Defence closes its case at Tori Stafford trial.

By Linda Nguyen

Postmedia News

LONDON, Ont. — The defence team of the man charged with first-degree murder in the death of Ontario schoolgirl Victoria (Tori) Stafford opened and closed their case on Tuesday with only one witness: a woman who picked up her grandchildren at the elementary school where Stafford disappeared three years ago.

The 60-year-old testified that she saw the little girl happily leaving school that day with a woman in a white, puffy ski jacket.

The older woman’s identity is protected by a publication ban.

Rafferty, 31, has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping, sexual assault causing bodily harm and first-degree murder related the eight-year-old girl.

His trial began on March 5 and he did not testify in his own defence.

Stafford was last seen outside Oliver Stephens Public School in Woodstock, Ont., a small city west of Toronto. Her decomposing remains were found on July 19, 2009 more than two hours away in a field near Mount Forest, Ont.

The defence’s witness told the court she was sitting and waiting in a car for her grandchildren and their mother to come out after school that day. The woman was parked in the school’s driveway, near school buses that were being loaded with children.

That’s when she saw a dark-haired woman with a white puffy jacket walk into the front doors of the school.

Moments later, her family members arrived and they began driving off.

As the car was driving along the main street near the school, the witness recalled seeing the white jacketed woman again. But this time, she was with a young girl.

“The little girl who was with her was happy, skipping, talking a mile a minute,” said the witness. “I assumed that the person she was talking to was her mother.”

She said the woman in the white jacket, who was not carrying a purse, appeared to have a “stern” look on her face. She was not speaking to the child.

“It seemed like she was on a mission,” the woman told the court.

She added that she did not know Rafferty and admitted that she was “not happy” about testifying for the defence.

Under cross-examination, Crown attorney Michael Carnegie questioned whether she had actually remembered these details about the woman in the white jacket or if her had been clouded by the extensive coverage of the high-profile case.

A surveillance video of Stafford walking with a woman in a white jacket was released to the media shortly after the young girl’s disappearance.

“Is it possible ma’am that you’ve seen the . . . video like we have, over and over again. Is that what is affecting your memory? Are you sure?” he asked her a number of times.

But the witness stood her ground, and told him that she had been drawn to the woman because she was wearing a winter jacket on a warm April day.

During the Crown’s case — which ended last week — prosecutors called 61 witnesses. Among those was Rafferty’s former girlfriend, Terri-Lynne McClintic.

McClintic, 21, is currently serving a life sentence for Stafford’s death after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in April 2010.

She testified that she was the woman in the white jacket who lured the child away from the school that day at Rafferty’s urging. Court has never heard before Tuesday that McClintic may have actually gone into the school prior to the kidnapping.

She testified that the three then drove out of the city in his 2003 Honda Civic to buy drugs, a hammer and garbage bags, before stopping at a rural field near Mount Forest, Ont.

There, McClintic says Stafford was repeatedly raped, which made her snap because it brought back memories of her own alleged childhood molestation. She then killed the girl and buried her in a nearby rock pile with Rafferty’s help.

Court also heard that Stafford’s DNA was later found in Rafferty’s car and on his gym bag.

His defence has tried to portray their client as a dupe who was a horrified spectator in the abduction and murder of the blonde-haired girl.

They deny the girl had been raped, a fact that cannot be corroborated with DNA evidence because her remains had been so decomposed by the time she was found.

Stafford’s cause of death was multiple blows, most likely caused by a claw hammer.

Outside the courthouse, Tori’s father, Rodney Stafford, admitted he was disappointed that Rafferty was not going to testify in his own defence.

“There are lots of unanswered questions,” he said. “We never really got all the truth.”

Even though the proceedings are nearing an end, he said his family will never be able to fully move on.

“Our lives have been altered forever,” said Rodney Stafford. “The only thing we can do about it is continue moving forward.”

Linnguyen@Postmedia.com

Twitter.com/LindaNguyenPN

PN 5/01/12 16:01:03