The small southwestern Ontario community of Woodstock has come out from under a cloud that's hovered ominously above it since eight-year-old Victoria Stafford disappeared three years ago, its mayor said Saturday.
Mayor Pat Sobeski said the sun is now shining - even with a few clouds still overhead - and the town will take that as "a symbol that it's time to begin the healing process."
That process was enabled after a jury convicted 31-year-old Michael Rafferty, the second person accused in the little girl's brutal murder, on Friday around 9:20 p.m. on all three counts against him, including first-degree murder.
"The community is relieved to hear the verdict and to know the trial is finally over," Sobeski told reporters in Woodstock.
He credited the various police services, including his own, for diligent work since Stafford disappeared from Oliver Stephens Public School on April 8, 2009.
Her body was found months later buried in garbage bags under a pile of rocks in an isolated field near Mount Forest, Ont.
"As the case moved from a search to a murder investigation of a child, these professionals knew that the steps along the way, that their training talents and skills, would eventually be placed under a microscope for all to reveal and observe," Sobeski said.
"I know that every officer, every member of the civilian staff were all (affected) personally in one way or another with their participation in this case because after all they're parents and grandparents too," he said.
Rafferty's former girlfriend, Terri-Lynne McClintic, 21, was also convicted of first-degree murder in Stafford's death.
Court heard that McClintic lured the little girl from the school to a waiting car driven by Rafferty, a haunting scene captured on security video that was played over and over again in the media.
She's serving a life sentence for the killing and testified at Rafferty's trial that she was the one who killed Stafford with a hammer after Rafferty had raped the little girl.
Sobeski also thanked the judge, prosecutors and the jury for their attention to detail, referring to the verdict as "fair and just."
"Their (jury) careful attention during the past 10 or 11 weeks will have again restored the confidence citizens should feel about our justice system," he said.
The abduction and eventual murder of Stafford, from what should have been considered a safe haven in the eyes of many parents -- an elementary school in rural Ontario -- had a profound effect on many people, Sobeski said.
Parents were forced to second guess how they would let their children grow up; when it was time to cut the "proverbial apron strings" and pressured to rethink their child's safety at school.
The more stark reality that shook parents to the core was the fact the Stafford case made them think – at least in the backs of their minds – that there "are indeed evil people in the community," Sobeski said.
"We share a collective accountability to work harder to make our community safer," he said.
"We cannot ignore the challenges, like every community we have issues with drugs, we have issues with domestic violence, but we can seize the opportunity as the city moves forward," the mayor said.
Sobeski also said the innocence of Stafford will inspire the community to rise to those challenges and Woodstock would always "lovingly remember her."
The town's police chief, whose service came under intense scrutiny in the media in the early days of the case, expressed relief over the conviction.
"This is the first morning in just over three years that I've been able to wake up and have some sense of closure to this terrible, horrific investigation now that we have convicted the second of two child killers that traumatized our community," Rod Freeman said Saturday, standing beside his mayor.
"My hope is that conviction brings some sense of peace to her so that she can now rest in peace, certainly rest in peace now in dignity," he said.
More than 1,000 police officers, 440 support personnel and 14 police services contributed to the investigation, he said.
"It's a bittersweet experience because we are very pleased with those convictions, but at the same time we truly wish in our hearts, every single one of us never had to be here in the first place," he said.
