LONDON, Ont. - The trial of a man accused of killing Victoria Stafford is hearing that a call he apparently made to check his voicemail places him in the Mount Forest, Ont., area the night the eight-year-old was killed.

Cellphone records and cell tower signals are the focus today at the trial of Michael Rafferty, 31, who has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, sexual assault causing bodily harm and kidnapping in Tori's death.

Tori was abducted April 8, 2009, in Woodstock, Ont., but police didn't find her remains more than 100 kilometres north near Mount Forest until July 19 that year, after receiving records showing the call through the Mount Forest tower.

Police had been scouring rural areas north of Guelph, Ont., for the Grade 3 student's remains for weeks, but the cellphone records prompted them to look near Mount Forest.

Voice call and data records from Rafferty's cellphone show that on April 8, 2009, the phone was in the Guelph area around 5 p.m., then travelled north through Fergus, Ont., to the Mount Forest area -- the route Rafferty is alleged to have taken with Tori in his car.

Records show that at 7:47 p.m. Rafferty's own cellphone number was dialled from his phone, bouncing off a tower near Mount Forest, which was the first voice activity on his cellphone in more than three hours.

There was data activity on his phone starting at 5:03 p.m., which court has heard was roughly the time Rafferty and McClintic arrived at a Home Depot in Guelph, where she bought garbage bags and a hammer.

Little evidence has been heard so far of Rafferty's activities on April 8 before his car was seen at a gas station near the school where Tori was abducted at 3:32 p.m., except that his car was also seen driving past the school that morning.

His cellphone records show a flurry of 14 phone calls to six different phone numbers made between 11:13 a.m. and 12:06 p.m., most lasting about 30 seconds. Cell tower data shows that all of those calls were made in Woodstock. The next voice activity on the phone was when a call was made to his own number, but at that time the phone was in Guelph.

The records also show dozens of text messages exchanged through Rafferty's phone on April 8. Court has heard from a series of Rafferty's ex-girlfriends that he was constantly on his BlackBerry. He told them he had a contracting business and was arranging jobs and that he taught dance and was arranging appointments, court heard.

Rafferty's last cellphone bill, from April 18 to the date of his arrest on May 19, shows that he talked for nearly 3,000 minutes.