LONDON, ONT. — Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

Michael Rafferty was found guilty of first-degree murder, abduction and sexual assault of little Tori Stafford after a gut-wrenching, 10-week trial.

As the first verdict, for first-degree murder, was read out Friday night, Tori’s family reacted with tears and a resounding “yes.” Rodney Stafford, Tori’s father, held hands with his mother and his girlfriend, and cried openly, as did Tori’s mother, Tara McDonald, who sat a few feet away with her partner.

Veteran police officers including Bill Renton and Mike Bickerton, who have been on the case for three years, had tears in their eyes.

Rafferty did not show any emotion, did not get up from the bench in the prisoner’s box as the jury left the courtroom after delivering the verdict.

Outside the courthouse, where dozens of reporters and people waited, there were loud cheers and whoops of joy as Rodney Stafford walked out flanked by family.

“We got justice,” he said.

He said he wanted to scream in the courtroom but could not do it. “There was excitement but at the same time, a sense of loss as Tori is not coming home.”

McDonald did not talk to reporters. Her boyfriend, James Goris, said “thank God” as they left the court.

Crowns lawyers Kevin Gowdey, Michael Carnegie, Brian Crockett and Stephanie Venne came out to briefly talk to reporters and were clearly emotional. Gowdey called it an “unprecedented investigation, thorough and extremely professional.”

Rafferty’s lawyer, Dirk Derstine, said his client was disappointed with the verdict, which came at 9:30. Earlier, the sequestered jurors returned to the courtroom with four questions for the judge, each related to sexual assault.

Tori, 8, disappeared while on her way home from school in Woodstock on April 8, 2009. Terri-Lynne McClintic and Rafferty, then lovers, were arrested and charged a month later. Tori’s body was found near Mount Forest in July. McClintic pleaded guilty in April 2010 and was sentenced to life in prison.

Rafferty, 31, had pleaded not guilty to all three counts. His trial started on March 5 in London and saw its share of drama.

The most explosive moment came with McClintic, the Crown’s star witness. She had initially told investigators she lured Tori at Rafferty’s behest and that he raped and killed the child. But she dramatically changed that statement in January, and at trial testified it was she, not Rafferty, who killed Tori. She maintained the rest was true, that he had pushed her into abducting Tori and that he had raped the child.

The Crown still based its case on McClintic’s testimony, arguing that it did not matter who wielded the hammer that killed Tori, that they were both equally guilty. The Crown also maintained that Rafferty orchestrated the events of April 8, 2009 and that McClintic was just his “violent pawn.”

The Crown called 61 witnesses, filed 185 exhibits and closed its case on April 27.

In closing arguments, Derstine attacked McClintic’s credibility, calling her a prolific and accomplished liar and saying she was the driving force behind Tori’s abduction and murder. He said McClintic abducted Tori for a drug debt and offered her to Rafferty sexually, but that he said no. Derstine said McClintic then killed her in a fit of rage.

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Rafferty, who spent most days in the courtroom listening attentively to testimony, did not testify.

As the ghastly trial rolled on, sordid details emerged about Rafferty: his womanizing, his drug use, how he pimped off one of his girlfriends and lived off the avails of prostitution.

There were some tense moments, and some poignant ones. Through it all, Tori was not forgotten.

The 4-foot-5, 62-pound girl, with cropped blond hair and a button nose on an elfin face. The little girl who hopped and ran instead of walking.

Her family was a constant presence in the courtroom. Her father, mother, grandparents, aunts and uncles showed up every day and all wore purple in some form — a shirt, a tie, a ribbon, a wristband. Something purple.

Purple was Tori’s favourite colour.

When Rafferty’s trial started on March 5, Rodney Stafford told reporters he wouldn’t let anyone forget Tori and he kept that promise: he held a media scrum every day of the trial to talk about her.

Tori’s mother once said those who knew Tori came under her spell.

The little girl stole everyone’s heart, even in death. Veteran police officers lost their composure on the stand, while spectators, mostly strangers, shed tears when they heard testimony about her.

That was Tori.