‘I feel awesome and more at peace’
Tori’s killer back in prison after healing lodge
LONDON, Ont. • The killer of eight-year-old Tori Stafford has been moved only a few kilometres away from where many of the slain girl’s family live.
But it still comes as a great relief.
Terri-Lynne McClintic, serving a life sentence for the first-degree murder of the eight-year-old Woodstock girl in 2009, was moved Wednesday from a healing lodge in Saskatchewan to a prison setting in Edmonton.
Tori’s family was told Wednesday night.
“I was relieved and very grateful,” the girl’s grandmother, Doreen Graichen, said Thursday from her home in Edmonton, where many of her family live.
“I feel awesome and more at peace. She is on the other side of Edmonton, but we will manage.”
McClintic was taken to the Edmonton Institution for Women, a minimum, medium and maximum security facility for 167 women, Graichen said.
She is to be housed in the medium security wing, Graichen said.
It’s “a victory for the little guy,” said Tori’s father Rodney Stafford, who led the battle for McClintic’s return to prison. “I am very happy with the news.”
McClintic pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in 2010, and testified in 2012 at the trial of former boyfriend Michael Rafferty, who was found guilty of kidnapping, sexual assault and first-degree murder.
At his trial, her violent upbringing and nature were revealed. Later that year she pleaded guilty to assaulting another inmate at Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener.
She was transferred last year from the Kitchener medium/minimum security prison to the medium/ minimum security and open concept Okimaw Ohci healing lodge in Saskatchewan.
The Saskatchewan lodge offers independent living in single and family residential units that include living rooms and kitchenettes, and counselling and support for Indigenous people, or those who have committed to Indigenous learning.
Many of Tori’s relatives learned of the transfer soon after it happened, but the notification from Correctional Service Canada did not reach her father, Rodney Stafford, until the fall of this year.
After The London Free Press broke the story, anger over the transfer spread to the Ontario legislature and the House of Commons, where provincial and federal Tories pushed the federal Liberals to reverse the decision.
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale ordered a review of the decision and corrections policies.
Stafford and his supporters rallied on Parliament Hill Nov. 2 and in Woodstock the next day.
Stafford also wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appealing to him as a father of children to reverse the decision.
“If it wasn’t the nation behind us, it was pretty darn close,” Graichen said Thursday.
On Wednesday, Goodale announced new rules for prisoners.
Federal prisoners will have a harder time being transferred to Indigenous healing lodges if they’re serving long sentences, he said.
Prisoners won’t be eligible for transfers to healing lodges without secured perimeters until they’re in the preparation-for-release phase of their sentence.
Correctional Service Canada also will have to consider inmates’ behaviour and how close they are to being eligible for unescorted temporary absences from prison before transferring them.
In addition, the deputy commissioner for women will be involved in decisions to ensure national standards are applied consistently and relevant factors are considered.
The changes will apply to past and future cases, the government said.
But Tori’s family didn’t know until Wednesday night if and when McClintic would be removed from the healing lodge.
IF IT WASN’T THE NATION BEHIND US, IT WAS PRETTY DARN CLOSE.