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You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them.
Gasey Bundy Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK.
Every week, another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history, True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Good evening, an eighteen year old woman abused from birth in a chronic con man collide to concoct the most evil pairing since Carla Hamalka and Paul Bernardo. Acting on a long time and fantasy, Michael Rafferty convinced Terry Lynn McClintic along with them to kidnap, rape, and kill eighteen eight year old beautiful Victoria Stafford. The events that followed divided the community and changed the lives of an entire town.
The book we're featuring this evening is Taking Tory, the true story of Terry Lynn mcclintick and Michael Rafferty, with my special guest, journalist and author Kelly Banaski. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for a greatness interview. Kelly Banaski, thank you for having me, Thank you very much, and thank you for this book. Incredible. Let's get right to who these people are, because we have a lot to cover. It's an incredible a graphic book and an
incredibly horrifying story. Let's start with one of the main characters, Terry Lynn mcclintick. You say she was born in nineteen ninety Woodstock, Ontario. Tell her audience first a little bit about Woodstock, Ontario and sort of the environment that Terry Lynne mcclinta grew up, and told a little bit about her early life and where she winds up at an early age.
Woodstock is very community oriented. It's really small, but I guess you would call it maybe the rough side of tracks where where Terry Lynn was from. She she really never had much of a chance in that town because of the drug culture, the oxy cotton page pills area. Terry Lynn's mother was an addict. She went from couch to couch basically, and it was a friend of hers that ended up adopting to when she was very small,
and she was also an addict. So Terry Lynn was brought up in that culture where it was so prevalent that it was almost it just it was the norm for her to see pain pills on the daily, for them to be bought and sold every day by everyone. She knew it was just that part of part of her life and part of the life of everybody in that area and her community. And she hadn't moved around a bit from different areas in Woodstock, but she the family was always centered around the same thing.
You also talk about their occupations being exotic dancers, and you say part time prostitutes, and you also talk.
About and her adopted mother exactly.
And then despite that, you know that Terry was adopted by Carol, even though she was almost in the same kind of situation, she was still adopted. She was allowed to have Terry Lynn. About this.
With her other children, she'd had trouble with the authorities of her abuse, but still she was allowed to adopt Terry Lynn.
She had didn't have custody of her own two children, and yet was awarded custody of Terry Lynn.
Right, that's correct.
Yeah, for a little bit. For for a time, and as probably a lot of these people would experience, it looked like things were looking up. And she met a man named Rob mcclintick, where she got her name, decided to get married and and tried and they filed for legal custody of Terry Lynn. Tell Us a little bit about tell us a little bit about this relationship and what happened with that relationship.
Rob was kind of type where he saw the good and everybody really and although he was also from that area and familiar with the drug lifestyle, there was something about Carol that he just believed in and she truly did want to change her life, but she was just too far, too far addicted, too far gone to where she couldn't even when she tried to get off the
pain pills, she couldn't. She did straighten up long enough to get custody back of her daughter, I believe, and was working a regular job at a convenience or when she and Rob decided to try for custody of terry Lynn and they were awarded custody after I think it was quite an extensive thing in order, but I think it was about a year it took and they were awarded custody, and things were goods for a while, but motherhood's just too much for her and she slipped back
into heavy addiction, and there eventually came a point where Rob just had had enough and he left. But Carol took Terry Lynn and would travel from home to home to home to home, but always go back to rob because that was her stable point. And he would try to provide for terry Lynn, but a lot of times Carol would take the money and spend it on drugs or party it away. But she continued to keep robbing her life because that's the only way she could ever straighten up. For any amount of time, be it a
weekend or a month. She just it was. Motherhood was too much for her, and soon after Terry Lynn was a toddler, she began slipping back into addiction.
You talk about the life of terry Lynn after that with this neglect and somebody mother a guardian preoccupied with her own problems and addictions and on lifestyle, and so that Terry Lynn was victimized in what way was she victimized at this early age? And then you talk about some of the trouble that she had lashing out at Carol her mother.
Later on, she was sexually abused by more than one person, some family members and neighbors. She never told her mother. When she did tell her mom about the family member, it was dismissed as this part of she life out there no one. She didn't attempt to get her any help or anything like that. She was severely neglected. There was many many nights when she was preteen when she would have to ask neighbors for food school when she
went steals food from school. But then, you know, her mom would go sober for a while and things would turn up better and she would feel more like a normal girl. But then it would all start over again, and she got to the point where she had been abused by so many men, not just the family member and the neighbors, and then she would she had experiences with boys her own aide, and she got to a point where she didn't want to interact much with men at all, and she she sought out more girlfriends, but
then that didn't work out for her either. She found that she couldn't get along with many people, and she began to lash out at her mom, so she stayed out of school more and more. She was known as a fighter. She began to be so valatile just to keep men away from her and then eventually women as well, and she just would she would strike out of anyone, really, but her mom took the brunt of it. On several occasions,
she hospitalized her from beating. She gave her she threatened her with weapons, and eventually Carol did call the police owner and more than once she went to choose an healthy tension and jail for attacking her mother and other girls in the school.
You see, she becomes a real tough young lady, taking nothing from anyone and having crimes like robbery at knife point, stabbed a man in the back. She even attacked the police as well. And so at a time she had a lengthy record at US detention and she attacked people even in detention themselves. So, and there was some stuff
that you include here, some writings that she included. Maybe maybe we can leave that, or maybe we can talk about that some of the correspondent she had with inmates that she bumped into in the in these institutions, maybe just talk about some of the things that were going around in her mind that she would correspond with other inmates. What she did say.
Some of those letters were brought out in trial as well, because she expressed such a bloodlust where she just no bones about it, described the crimes that she hoped to commit someday and on specific people and then just anyone in general. And she felt she had vampireic tendencies and she was very descriptive about the bones she would break and the damage she would impart on just anyone in general. And she would she and the girl that she was
writing to. And the majority of these letters had nicknames for their selves. They would you know, gangster bitches and a variety of different things. I can't recall them all now, but that she prided herself on how mean she was and that she would hurt and kill anybody. She had no problem with it. I always thought it was a
mechanism to just keep people away from her. But she also sought out problems in violence from people that were not bothering her or you know, she did several or several robberies and assented robberies and just she didn't it didn't matter to her. Even if she thought the person may not have anything, she'd take whatever they had to close up their back that she so desired. And yeah, the letters in the Reform and the juvenile detention center came back to haunt her for sure.
Now let's talk about this collision, this fateful, unholy collision with Michael Rafferty. And you say he was the youngest child, he had two brothers. He was born October twenty ninth, nineteen eighty and he spent part of his youth with his aunt and his uncle in the small village of Drayton outside Kitchener, again in the southern Ontario area near Toronto, and he even attended school briefly in a suburb of Toronto,
Richmond Hill. Talk about a little bit about some of the things that he studied at college, because there isn't much about his local i mean, his early life, but talk about his local college stint and what he did there, and a little bit about his success or non success in his life and his career.
Michael is a strange person. His childhood was not that bad. He wasn't abused, you know, he had the regular sort of growing up most kids there. Things went average. He had some setbacks, but nothing that was you would consider neglect or abuse or he by all rights he should have been a normal person. But he, even from a young age sort of was uh unusual in that he he was very narcissistic. Everything was about him. And while that's you know, part of the course with say toddlers,
he never got out of that stage. Everything was about him, and he was very intelligent. He spent a few. He did not graduate, but he did a stint in college and he studied a variety of things. Actually, he did some psychology and was not that he got passing grades. He did some autobody repair classes, he did some journalism classes. He did some medical classes, and some botany classes. He seemed to be trying to find his his his interests. And while he did not really excel anywhere, he didn't
fail out. He could have made quite a difference had echose other paths.
You talk about some of his behavior as well. You say narcissistic, but he was sponging, for lack of a better word, off of as many women as he possibly could, getting whatever he possibly could, drugs, money, in a place to stay, and that was his style. And then you talk about this small place but tore up. Pardon me. Terry Lynn and Michael Rafferty meeting. How do they meet and how does their relationship quickly proceed?
They meet at a pizza place and she's waiting in lying behind him, and he makes a comment about how pretty she is or something along those lines, and they start talking and he writes his number on a pizza box, and she goes home and calls him, and they spent the rest of time together. From that moment on, they were always together and they seemed to be They matched up pretty well, which is surprising because of Terry Lynne's attitude.
She really wasn't i She wasn't after a boyfriend or anything like that, But it was his attitude of he h. He put off a persona of just being free, willing, and he he had no worries, no troubles, and that appealed to her. He didn't really pressure her for anything right off the bat. He gave her the impression that, you know, she could be like he was. He had no worries, He lived whatever he wanted to do, and he didn't have to work. He found money here and there,
and people just gave him money. And immediately she she felt a need for that cause it was so opposed to the life that she had lived her entire life. She didn't know anything other. So they began basically living together at everyone else's house. They would crash here, crash there. He stayed with her at Carol's some and they would get motel rooms and stay together and began using oxy cotton together, and that was really the beginning of the end.
You say, at first she was his connection, and so this kind of thing was going on, and they were just a perfect match because of the things that they had in common, as well as other things as well, but this was one of the main things in their life. Obviously. You say that he's injecting two eighty miligram oxy cotton daily and then as many percocets as he could find. And so Terry Lynn's growing loyalty and her oxycock Coughton connection eventually make Michael realize that Terry Lynn should be
his one and only and so then they're inseparable. And some of the things you talk about him going on these drives and he starts talking about you talk about he has incredible sex drive, and you say that Terry Lynn, really that's not what it started off to be. But what are they talking about when they're going on these drives, And from the very beginning, what does he start talking about.
To the area that Terry Lynn had been here and there and everywhere with Carol, she knew everyone that sold everything, So that right off the bat interested him and that's why he kept coming around. So that became closer and closer. She could buy drugs anywhere, any kind of drugs from anybody, and he liked it. And then I get you know, there's sex. Life became more of more of an important thing to both of them other than the drugs, and he did realize that whatever he told her to do,
she would do it. I think this came on slowly because of him being the only person that had ever stayed around her for any length of time and to give her as much as she was given him. She'd never had any sort of sexual relationship that didn't end with a punch in the face. So finding somebody to have sex with where it was as beautiful as they could as she had ever had it, she was devoted. She never had a relationship anything like that before in
her life. So then you know, they would take these rides together, usually trying to find somewhere to stay for the night or on a trip to buy drugs, and they began to share parts of their past with each other, personalities and their likes and dislikes, And he began to tell her that he had a sexual attraction to young girls, girls ten and under specifically, and to begin with, she
thought that he was trying to shock her. This is what she told me that she felt that it was a game at first, that he was trying to see if she would stick around if he you know, like he would say the most deplorable things he could come up with, and she took it as a test of, you know, how down she was if she was really going to stick around for him. By things became more serious where he would actually ask her, what would you do if I if I asked you to snatch that
little girl right there? And she would say, well, I would do it, and he would go to her and we'll do it then, and she would laugh and they would get over it, and a few days later he would ask her again, if we say a little girl, will you will you snatch her? And Terry Lynn would say yes, I will, But then she would hesitate and let the moment go. And then he became undeniably serious
about it. Actually in bed the day that he told her that it was something she had to do, there was no more he wasn't going to ask her anymore, and she said, well, we can't just snatch somebody off the street. And that's when they started to actually come up with a plan how they would how they would do it.
You talk about that they discuss scenarios, hypothetical situations, and then the reactions and actual actual plans. And you say, part of this too is what we haven't mentioned is that part of the reason they're together as well. One thing they have in common is also is that he likes to choke women, strangle women, choke them, and she doesn't mind that where other women finally came to their
senses and ran off. I can't believe that a little bit of love, you even say in the book at one point he says, if I just somebody just gives you a little bit of love, that's what really what you're looking for. He couldn't believe what literally had to do to retain this woman. So he's very impressed by that.
Now you talk about also that the make these plans. Well, now let's meanwhile segue to this little girl, Victoria Elizabeth Marie Stafford, and who she was and how she came to It's unbelievable, this is two thousand and nine, no matter where you are, that people would be allowed to
go to school alone. So let's talk about who she was and the kind of family she was and her mother and her stepfather, because it's important who these people are, and when this event goes down, tell us a little bit about her living situation and the kind of girl that she really was and the family that really was that she lived with.
She lived with her mom and stepdad. She was just a regular little girl, happy little girl. She wasn't abused or anything like that. Her mom and stepdad did. Uh, they were in the sort of party culture, and her mom did use the POxy cotton and she was a customer of Carol and Cherry Lynn. She had bought uh pil pills from them in the past. And UH, she'd had some trouble with the authorities. She had been in and out of jail for a for minimal things, no
felonies or anything like that, but drug related things. And uh, it was probably the worst mistake she ever made. But she sent her little girl to school that day alone. But the school wasn't far away, and she did, I I believe, watch her partially the way, and then that was the last time she saw her.
You talk about the plans that this diabolical couple has, and one of them is that they've gone this route before. They've gone similar routes near this school. You talk about Victoria Stafford's school, and they called her Tory on April ninet eighth, two thousand and nine. Tell us what this diabolical couple is up to and how they collide with Tory Stafford.
They were riding around looking for a victim. It was the day. I believe they perhaps had been out one day before that and nothing had turned up. But they had cruised this route before, and they went by while school was in session and she spotted Tory coming out. Terry Lynn and Michael spotted her, and she was exactly what he had in mind, exactly what he'd been looking for. He wanted a younger girl, younger than ten, with blonde hair and fair skin. And Terry Lynn approached her and
asked her about helping her find a dog. Wanted to see her dog, I think or her dog was lost. But she took her hand and walked with her straight out into the road and into the car people. There's been a lot of speculation on whether Terry Lynn knew who Tory was when she saw her, because of the connection with her her mother, but she says that she did not know that she had never really seen Toy, only her mom, and she doesn't she claims that she did not know who Toy was when she kidnapped her.
You say that he finally he kept prodding her before. You're not going to do this. You don't have what it takes to do this to goad her Terry Lynn into doing this. And I find it odd too, and we'll discuss this after, but that she had sent this inmate previously about her ideas of killing and her ideas of murdering, and her ideas of destroying someone, so at least this day seemed reasonable that she would be susceptible, unbelievably to this guy's goating and challenging and challenging her
to finally do this. So Terry Tory, pardon me, was the first girl blonde nearest by herself that she could spot. She talked to her about missing puppies, and she knew the kind of puppy that she had. Or she asked if she could help identify this poppy or bar pardon me, this mother who had poppies, and would she liked to look at the puppies. And that's how the premise the ruse that she got her to drive to the car.
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if you visit blue apron dot com slash murder. So check out this week's menu and get your thirty dollars off at blue apron dot com slash murder. Blue Apron a better way to cook. Now, Kelly, we have little eight year old Tory Stafford being unsuspicious, unsuspecting young girl trying to help a woman find the mother of these little puppies that she's going to the car to look at. What happens with Michael Rafferty. How does he respond and what does he do right away? What does Terry Lynn do?
What happens soon as they get her in the car, Well, since they get her to the car before she realizes what's happening, they have her stuff in the backseat under a blanket, under his jacket, and I drive her out, I think to a field. It's a secluded place, a wooded area with an open space and Terry Lynn says that she gets out of the car and walks away.
She recalls Tory asking her if if she will be okay, and she tells her to just be brave, and then she walks away and leaves her to Michael and stands outside the car about three four feet away.
You talk about Michael Rafferty being very excited and I probably couldn't believe his luck that this was actually happening, so he's in big hurry. They You write that they drive to a drug house to pick up some percocet to enhance the experience, and then drive for quite a while with this girl must have been horrified. Obviously, she's pleading for life, as you write, ight saying, promising that she would not tell, even giving a scenario of what
she would say if they did let her go. Pleading for her life and she was told to shut up. She was hidden down on the floorboards under the jacket, like you say. And then during this hours of rape, pedophilic rape, Terry Lynn put on the headphones and as you describe in the book, listened to something that they did have in common, this kind of death wrap from a band called Necro with lyrics about death and satan, and so she walked around the peripheral of that field
while he did the dastardly deed. And then young Tory had to urinate, so of course he led her and Terry Lynn escorted her to the field to do that. She saw the blood. They talked unbelievably about this bravery, and to she said that she thought Terry Lynn was brave, and she said no, no, no, no, no, you are and let that screaming child back into the car with Michael Rafferty for round two, while again she preoccupied herself
while this rape went on. Without giving too much details, they had also prepared, you say, part of this plan was, so tell us what they do plan after Michael Rafferty's finished with Tory.
Well, of course they had to kill her, but Michael was unable to do it, and Terry Lynn was the one who had to. She hit her with She covered her head with the jacket and hit her I think with a tire iron. I'm not I can't remember now, but when I spoke to Clollehammer, when I spoke to Terry Lynn on the phone about this, she her story changed somewhat from what she'd written and then what was
set in court. So I don't think we'll ever know exactly what what happened right there, but she did take responsibility for the for the murder, and she did say that she's the one that that killed her. And the way that she explains it is that she was taking her pain away and letting her die was the most that's some of the hardest, hardest things I've ever written. Was was that therea of that book and said a long time to get the words to just be as cut and dried as I could get it without putting
any sort of emotion in it at all. It was right.
No, it's it's tough reading because he had said, Michael Rafferty said that we can't take her back and we can't go back, and he said, you're involved with this. He wanted her to be involved, and he was very very you say ecstatic again, we only have Terry Lynde's account of this, but it seemed like he was ecstatic.
Yeah. The way she explained that he could he couldn't. He was so excited. His voice was was jittery.
They as you write, they bury her under some rocks nearby. I guess find a place that no one can see what they're doing in the barrier under a bunch of rocks, her tiny body. Then they leave and they make a pack de vowed not to talk about this again, and how are they able to? Are they able to carry on with their lives? What happens afterwards? And then tell us the as you right we will allude to in the introduction about the community response, what goes on with missing Tory.
They were able to keep it quiet. They just it's hideous as it sounds to everyone else. They had planned it for so long, Michael had thought of it for so long, and while it did bothertary Land, she was able to compartmentalize it and just go on with her life. The world began to look for little Toy. And the crazy part about all of it is a lot of
the suspicion went to Tory's mother. She had a reputation for doing drugs and people began to suspect her as for doing something to her own daughter, and she went through a lot of hell for that. She was on national television, she was hounded by reporters, the police was constantly bothering her.
But part of this incredible story is that there was video footage, and that's what police do, especially in modern times, is to look at that available video footage. And what they find is a woman with dark hair, bigger than Tory's mother Tera and has a big, fluffy white coat. And so they started asking people about that, and the so start receiving Tara tell us about what happens with Tara and a friend that shows Tara this photo and these seemed to recognize.
They see. She shows Tory's mother the footage and she immediately recognizes that coat. She knows immediately from buying drugs over there. And she did say she did tell the police, and they got off to a slow start. No one really believed her at first, but then eventually they started to investigate Terry Lynn and everything unraveled shortly after that. She was really I think Terry Lynn was ready to
just call it quit. She once once that everything dawned on her, what she'd done and the pain that she knew that that Tarah, Tory's mother was going through, and when she saw what she did to the small commune, I think she was ready to be arrested. She was ready to tell everything she knew.
Go back to how this happens because, like you say, Tory, pardon me, Terry Lynn is even cooperating and not cooperating involved with the handing out the missing posters for Tory, right. That's what she has to do. That's the brave face she has to keep up. This is a small community. And so then little suspicions are conveyed to the police by more than one person that this might be Terry Lynn.
So what is the final thing that police realize that she may be involved and then they bring her in for questioning and how does that proceed.
It's the jacket, I mean, once they start recognizing her, she is and they bring her in at first, she doesn't at first, she doesn't admit to anything. Doesn't take long at all, and she tells that Michael what had been the one with her and why they did it and how they did it. But it's the jacket that they noticed that gets her caught.
Now you talk about the the motivation for her to come to actually confess, and in that confession a lot of people would most perpetrators would deflect the blame from themselves and put it on the other person. What is her story and what does she say in terms of her involvement in the planning, her involvement in the U the kidnapping itself. What does she tell authorities at that time when she does decide to confess.
She takes both of the blame on herself, and she continued to do that even as her story changed in different ways. But she takes the blame on herself, and she says she's the one that killed the little girl. And it takes some dragon to where till she actually comes forward with what with Michael's part in it? She doesn't want to even implicate him much other than saying that,
you know, he was the one that raped her. But she takes her own She takes responsibility for the things that she does right off the bat.
Now, in this for people listening in the US and abroad, not all jurisdictions are like Canada in this not total immunity, but there is quite a bit of a difference in both of these sentences in terms of what the prosecutor looks at the person that they seemed to be focused on, as Michael Rafferty, and they listen and believe a certain amount of Terry Lynne's story and understand her background, and then are willing to offer her trial as not much of a trial at all, because there's some kind of
deal contingent on her testifying at Michael Rafferty's trial, isn't it.
Yes, she she did testify, but she was just steadfast trying to impart onto everyone that she was the one that did the murder. And I'm not sure why she made that so clear so many times, other than maybe she thought Michael wouldn't get as much time if she confessed to the to all the killing and the kidnapping.
She I spoke to her about this book. She was at first against it and asked me not to, but I kept talking to her, and she said the only way she would tell me anything was if I made sure to say that she did the killing, she was the one that took her life.
Well, you also talk about that, even though it was different seasons, she was instrumental in helping the police find the body of Tory Stafford. Correct.
Correct, She took them out there and helped them look, and yeah, it had things had changed quite a bit since they covered her up, but she found her.
You talk about she apologized to Tory's family as well at the trial and on April thirty, twenty ten. She was sentenced to life and with the possibility to parole after twenty five years. And that's our most serious sentence in Canada. And then it was the Rafferties trial and they agreed to change the venue because Woodstock, they thought they wouldn't be able to get a fair trial, so they held it in London, Ontario and a strict publication ban.
This was March fifth, it was ready to go twenty twelve. Tell us a little bit about the trial and some of the behavior at the trial, some of the more interesting events at that trial.
Michael was uncooperative, to say, to put it nicely, He had a lot of outbursts and some of the parents and the community attended the trial, and there was a lot of death threats on his person. There was all sorts of threats thrown around by Michael by some of the police or to some of the police in the case him, and he just continually tried to place the
blame on someone else for something else. It was always someone else's fault, or he could talk Terry Lynn into it, because you know, always wanted to deflect some sort of way onto somebody else for some reason, and by the when I was writing this book, I tried to get hold of him or his lawyers or anyone, and I could get no one on his side of the family or his side of the case to speak to me at all. But after the book was written, I got some of his childhood friends emailed me and sent me
postal letters about how I got it all wrong. And he didn't say much of anything like that to Terry Lynne, and it was all her And so his history of lives and population lasted all the way through court and into incarceration.
You say he was guilty in all three counts. The jury found him and that was accessory a pardon me. That was first degree murder, kidnapping, and I guess that would be sexual assault as well. But anyway, life without for Ale plus ten years. You say that was May fifteenth, two thousand and twelve. Now you talk about PostScript about you say you spoke to her, But she has been in trouble in prison as well since she's been in there, hasn't she.
She has, she's in she's been in several fights. She's been violent with other inmates, to the point where I think the term was curb stump she curb stumped her faith, and knocked out teeth. She has been quite a pill.
Do you believe everything that Terry Lynn had to say about her own involvement because of what it always struck me is the originally when I read in the book that at trial they produced these letters from inmates, and then she had these very vivid fantasies that involved murder,
destroying someone, even abducting someone. So when they meet and someone talks, this man talks to her, and why I think there's credence to what I'm saying is that because she says, well, at first I just thought he was joking, he was kidding, or I didn't believe him, or you know, that doesn't sound so plausible to me that you would then believe you have these ideas, you're of your own. You probably discussed them, that's what they had in common.
She says, no, no, And then when he discussed these murderous things involving raping and killing a child, she just thought he was kidding, didn't believe him up to the right, up to a certain point, and then she again justifies, as you write in the books, she justifies that, well, why would she be the person that would murder this
young girl if she didn't have murder in her heart. Ever, now she admits for the courts because that was part of this deal, and she could see the light of days some day, couldn't she How self serving is some of this information?
Oh? I'm sure most of it did. And it was hard to believe her, hard to choose what could possibly be true because she changed her story so many times to fit the circumstances, so it was difficult to pick out which nuggets could possibly be believed. But I I think I don't think. I do think that she she didn't believe Michael at first, because I don't think she possibly. I don't think she thought that anyone could possibly be
as sick as she was. And I just think that she was, like, really, you know, I didn't I think that she thought he would be the one to chick it out. I didn't think because she had so much bravado and so much violence in her I don't think she thought anybody could match it. Now, was she as reticent to find a little girl and kidnap her as she says she was? Possibly? But I don't think it was out of some golden heart. I think it was
a fear of getting in trouble. She thought. She knew she how easy it would be for her to get in trouble. She was known in the area, and I think she just was hesitant because she didn't really want to get in trouble, not because she didn't want to commit the murder. And then when it happened, I think that it affected her so much more than she thought it would, and that's why she went forward with the confession. I think. But I don't you know. I'm not in
her head. I don't know. And after all the talk, big talk she did. You know, she was violent, There's no way around it. But she was. That was bred into her as a little girl. She knew not much of anything else but that lifestyle. But I think looking seeing that happened to the to Tory, I think it may have altered her a little bit.
You've spoken to other inmates and other serious criminals and killers before, So despite despite the other, you know, assaults while she was in prison, did you see a discernible difference in the person that committed this crime and the person that you spoke to in terms of her at least realization of what she had done and remorse. Did you sense that I did?
I really did? Her insistent that she didn't. She didn't want me to write about her childhood because she was afraid to would make people feel sorry for her. She said, I don't need anybody's sympathy. I did this. I deserve to be where I am. I don't deserve anything less than to spend my life in here. And so I feel like she does have remorse, because so many, you know, criminals, hardcore evil people, don't even have that much remorse. But she does, at least I think she realizes that what.
She's done, you know, it's what we didn't talk about. And I just want to let the audience know that part of this part of the story that we kind of glossed over is that there's some interesting stuff that happens where Harry Lynn is actually in jail while this manhunt for these two people are well, they're especially looking for the woman because they know it's key to everything they're looking from the woman for the video footage, Terry
Lynn has cut her hair. The neighbors notice, some of the neighbors call some of the Some of the neighbors are actually videotaping because they are so suspicious. You know, there's tera Tara has said to the police and then said, listen, people quit focusing on me it, you know, go out there and look for this my daughter. You know. So
the poor woman was hounded. Then it was the stepfather was a was brought in for questioning with you know, with polygraph and she was submitted to a polygraph and then very interestingly, she ran out after a couple of questions because she thought they were accusatory. So that they were very lucky. They were very lucky that Terry Lynn was arrested, that they would that other people had come forward and said I think she's the person in this videotape.
And also just the idea that when she was questioned, she didn't lawyer up, she came clean, and otherwise no one would know the details of this. Certainly, Michael Rafferty is not going to be speaking to anybody about what happened. Is he likely?
No, No, he's under the impression he'll get a lighter sentence eventually, but that will ever happen. Little toys, Mother Tara really made a big turnaround after this. There were a lot of people would have fallen apart and went deeper into drug addiction. But she changed her whole life and became a doula. She's wildly successful and clean, and I'm proud of her.
Yeah, that's a great success story out of when usually these stories don't have any bright spots whatsoever.
That's true.
Yeah, she helps other people bring their children into the world.
Right, How beautiful is that.
Yeah, we didn't talk about too how big this story was in America. This was featured on America's Most Wanted. This was a big story. This was a big story in Toronto because Woodstock's a small place. This was a big story. Her face was out there. People knew this story, didn't they.
Yeah, it reached all across the world. It was in the UK, Australia. Everybody heard about it. I told her that too. She wasn't aware of that. She wasn't proved.
One hundred and three days missing. You say in the book, Well, yeah, and change that community forever, as you say.
It did. But you know, it's also putting up a little bit from what I hear that some of the neighborhoods have been revamped and cleaned up, and the drug culture is slowly moving out to further areas. Yeah.
Yeah, it was interesting how much this drug was involved in this story, like you say, with Tara and that commonality. That's how small this community was. Where Tara was buying drugs from the mcclintics, that is scary, ironic, and that everybody really did know everyone and that was a good thing. Ye long run, Yeah, a good thing. And we didn't
talk about too. As you write in a book, the testimony from her school teacher that described her that last day when she last left on bell Rang at three point thirty and first day that.
She was allowed to go back.
Yeah, and with a butterfly hearing yeah from her mum. Yeah. So it's a very touching story, Kelly, really capturing heartbreaking details for those that will be interested in that. Just incredible.
The warn people, yeah, yeah, well.
I think a lot of people there they're not novices, so but I guess the warning is is appropriate. I want to thank you Kelly for coming on and talking about You have some other things that you do. You write about prison reform and tell us a little bit about the woman condemned dot com. Tell us a little bit about that. Please.
That's a blue all that I've had for about fifteen years. I interact a lot with the women on death row in the United States, and I blog about it. I blog about the issues they face and letters say write and things they tell me their cases, and then I blog about other women accused of murder and major cases I have. Periodically, I deal with men on death row. I've stuck to Richard Ramirez for a couple of years before he died and Manson before he went crazy and
I couldn't understand his letters anymore. And sometimes I put that on the blog and I talk about anti death penalty measures and how much better it would be if we had a prison system that wasn't for profits.
Yeah, some interesting issues will be debating for a while. I'm sure you also have a website. You do Facebook, You have a Facebook page and Twitter tell us about people might want to contact your Look about your other work. You have another true crime book, Shirley Turner, Doctor Stalker, Murderer mm hmm.
And my most recent is called Voices from Death Row, where I speak to several death row inmates and discuss their cases with them. And my website is Kellybanasky dot com and it tell us about my books and I speaking engagement and personal appearances. You can also find me on Twitter I'm right like a mother and on Instagram. True Crime Kelly.
Sounds great. I want to thank you very much for coming on talking about Taking Forrey. Thank you very much. You have a great evening. To talk to you again soon.
Thank good night, good thank good night.