Crown to give closing arguments in Rafferty trial

Michael Rafferty is transported in the back of a police cruiser from the courthouse in London, Ont., Wednesday, March, 14, 2012. Rafferty is on trial in the death of Victoria (Tori) Stafford. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Dave Chidley)

LONDON, Ont. — The trial of the man accused of killing eight-year-old Victoria Stafford is set to hear the Crown lay out all of its evidence today as first-degree murder proceedings wind down.
Michael Rafferty, 31, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, sexual assault causing bodily harm and kidnapping.
The Crown will present its closing arguments today, though it could take longer than the one day.
Rafferty's lawyer gave closing submissions Monday, in which he urged the jury not to believe the testimony of Terri-Lynne McClintic, who has already pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the case.
For the first time since Rafferty was arrested and charged in May 2009, his mother spoke out, and said she believes her son is not guilty.
She says McClintic has ruined their lives and that the situation her son finds himself in could happen to any man out there.
"I just hope that justice is served and that he's free," Deborah Murphy said outside court.
Lawyer Dirk Derstine told the jury that Rafferty was there on April 8, 2009, when Tori died from blows to the head with a hammer, and he may have even come to realize at some point in the 2 1/2 hours the little girl was in his car that she was being held against her will.
The rest, he scoffed, is a fiction invented by a troubled woman who "perjured herself over and over and over again." McClintic, who has a proven history of violence and torture ideation, was the true engine behind Tori's death, Derstine said.
The kidnapping was not orchestrated by Rafferty, there is no objective evidence that Rafferty raped Tori as alleged, and he is not the one who wielded the hammer, Derstine suggested. For McClintic to testify otherwise is "absurd," he said.
McClintic testified that Rafferty urged her to kidnap a young girl for him, that he made several stops before driving to a rural location and raping the girl, and that pent-up rage from her own childhood traumas caused McClintic to snap and murder Tori.
That testimony marked a change from what she told police for years -- that Rafferty was the one who killed Tori with a hammer -- but Derstine suggested that is the one part of her story that should be believed.