Police Chief Rod Freeman reflects on the days following the disappearance and murder of 8 year-old, Tori Stafford.
WOODSTOCK -- The disappearance of eight year old Victoria Stafford, who never made it home from school on April 8th, 2009 will be on the collective mind of Woodstock residents again this week.
The five year anniversary of her abduction and murder is also not lost on the hundreds of enforcement officials who assisted with the case.
Woodstock Police Chief Rodney Freeman was then Deputy Chief of the Oxford County Police Service. He says most often, stranger abductions -- like the Stafford case involving children under 16 -- are a very rare occurrence, recalling how the community came together to assist police in the early hours of the investigation.
"The community response was outstanding, we ended up doing a very large ground search involving police officers, firefighters, on duty and off duty. We ended up searching some properties two, three, four times and we received nothing less than one-hundred per cent co-operation from our citizens who were more than willing to throw open their doors and allow us to take a look around to see if we could find anything that could help further the investigation, Freeman said."
The acceleration point from a missing person case to the criminal element of abduction was apparent when the surveillance video taken from security camera footage surfaced one day later, showing Tori as she was last seen on the same street as her school being walked the opposite direction by a then unknown female suspect.
"The next day when we located what is now infamous video tape of what we now know as Terri-Lynne McClintic walking Victoria away -- up Fyfe Street -- toward Michael Rafferty's car. Then we realized we had an abduction, Victoria had been taken away by someone for some purpose, that was still unclear to us at that point, and we had lots more information to still run down -- information that eventually led us back again to McClintic and Rafferty.
Overnight, the release of the video footage would touch off the largest abduction search in OPP history.
Freeman says managing the media onslaught during the case was a challenge, saying police could not divulge everything which they were following publicly, which led to rumours and speculation around the case when some members of the media attempted to fill in the blanks.
"We had media from the GTA, media from all over the province camped out at our front lawn at the police station, and they were thirsting for all the facts that we had throughout our investigation and because we couldn't divulge everything publicly -- we had a number of different investigative thrusts all on the go at the same time, we couldn't divulge all of that information to the media. It was necessary because we knew we still had the offenders out in the community."
Provincial Police confirmed on the morning of July 21, 2009 that Tori Stafford's remains were found in Ontario near Mount Forest, not far from Concession Road 6.
Terri-Lynne McClintic pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in Stafford's death in April 2010. Her ex-boyfriend, Michael Rafferty, was later found guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault in May 2012, but is appealing his conviction.
Freeman says says his thoughts are with Victoria, who would have turned 14 in July, and her family as well.
"One thing I learned from that investigation was that 'ripple effect.' You drop a pebble into the water -- and you get ripples radiating out from that pebble. Certainly we know the victim in this tragedy was Victoria, but there are so many victims of her family, extended victims throughout this community and beyond."
Freeman says nearly 1000 officers helped out with the investigation involving different levels of law enforcement across 32 different police forces. He says in speaking to everyone who worked on the case since, he knows it's something each of those officers will keep with them over the course of their entire career.
Woodstock Receives Fourth-Quarter Payment from OLG
Oxford Attack U-19 Boys Vying for Spot in OBXL
Voting Open for Oxford Reads 2024
South Gate Expansion Expected to Begin this Summer
Battle of the Badges this Sunday
Two Charged in Woodstock Drug Bust
UPDATE: LPS Constable Faces Three Charges
Premier Fumes Over Gas Price Increase
Dairy Capital Run Returns to Discovery Farm Woodstock
Golf Carts Stolen and Damaged in Ingersoll
Rural Engagement Survey Closing Soon
Tickets Available for Woodstock Mayor's Breakfast
Oxford MP Responds to Federal Budget
Norfolk OPP Briefs - April 17th
Gas Hike on the Horizon for Ontario
Crime Stoppers Launches Virtual Jail & Bail Fundrasier
Impaired Driver Busted in Ingersoll
Local Realtor Wins National Realtors Care Award
Budget 2024 Tabled in Ottawa
Local U18 Girls Hockey Teams Wins Gold
Comments
Add a comment