to begin but expressed concerns that the public has forgotten about his daughter's tragic end.
"It's not about (Michael) Rafferty," said Stafford, who was wearing a purple ribbon in her memory. "It's about a little girl who lost her life and I'm going to make sure we push it and keep it that way."
Through tears, Stafford's grandmother Doreen Graichen said the family has many "good memories" of the girl and are prepared for the worst during this trial.
"Nothing could be any worse than what I imagined anyway," she said, pointing out a butterfly pendant she was wearing for Stafford.
The girl's mother, Tara McDonald, also was at the courthouse but did not speak to media. She will be testifying in the upcoming days about the last time she saw her daughter.
The Crown will call their first witness Tuesday. It is expected it will be Stafford's former teacher.
Ontario Superior Justice Thomas Heeney, who is presiding over the trial, reminded jurors that Rafferty has pleaded not guilty to all charges and that he is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Rafferty's lawyer, Dirk Derstine, said he continues to hope the public will continue to hold their judgment until the end of the trial.
"It is very easy to want to judge someone who is nearby to all of the action," he said.
Earlier in the day, the proceedings were unexpectedly delayed for more than an hour for a closed-door meeting between the judge and the lawyers in the case. No reasons were given for the delay.
The trial is expected to last two and a half months and is under heavy police security.
The London, Ont., courtroom and an overflow room streaming the proceedings were both packed with media and interested members of the public Monday.
The high-profile trial was moved out of Woodstock because it was believed Rafferty would not be able to get a fair trial in the hometown he shared with the murdered girl.
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