LONDON, ONT.—Tori Stafford was gone in a flash.

At 3:30 p.m. on April 8, 2009, a dark-coloured car with dark tires and dark rims is spotted northbound on Fyfe Ave. near Oliver Stephens Public School in Woodstock. It appears to be pulling into the parking of a retirement home, a few metres from the school.

At 3:32 p.m., Tori is seen walking northbound with a woman in a puffy white jacket; the two appear to be going to the nursing home’s parking lot.

At 3:33 p.m., a dark-coloured car with dark tires and dark rims is seen fleetingly, northbound again on Fyfe.

And with that video evidence captured by different surveillance cameras, prosecutors say it puts Michael Rafferty’s car in the area of Tori’s abduction.

Rafferty, 31, is accused in the first-degree murder, sexual assault and abduction of the little girl.

Tori, 8, was abducted while leaving school on April 8, 2009. Terri-Lynne McClintic and Rafferty were arrested a month later and charged with abduction and murder. Tori’s body was found in July 2009 near Mount Forest, Ont. McClintic pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in Tori’s death and was sentenced to life in prison in 2010.

Rafferty’s trial began on Monday.

In the opening statements, Crown Kevin Gowdey said McClintic lured Tori from her school and took her to the nursing home parking lot where Rafferty was waiting in his car, a dark-coloured Honda Civic. He then drove down Norwich Ave. to Hwy. 401 and then on to Guelph, Gowdey said.

The video evidence was presented by OPP Det. Const. Robin Brocanier, who was in charge of collecting and reviewing copious amounts of video surveillance captured from College Avenue Secondary School, which is a few metres from Tori’s school, and businesses in the neighbourhood.

When Tori was abducted, it was a busy time near the school with vehicular and pedestrian traffic, said Brocanier. But because of the actions of that car, it became the “focus of interest,” he added.

One surveillance camera showed a dark-coloured car appeared to decelerate close to the Caressant Care Nursing Home, said Brocanier. He said he referred to another camera which indicated the same car then turned into the parking lot of the nursing home.

“With respect to timeline and the description I believed we were looking at the same vehicle at 3:30 p.m. and at 3:33 p.m. I believed (it was) involved in the abduction of Victoria Stafford,” said Brocanier.

The identification did not happen overnight but took weeks, he said, describing how he sat for hours in an office the size of a broom closet analyzing video.

It was the only light moment in the courtroom on Tuesday, day two of the trial which is expected to last several weeks.

In fact, as Brocanier reviewed a video on May 19, 2009, which placed a dark-coloured car at a gas station a short distance from Tori’s school just before the abduction, he found out that McClintic had confessed to the murder and Rafferty, then her boyfriend, had been arrested.

The gas station video shows a driver with a white jacket but the face is not visible.

(The video had the wrong time stamp, but the gas station manager confirmed the actual time was 3:20 p.m., just a few minutes before Tori was abducted, said Brocanier.)

Laura Perry said she saw Tori walking with a young woman wearing a white coat that day.

A Crown witness, Perry was waiting for her two sons, also students at Oliver Stephens School, when she saw a young woman walk by with Tori. The woman, Perry said, “was walking fast, with purpose.”

She told the court exactly where she was standing on Fyfe Ave. when the two walked by. Perry helped police prepare a sketch of the woman in white that was released to the public.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Earlier in the morning, there were some emotional moments when Tori’s teacher took the stand and tearfully talked about Tori and her last hours at the school.

“She was just a lovely little girl,” said Jennifer Griffin Murrel. “She was very inquisitive and always wanted to know why. She was very well liked by her peers and the staff and teachers.”

She also called Tori, the happy-go-lucky girl, a “mother hen” to the younger kids in the class.

April 8, 2009, Murrel said, was just another regular day for Tori: there was school work, lunch break, playtime with friends.

Then, she was a bit naughty.

“After the second recess, Tori came in and wanted to know if she could go home and get a change of clothes because she fell into a puddle,” said Murrel, with a tiny smile. Turned out, Tori and her friend had been jumping into a puddle of water, said Murrel.

She told Tori she could not go home and the little girl took it well. Later, Murrel said she had a quick chat with Tori because the little girl was being impish with a pair of scissors.

“That was just a silly moment,” said Murrel.

As the bell rang at the end of the school day at 3:20 p.m., Murrel said Tori told her she had left her mother’s butterfly earrings in her desk and asked if she could get them.

Murrel said yes; Tori was back soon but Murrel said she did not remember seeing the earrings. She said she assumed Tori had put them in her backpack or a pocket.

Tori’s father Rodney Stafford, his mother Doreen Graichen and other family members, all of them wearing the colour purple — Tori’s favourite — in some form or other, were present in the courtroom as she testified.

Outside the courthouse, Stafford thanked Murrel effusively.

“The way she explained Victoria is the way I myself could not . . . because she saw Victoria on a daily basis whereas as I did not,” said Stafford. “The little happy girl, mother hen. Perfect. Perfect. That’s how she was with her smaller cousins.”