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On July 15 Victoria Stafford would have turned nine years old. She should have had a party with cake and streamers. But that didn't happen for Tori Stafford. Instead, four days after her birth date her body was found by Ontario Provincial Police three and a half months after she went missing. Det. Insp. William Renton confirmed earlier today that the remains found over the weekend are Tori's.
In April I posted for the first time about Victoria Stafford. At that point she had been missing for sixteen days. In May I posted that two people had been arrested and charged with her murder. It is believed by police that Tori was murdered the same day that she disappeared. As I said in May, this not a post that I ever wanted to write. Until the arrests of Michael Thomas Rafferty and Terri-Lynne McClintic I thought she's come home. As spockgirl87 said, this is not a happy ending.
Like Katie May, before the police located her body, there was still hope.
I knew she was probably dead, but since there was no body there was still a glimmer of hope, even though the kidnappers claimed to have killed her. It's beyond understanding.
No, we don't understand how anyone could do this. We will never understand. It wasn't the ending her family was hoping for, but now that they know they can begin to move forward.
Rebecca Nichols, Tori's aunt, said the family had always held out hope that the girl would return safely. "This is not the ending we were hoping for," Nichols said. "But we're not going to spend a lifetime wondering, looking in every car, in every back seat, through every window and wondering, ‘Is Victoria there?'"
The police are now putting the energy they used to locate Tori into the upcoming court cases for Rafferty and McClintic. Breeze Days hopes that her discovery can help the police strengthen their case.
I want that family to have the peace they deserve and I also hope finding the body makes it easier to convict the people arrested in the homicide.
I hope sweet Victoria, you can finally rest in peace and your family can have their questions answered once and for all as to what happened to you.
Rest in peace Tori.
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
