“She Was An Angel”: Tori’s Mom Breaks Her Silence
Posted May 22, 2009 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Tara McDonald came out of her Woodstock home to face the press Friday, a task she’s performed many times over the past six weeks. But unlike her past efforts, designed to keep the story of her missing daughter Tori Stafford alive, this time was different.
She now knows the eight-year-old with the beautiful smile will never be coming home.
Wearing sunglasses to hide her eyes, the distraught mother emerged to talk about the child she lost, the suspects accused of the crime, and her own time in the glare of police suspicions.
“There was 100 police officers that were working on this case and they said that only five were focused on us,” she remembers. “I said that that was five too many …We told them repeatedly we had nothing to do with this. And still not only the police but the community – I’m not saying the entire community – I’m saying there are people who still had their doubts. Even though we said we had absolutely nothing to do with it.”
McDonald admitted she was considered the prime suspect in the case, but said her frustration with the way she was treated by authorities paled in comparison to the grief she’s experienced since her daughter disappeared, and was ultimately declared dead by police, who have yet to recover her body.
“I have a million feelings. But that’s the last feeling on my plate,” she responded when asked if she was angry with investigators.
Although she started off the 3pm press conference by maintaining she didn’t want to focus on the misdirected suspicions of authorities, her frustrations soon spilled out.
“At one point, point blank one officer did come and say ‘I’m just bringing up to speed, and you are our prime suspect right now.’ “
“I was disgusted.”
McDonald also revealed details about her limited relationship with 18-year-old Terri-Lynne McClintic, who is facing charges of abduction and accessory to murder. McClintic’s boyfriend, 28-year-old Michael Rafferty, who McDonald says she didn’t know, has been charged with first degree murder.
“I met her twice over at her mother’s house,” she reveals. “We were going to breed our dogs. That’s not a rumour. That is an actual fact…I only met her on two or three occasions and we were speaking with her mother.”
“The mother was very vulgar. And like I said, after the two visits…I told James (her boyfriend), I’m not going back there. It wasn’t so much Terri-Lynne but her mother was something else.”
When police released the composite sketch of the female suspect, McDonald admits McClintic’s name came up.
“We did speak to somebody and said that we feel that Terri-Lynne was somebody who fit that description. When we saw the video we did say that Terri-Lynne was somebody who fit that description.”
“James had gone over to that house repeatedly over the last six weeks and he sent other people over to that house…to see if there was any kind of strange behaviour, if her mother said anything that would lead us to believe that Terri-Lynne had something to do with it.
“He went over there two or three days after Victoria’s abduction and he said, ‘She cut her hair. She dyed her coat.’ It’s a gut feeling.”
“We were told on Tuesday night that there were two people in custody…we didn’t find out who they were until we heard it on the news.”
She alleges the teen may have used a dog to attract Tori’s attention that day, insisting her daughter loved animals and could have been lured away through such a technique.
Throughout the ordeal, McDonald says the hardest moment was breaking the news to her 11-year-old son Daryn that her sister wasn’t coming home.
“You have no, no idea, I dreaded it so bad,” she told CityNews reporter Cynthia Mulligan in an exclusive interview. “This is going to be the most awful thing that our son is going to hear and it’s going to come from us, it’s going to come from his parents. You never want to hurt your children.”
“The first words out of his mouth were, ‘I’m never going to see my sister again.’ And then he got angry. He laid here and cried for about half an hour, and then he got so, so angry, and I don’t blame him.”
See the entire interview below
And despite the evidence to the contrary, McDonald still holds hope that somehow her daughter could be alive.
“There’s some small, small, tiny, tiny glimmer of hope that they haven’t found her body. They guaranteed us, they’ve told us that she’s not coming home, but as a parent I’m just hanging on and hoping that maybe there’s some possible reason that she’s still okay.”
McDonald has stated numerous times that she would not plan her daughter’s funeral until police find her remains. In the meantime, she doesn’t believe McClintic is sincere in reported efforts to help police locate the body.
” I think that if she knew where our daughter was at this point then they wouldn’t be searching. I honestly feel that she’s just enjoying some helicopter rides and fresh air because she’s probably not going to be getting very much of that in the near future.”
The grieving mother stayed remarkably steady during what is surely the most difficult time of her life. But she did start to break down when talking about the little girl she lost on April 8th.
“She was an angel,” she assured. “All you have to do is look at her. You know what I mean? People have discussed her personality. You’ll see videos. Just remember her, because she was the prettiest, most beautiful little girl in the world.”
Tara McDonald covered a lot of issues in her roughly 20 minute press conference. Here are some more of her comments.
On How Everyone Pitched In
“We wanted to thank all the communities that pulled together and handed out flyers and everybody who took time off of work to look for our daughter who helped to try to find her. We wanted to express our thanks to the media, to all the people who have sent their prayers, their flowers, teddy bears, cards, the phone calls. We want to thank everybody who helped in any way in the last six weeks.”
On Having To Take Lie Detector Tests And Police Suspicions
“He came back into the room and sat down and talked to me and said there’s some questions that you failed. And he proceeded with, you know, if there’s any reason why you’re scared, you know you can tell us now. If there’s any reason why you took her to hide her for her safety or, you know it wasn’t that they were extremely rude about it or pressing. They just — it was always a gnawing suspicion from us that they were looking at us.
“At one point, point blank one officer did come and say I’m just bringing up to speed, and you are our prime suspect right now …
On What To Do If Your Child Disappears & You’re A Suspect
“Write down every single thing. It sounds crazy, but from the time that you think your child is missing, write down every single phone call you make. Everywhere you go. What time it is. So that way when they ask you where you were, what were you were doing, who were you with, who called, you can give them those answers so that you’re not a suspect.
“Because when you’re scared for your child’s safety and you realize that they’re missing and you don’t know where they are, the last thing on your mind is looking at the clock and writing down who you’re calling.
“And when the police ask you who were you calling, where were you? Who were you with? What did do you? I didn’t have those answers. You’re in such despair you’re not thinking about time and what you’re doing, you know.”
On How Tori’s Brother Daryn Took The News
“He’s a mess … We let him go out in the backyard the other day on Tuesday morning, and he took a metal mop stick and he just needed to get out his aggression and his anger and he broke a metal mop stick in the backyard.
“It was me and James and Rodney that sat down. And we explained to him that there were two people who were in custody, and that his sister’s gone to heaven.”
On The Possible Motive
“I didn’t even think of a motive. I have never cared through the entire situation what anybody’s motive was. I didn’t ever think about anybody’s motive. I thought about: Where is my child? I didn’t care what anybody’s motive was. That would be figured out later. Like the police said, we have forever to figure out who did this, our number one priority is getting Victoria home. I don’t care what motives there were. I want to know where my daughter was. That was the only issue we were concerned about.”
On Michael Rafferty, Charged With Tori’s Murder
“I have no idea who he is.”
What Does She Want To Say To Rafferty And McClintic?
“Not something I can say on television.”
