The father of murdered eight-year-old Tori Stafford has written a letter pleading with the Canadian prime minister to reverse a decision to transfer his daughter's killer from a federal prison to a healing lodge in Saskatchewan.
Rodney Stafford posted the open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Facebook Friday evening, urging him "to do the right thing" after Terri-Lynne McClintic was transferred from a medium-security prison in Ontario to the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge.
McClintic, who was 18 years old at the time, was convicted of first-degree murder in the 2009 rape and killing of the eight-year-old Stafford and sentenced to life without parole for 25 years in 2010.
"From father to father... Could you kneel before your child's headstone, knowing they spent the last three hours of their life begging and pleading for Mommy or Daddy to come save them, alone [and] scared?" Stafford asked the prime minister in his letter. "Can you sleep soundly knowing there is more injustice unfolding before you?"
According to a report from the London Free Press, which first reported McClintic's transfer, the healing lodge offers more independent living and nicer quarters than a prison. The lodge even offers family units where children can live with offenders, as well as spiritual and cultural training.
"I really have to question our federal government as to why convicted child murderers, such as Terri Lynne McClintic, deserve more rights than their victims and law-abiding Canadians?" Stafford asked in his letter. "McClintic is a dangerous predator, who has repeatedly engaged in violent altercations both within society and while incarcerated, boasting of not being able to do more damage!"
Prime Minister Trudeau said in Parliament this week that Minister of Correctional Services Ralph Goodale has been asked to review the decision that led to McClintic's transfer "to ensure it was taken properly and in accordance with long-standing policy."
However, Stafford has asked that the prime minister use his powers to do more.
"Is this enough to remember that not all issues are political? Some are moral!" he said. "I pray for you to do the right thing, which is to ensure this injustice is reversed and a child killer is returned to prison to finish her sentence behind bars!"
The full letter can be read below:
