The trial of a man accused of killing Victoria Stafford is hearing that after the eight-year-old's death he was frequently in touch with the woman his lawyer suggests killed Tori right before his eyes.
Michael Rafferty's lawyer has suggested Terri-Lynne McClintic planned and carried out the abduction and murder of the Grade 3 student and Rafferty was a "horrified" spectator.
Rafferty, 31, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, sexual assault causing bodily harm and kidnapping in Tori's April 8, 2009, death.
Provincial police Det. Const. Gord Johnson is laying out for the court today a calendar of Rafferty's mostly electronic activities between April 8 and his arrest on May 19, including more than 100 instant messages and text messages on many days.
On April 10, 2009, records show Rafferty's phone and McClintic's mother's phone, which she used, exchanged 44 text messages and that they stayed in close contact even after she was arrested.
McClintic was arrested April 12 on an unrelated matter, and records show Rafferty frequently called the detention centre where she was being kept and visited her until his arrest.
McClintic is already serving a life sentence after pleading guilty two years ago to first-degree murder in Tori's death. She testified that while she abducted Tori at Rafferty's urging and then he raped the girl, McClintic herself was the one to kill Tori. However, she had maintained until days before the start of Rafferty's pre-trial that he killed Tori.
On April 8, 2009, Rafferty apparently spent the early-morning hours exchanging text and instant messages with two of the several women he was dating at the time, records show.
A car suspected to be Rafferty's was seen on surveillance video driving by Tori's school in Woodstock, Ont., at 9:04 a.m., then a flurry of activity followed on his BlackBerry. A text message was sent to a woman he was seeing, others were sent to a woman from whom court has heard he illegally bought Percocet and instant messages were exchanged with a woman named Charity Spitzig. Court has heard Rafferty was dating Spitzig and that she would give him the money she made working as an escort.
She deposited $400 into Rafferty's account at 9:47 a.m., records show. About 1 1/2 hours later, Rafferty withdrew $400.
Rafferty and Spitzig exchanged dozens more instant BlackBerry Messenger notes throughout the day, and she later deposited another $100 into his account at 2:58 p.m.
At 10:01 a.m. Rafferty posted on Facebook "everything good is comming (sic) my way."
Between 11:13 a.m. and 12:06 p.m. Rafferty's phone made 14 calls to known associates or drug connections of McClintic, records show. She testified earlier at the trial that Rafferty asked her that morning if she could facilitate the purchase of some drugs for him so she used his phone to call around.
Rafferty spent the noon hour texting to other girlfriends, records show. Then between 2:54 and 4:18 p.m Rafferty made no calls and sent no text or instant messages.
The car police suspect was Rafferty's was seen driving past Oliver Stephens Public School again at 3:05 p.m., stopping at a nearby gas station at 3:20 p.m., then driving past the school at 3:30 p.m.
Surveillance video shows McClintic leading Tori away from her school at 3:32 p.m. in the direction of a neighbouring retirement home, which is where the Crown alleges Rafferty was waiting in his car.
McClintic has testified that when they were leaving Woodstock that day, Rafferty took the battery out of his phone and put it back in once they arrived in Guelph, where he bought the Percocets. Rafferty's phone had been accessing the Internet, likely in the background of other phone activity, since the night before and the connection ends at 3:42 p.m., records show. An unanswered call several minutes later goes to his voicemail.
There was some activity on Rafferty's phone between 4:18 and 5:03 p.m., and those signals bounce off of towers in the Guelph, Ont., area. The trial has seen evidence that Rafferty withdrew $80 from an ATM at a gas station next to a Home Depot in Guelph at 5:03 p.m., then McClintic entered the Home Depot minutes later and purchased a hammer and garbage bags using cash.
The next gap in Rafferty's phone use came between 5:05 and 7:46 p.m. According to McClintic's testimony, Tori was raped and killed around that time, as it was beginning to get dark.
At 7:46 p.m. four instant messages that Spitzig sent between 6:35 and 7:11 p.m. were delivered at once to Rafferty's BlackBerry. His voicemail was called one minute later, records show, and the call bounced off a tower near where Tori's remains would be found more than three months later near Mount Forest, Ont.
