Suspect Vehicle

[nonfictionrocks]

I'd like to repeat that this is a poor-quality, low resolution photo that was faxed to the media, then re-printed, going through several processes before it reached our eyes. The car is at an angle and the door handles are recessed. Three people who have seen the car in person have said that neither this picture nor the Esso one looks much like the real thing.

<Respectfully snipped>

I am suspicious of every photo that has been "released" by LE. In this era of digital photgraphs and e-mailing there has to be a reason why all of the images released to the media are of such poor quality and if the pictures were faxed for reproduction to the public for the purpose of asking for help - WHY??

I realize that some security camera resolutions may not be the best but I would imagine that at a gas station they would be able to record the digits on a license plate quite clearly or what would be the point of having cameras at the tanks in the first place?

 

[maxfactor]

In regards to your question about the door handle, Antiquegirl, LE took the handle of MTR's bedroom door (in addition to EVERYTHING he owned) from his house, so it IS possible LE took the handle off the door of the car, then cloned the door handle hole in the pic to obscure it being missing.

I know she's probably a pathological liar, but KH said in her " interview" that showed up on FB that TLM told her that MR had her locked in a room for a few hours that day. Perhaps Tori was at his house.

 

[Turbododger]

I am by no means implying that Tori was in that house (though that is a possibility).

I am stating that since LE took the door handle from his room, that it's possible they took the door handle from the car.

They have their reasons for possibly covering that fact up. Perhaps trying not to distract (but nevertheless causing a distraction). Maybe it was not their intention to do so. A quick fog to cover up the handle, a quick fog to cover up the plate.

 

[Turbododger]

Oh, yeah, LE took Haleigh Cummings entire back door, at least a couple of weeks AFTER her abduction, which would make you wonder why? Wouldn't it be contaminated?

It is certainly not unheard of to remove evidence from a scene (or a vehicle), even if it has been exposed to things (like water).

 

[bleedingheart]

Drivenchick has said that MTR made no changes to his car from the time she met him on April 13th until his arrest on May 19th. Let's presume that this is true. If so, he would have had five days (April 9 - April 13) to find a matching rear door, pick it up or have it shipped, and then replicate the godawful spray paint job to match the rest of the car.

I did a search to see how available and how much a rear door like this would be. Here's what I found:

http://www.autobodypartsonline.com/...catid=1069&sid=77CBJv2DvJY2891-33109024369.12

This one is $287.95 U.S. before taxes, shipping cost and duty. If he ordered one like this from the U.S., it would take weeks to arrive.

IF he was really lucky and spent hours on the phone, maybe ... just maybe ... he'd be able to find a wrecker who had one cheaper. But would it be close enough for him to pick it up? He'd then have to remove the old one, replace it with the new one, and do the painting to match. All in five days.

And then I must ask, if LE is so open about looking for the missing car seat (presumably for DNA evidence), why aren't they asking the public's help in looking for the discarded car door?

Just putting it out there. MOO

AG there are several car part places around Woodstock. The closest one I can think of is on #2 highway West. Mebe 7 miles from town. It is a huge wrecking yard, so I imagine it has many available parts, Honda is a popular car today, so should be a few in the car graveyard.

 

[matou]

I copied the photo from the police website. The car looks like it has purple-ish colour on the hood and sides. It looks a bit different from the previous photo

link: http://www.ocpsaux.org/PHOTOSFrame1Source1.htm

 

[antiquegirl]

Okay, so let's take the tire switch hearsay/rumour and pretend that it's fact. Here is what may have happened:

• The suspect car has regular tires on it on April 8th (this is fact, as per the Esso tape)
  
  
• The car goes through a car wash the same night (this is unsubstantiated)
  
  
• Within the next three days (until DC sees the car), MTR switches them to snow tires (this is hearsay)
  
  
• DC and NS see the car on May 18th and there are still snow tires on it (hearsay again)
  
  
• On, or shortly after, May 19, LE seizes the car (fact)
  
  
• Sometime between May 20 and May 21, LE takes a picture of the car in their garage with regular tires on it (fact)
  
  
• On May 22, LE releases this picture to the media (fact)

So, the speculation is that

• MTR changed his regular tires between April 9 and April 12 to snow tires and stored the old ones somewhere
  
  
• LE seized both the car and found the regular tires on May 19th (or soon after)
  
  
• LE thoroughly examined both sets of tires within approximately two days
  
  
• LE decided to replace the snow tires with the regular ones for the picture released on May 22

OR

• MTR was using regular tires on April 8th, switched to snow tires before April 13th, and then switched back to regular tires after May 15th without DC and NS noticing.

This may sound logical and reasonable to some, but it sure doesn't to me. (Did I forget anything?)

MOO

 

[Sillybilly]

This may sound logical and reasonable to some, but it sure doesn't to me. (Did I forget anything?)

<snipped for brevity>

How do we know those are regular tires and NOT snow tires in the pics released by LE?

 

[antiquegirl]

<snipped for brevity>

How do we know those are regular tires and NOT snow tires in the pics released by LE?

Brilliant! Who said that these were not snow tires and why did this question take so long to arise?

Ok, I wouldn't know the difference myself (never having owned any), so I called my husband in to look at both pictures of the car. He said that the only way to tell is by the treads, but to be absolutely sure, you'd need to look at the manufacturer's name and/or model number on the sides of the tires and look it up.

It's impossible to tell in the Esso pic if they're snow tires or not. I blew up the picture in the garage as big as I could and there is a little bit of the treads visible. He said it's quite possible that these are snow tires, albeit somewhat worn, with the rear tire more obviously resembling a snow tire than the front.

JMHO (Just my husband's opinion)

ETA: Re my previous post - I had just assumed those were regular tires in the pics because everyone else said so. If anyone else out there is not sure, may I suggest you ask your better half? (Sorry if that sounds sexist.)

 

[Kamille]

It's not so easy to change tires from regular to snow and/or back again. Unless he had two complete sets of tires and rims (which most people do not), he would not have been able to do this himself. It would have to be done at a garage because the tires need to be replaced on the rims.

I don't think the car has been altered in any way other than the back seat apparently being removed according to TLM obviously. NS, DC and Wendell have all said that the pictures were not a true representation of the car. The paint job on the car is just too difficult to capture in a photo IMO. When they describe the car to me, I do not see what they describe even being possible in the two photos. The car is not black. If you look at the picture from the Esso station, there are two other black cars in the background. Compare them to MR's car and his car looks like a purpleish/grayish...well muddy mess as Wendell has said. It does not have a glossy finish so whatever colour it is would not show up well in a photo. Especially one that has been faxed and reprinted.

And all of the requests for witness information on the car and on the seat indicated that the car was blue. I do not see any blue other than that front bumper in the LE garage pic and that can also be seen on the Esso pic. So why would LE have called it a blue car?

No wonder if TLM's neighbours told LE that MR drove a blue Honda, or a black Honda that they couldn't distinguish it from the gas station footage that they had. Who would consider the car either blue or black from that picture?

 

[antiquegirl]

FYI: Here are all the posts about the paint job, as written by MTR's friends. IMO, what they're all saying is that the pictures released to the media are not only different from the actual appearance of MTR's car, but also very different from the original pictures in LE's possession.

WENDELL

05/27/09

the car was originally blue, the colour of the front bumper in the picture posted on this thread.
then he tried with a blue spray paint bought at crappy tire to paint the word civic and have the light blue fade upwards.. however he painted directly over the clear coat, so he could have just powerwashed it off, however he drove with it like that, and then over time it got all scratched and scrapped up... then after unsuccessfully trying to wet sand that paint off (basically he forgot to buff it after sanding it which is why the headlights also look like crap) he tried painting it with that blue purple colour changing paint.... which also got scratched up...
and it turned into a black muddy looking mess that he never finished, and was done long enough ago as there was rust starting to come through the muddy black paint you see in the photos online.

05/28/09

2. i'm not sure when the black primer happened, the last time i saw it which was early may, it was a mess and we even suggested to him to paint it FLAT BLACK to try to cover up how horrible it looked

3. he's painted his car numours times, and he tries to do stuff to it to sup it up...

07/19/09

when i saw the car on may 7th and then on the 9th.... it was NOT black. IT WAS recommended by myself and my husband THAT he paint it black as it looked TERRIBLE...
so any black paint was done well after a month from the date TORI was taken...

08/07/09

(QUESTION: Do any of the graphic people here think this photo is edited?)

it doesn't to me.... and i am one of the graphics people..

DRIVENCHICK

08/08/09

Wendell has discussed this in the forum in the past with great detail. MR was known to do shotty mod jobs on his car which then Wendell and her hubby told him to cover up with black spray paint. IE: painting 'civic' on the side, then trying to put purple overtop, and then was painted black to fix the mess.

08/10/09

The photos that are posted online do not give an accurate picture of the true colour. This something I have gone into great detail with the LE. Their photos are WAY different then the ones online FYI.

08/10/09

Trust me when I say there CANNOT be two cars like MR's! The photos for some reason are not colour accurate. The car is NOT all black. It's actually 3 toned...Black 3/4, Purple 1/8 then original honda blue 1/4 at the bottom. I know that car like the back of my hand as I'm a car chick and it was a topic of discussion many times.

TooCloseForComfort

05/28/09

one day he showed up at my place, and had just painted the entire inside of his car. dash, doors, etc. white.
you can see the white in the gas station picture if you look in the front windsheild.
he was constantly doing things to the car. it was his baby

NURSE_SLEUTH

8/12/09

This is what I cant understand... either he made major changes, or there were 2 different cars. I honestly didnt think, when I first saw the pics LE released, that it was his car... but he could have changed out certian parts in order to disguise how it was. However, this theory doesnt lend true in light of the fact that the car from LE in the garage, and the Esso pic car look the same. This would mean it was the same car in both wouldnt it? Therefore, not the same car as far as I can tell that I knew him to have. JMO

8/13/09

DC is correct, he didnt make any changes to the car in the time she knew him. I can only state that however, up until the Friday night before his arrest... however, both cars look the same in Esso pic, and police pics. I did however see 11" by 14" pics of the car when with LE one day. It was a much better quality then the ones online, and showed a lot more detail of the exterior. IMO it didnt look like his car that I knew him to have from colours, rims, tires, ect.

 

[nurse_sleuth]

Brilliant! Who said that these were not snow tires and why did this question take so long to arise?

Ok, I wouldn't know the difference myself (never having owned any), so I called my husband in to look at both pictures of the car. He said that the only way to tell is by the treads, but to be absolutely sure, you'd need to look at the manufacturer's name and/or model number on the sides of the tires and look it up.

It's impossible to tell in the Esso pic if they're snow tires or not. I blew up the picture in the garage as big as I could and there is a little bit of the treads visible. He said it's quite possible that these are snow tires, albeit somewhat worn, with the rear tire more obviously resembling a snow tire than the front.

JMHO (Just my husband's opinion)

ETA: Re my previous post - I had just assumed those were regular tires in the pics because everyone else said so. If anyone else out there is not sure, may I suggest you ask your better half? (Sorry if that sounds sexist.)

It was snow tires because he was unable to use the rims you see in those pics. He had no rims on, and the tires were clearly snow tires... no male opinion needed by me to conclude that!

 

[Kamille]

It was snow tires because he was unable to use the rims you see in those pics. He had no rims on, and the tires were clearly snow tires... no male opinion needed by me to conclude that!

So if I'm reading this correctly, you're saying nurse_sleuth, that in all the time you saw the car (approx 5 weeks) those rims were not on it. Can you recall what kind of rims were on it? Was it just the basic "spare wheel" type rim...something like this...

Or was it a different kind of rim altogether, perhaps the original honda rims, something like this....

 

[nurse_sleuth]

The first pic... just the basic spare rim like you said.

So if I'm reading this correctly, you're saying nurse_sleuth, that in all the time you saw the car (approx 5 weeks) those rims were not on it. Can you recall what kind of rims were on it? Was it just the basic "spare wheel" type rim...something like this...

Or was it a different kind of rim altogether, perhaps the original honda rims, something like this....

 

[Kamille]

Well that is interesting then nurse_sleuth. So we're to believe from this that he did in fact have a complete set of different tires and rims for the car that he could in fact change out himself. Now he had the regular rims on the car April 8th but had the "spare tire/snow tire" rims on as of April 13th when DC first saw the car?

I know you've said that you saw him and the car on the evening of May 15th around midnight after his interview with LE. As it would have been rather dark, can you say with any certainty that the spare tire type wheels were still on the car that night?

He had some time, Saturday night, Sunday and Monday, after his interview with LE that his movements have not really been accounted for here other than what he told DC he was doing. Now if LE had interviewed him about being seen on surveillance at the gas station on April 8th and had shown him a picture of his car, would he have realized that if they noticed the wheels being different on his car, they would have asked him about this in any subsequent interviews? How could he explain that he changed to snow tires at a time when everyone else was doing the opposite? Would this have prompted him to change the tires on one of those days just in case LE showed up again? Did LE notice the tires being different that evening? Or did he just change them out at some time prior to the interview because it was time to get the snow tires off and nurse_sleuth can't really say for sure if they were still on there around midnight on the 15th?

I'm sure a thorough power wash of the tires and rims once they were removed from the car would elimate 99.9 percent of any soil or debris from the disposal site from the tread so if this is what he's done, LE is unlikely to get much evidence from them.

 

[Kamille]

Actually, the more I look at that picture from the LE garage, are we even sure that the car had actual rims and not just hubcaps that he painted? He could have just been driving around with the hubcaps off and it would look like spare tire rims.

 

[Hello_Kitty]

I also believe that the handle is there and that it is the angle and quality of the picture.

I don't know what type of browser y'all are using, but I can see very clearly that the handle IS there. It is true that the esso pic looks different from the car in the garage, but I attribute this to the fact that they were taken at different angles and different lighting. AG makes somes good points about the handle and door, why go through all that trouble. If anything else was missing from the car, LE would have put that into their alert. I think the only thing missing is the car seat as stated, and the important point is whether it was removed before or after the abduction.

 

[CuriousJorge]

Link to MR&#8217;s car, report claims that it is MR driving by the looks of it.

http://www.citytv.com/toronto/cityn...-tape-the-same-day-tori-stafford-was-abducted

 

[CuriousJorge]

Suspect Vehicle Caught On Surveillance Tape The Same Day Tori Stafford Was Abducted
2009/05/26 | CityNews.ca Staff
The man and the car police suspect of being heavily involved in the abduction and murder of a young girl were spotted on surveillance tape the same day she disappeared - but investigators may not have known about the clue until it was too late.
Michael Rafferty, 28, was allegedly seen at a gas station less than a kilometre away from Victoria (Tori) Stafford's school on April 8. That's the day the eight-year-old girl disappeared, walking away from Oliver Stephens Public School with an as yet unidentified woman.
Terri-Lynne McClintic, 18, is charged with abduction and being an accessory to murder.
It was only after the two arrests were made that police linked that security camera footage to the spray-painted Honda believed to belong to Rafferty.
The car has been recovered, but investigators are still hunting for the discarded back seat. A similar grey, cloth-covered part has been found near Kitchener and officers are examining it to see if it is the vital clue they're looking for.

Officers in Woodstock have been widely criticized for not launching an Amber Alert the moment Tori was reported missing.
Oxford Community Police explained that the case, though troubling, did not meet the stringent criteria required for such a warning.
An online petition known as Tori's Law has been started to change the requirements for issuing an Amber Alert. It has since garnered over 21,000 names. New Democrat MPP Rosario Marchese has promised to deliver the petition Wednesday at Queen's Park.
After nearly a week of searching, there's still no sign of her body. On Monday, the search for her remains shifted to two lakes in the Guelph area.

al·leged (&#601;-l&#283;jd', &#601;-l&#283;j'&#301;d)
adj. Represented as existing or as being as described but not so proved; supposed.
al·leg'ed·ly (&#601;-l&#283;j'&#301;d-l&#275 adv.

Proof will come out in court about these findings ('not so proved', ref. to definition)

 

[Turbododger]

As I drove by the blessed, vulnerable children walking to school this morning, a thought really hit home.

If MTR and TLM had done previous attempts at luring children, and been unsuccessful, they may have realized they needed to adjust the scenario.

I have been thinking about the prior "attempts" in Elora/Fergus, Mt. Forest, and the odd behaviour in Rafferty's neighbourhood.

Although I am not sure they are linked, all the attempts seemed to involve a car.

Perhaps, they finally realized they had to eliminate the car, as it was scaring the children.

That's why they sent TLM around the school to case, with the pretense of walking her dog.

I do think it is possible that Victoria was targeted, ruse of the dog, WITHOUT THE CAR or Rafferty being visible to her.