Stafford murder investigator denounces killer’s transfer
Recent events rekindled memories from tragedy, Woodstock police chief says
The lead investigator into the slaying of Woodstock schoolgirl Victoria (Tori) Stafford is denouncing the surprise transfer of one of her killers from an Ontario maximum security prison to an Indigenous healing lodge in Saskatchewan eight years into her life sentence. Terri-Lynne McClintic’s move to such a “privileged program” is “unacceptable,” Woodstock police Chief Bill Renton, who oversaw the massive OPP manhunt for Stafford’s two killers before joining the Woodstock force, told Postmedia News on Monday as he released a critical statement about the transfer.
“I echo the concerns of the nation,” he said in the statement. “I believe the correctional system needs to be predicated on rehabilitation for those who have committed crimes and proven themselves worthy.”
It is rare for police chiefs to speak so candidly about the justice system after a case has been closed. Renton’s comments come a week after The London Free Press broke the story of McClintic’s quiet transfer to the healing lodge, where inmates live in single and family residential units and may even have their children stay with them.
Stafford’s enraged father, Rodney Stafford, blasted the transfer but the fallout last week went even higher, with federal Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale ordering the nation’s prison commissioner to review the move.
In the House of Commons the Opposition Conservatives demanded answers, as did the ruling Progressive Conservatives in the Ontario legislature. Eight-year-old Tori was raped, beaten and murdered on April 8, 2009 after being abducted in Woodstock while walking home from school. She’d been lured by McClintic with the promise of seeing a puppy, into the car of her boyfriend Michael Rafferty. Her body, abandoned in garbage bags, was found three months after she went missing in a rural area near Mount Forest.
On May 20, 2009 police charged Michael Rafferty and McClintic with first-degree murder.
COMMUNITY OFFENCE
McClintic pleaded guilty in 2010 and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Rafferty was convicted of firstdegree murder by a jury following a 2011 trial where McClintic testified. Renton expressed community offence at McClintic’s transfer. “I feel compelled to speak for our community and for our officers. Hopefully, we show the family we care. Everybody should care,” said Renton, who was the OPP case manager for the three-year joint investigation with Woodstock police. “Watching these events, I had hoped that the situation would have been properly rectified. We do take exception to it.” Renton worked with more than 900 OPP officers who contributed to the search for Stafford’s killers in 2009, at the time the largest-ever provincial police dragnet before going on to become Woodstock’s chief.
On his Facebook page, Rodney Stafford has begged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “to do the right thing ” and reverse the transfer of his daughter’s killer. Stafford vows to hold a rally on Parliament Hill to protest McClintic’s move to the Saskatchewan healing lodge. Renton said recent events have rekindled many difficult memories from the Stafford tragedy. He called her “a beautiful, young innocent girl” who was taken unjustly and in a “heinous manner.” He said the pain caused to her family and all who knew her as “profound.” He also said the “horrific” act of violence touched the lives of all the officers involved, as well crown attorneys, professional agencies, the judiciary, court staff and the jurors. “We lived this for three years. Officers are very invested in this,” he said. “If you look at the nature of the crime, how can you not be affected?”
“I want to show support to the community, the coppers and the family.”