Emotions ran high in a London, Ont., courtroom on Tuesday as the trial of a man accused of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering eight-year-old Tori Stafford heard from its first witnesses.

The Crown called Tori's Grade 3 teacher to testify about the day in April 2009 when Tori went missing.

"She was a caring little girl, very sensitive," Jennifer Griffin-Murrell said, fighting tears as she recalled what had been a normal day in the life of a young student.

"She was kind of like a mother hen to a lot of the younger kids in the class. She always wanted to help," Griffin-Murrell told the court. "She had a little spunk. She was very dramatic in a way that she liked music and drama, and always liked to do little role plays or air bands. She was just a lovely little girl."

As Griffin Murrell described Tori's bubbly, energetic attitude, the accused, 31-year-old Michael Rafferty, took off his glasses and wiped his eyes.

In her testimony, Griffin-Murrell said the last time she saw Tori was when the girl ran back into the school just moments after class had been dismissed for the day. Tori had returned to retrieve a pair of butterfly earrings that belonged to her mother, the teacher said.

"I'll see you tomorrow hun," she recalled saying to the girl.

After an extensive search, Stafford's body was found three months later in a field north of Guelph, Ont.

Rafferty has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, sexual assault causing bodily harm and kidnapping.

Terri-Lynne McClintic, 21, has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the girl's death.

Det. Const. Robin Brocanier showed the court surveillance video of McClintic, wearing a white coat, walking with the young girl up the street from her school at 3:32 a.m. on April 8.

Brocanier said the video shows a car "of interest" with black rims travelling from the school's direction and pulling into a retirement home parking lot up the street.

The video shows McClintic and Tori walking towards that parking lot, the police officer testified.

In the surveillance video, a women is seen standing as McClintic and Tori walk by.

Laura Perry testified she is that woman, who was waiting for her nine- and seven-year-old sons.

She said she took note of McClintic and Tori because the little girl was in her youngest son's class and she did not know McClintic.

Perry said McClintic wasn't touching Tori and they weren't saying anything.

"She was walking very fast, like they were hurried along, like they were walking somewhere with a purpose," Perry said.

Under cross-examination, Perry agreed that they didn't appear to be strangers.

Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse Tuesday afternoon, Tori's father Rodney Stafford said his daughter likely heard words to that effect many times the day she disappeared.

"Everybody who saw Tori on the eighth, I can pretty much guarantee would have said ‘I'll see you tomorrow,'" he said, lamenting that no one could have predicted her fate.

As far as the teacher's description of his daughter, Rodney Stafford called it "perfect, just perfect."

"She explained Victoria to a T," he said, imploring the public to keep his daughter, not the accused, at the centre of this story.

As the trial got underway Monday, Crown attorney Kevin Gowdey told the jury his witnesses would include other local parents and Tori's mother, Tara McDonald.

He told the court it will also hear from McClintic, the 21-year-old woman who was arrested on an unrelated matter just three days after Stafford went missing.

After initially denying any involvement in Stafford's disappearance, she ultimately pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the girl's death.

Warning the jury that the details of what happened to Stafford would be difficult and disturbing to hear, Gowdey's opening statement revealed the alleged circumstances of Stafford's death.

After grabbing Stafford, Gowdey said Rafferty bought garbage bags, a hammer and also some Percocet from a friend in Guelph.

The Crown will show evidence that she died from repeated hammer blows to the head, Gowdey said, explaining that the pathologist found she had already been struck with blows that lacerated her liver and broke her ribs before the fatal hammer strikes.

Gowdey also said police will testify that Tori's DNA was found in blood on Rafferty's car door.

Stafford was found naked from the waist down, only wearing a Hannah Montana T-shirt and her mother's earrings, the jury heard.

Watching the proceedings, Canada AM legal analyst Steven Skurka cautioned that the Crown's opening statement should not be taken as evidence, but merely as a preview of the prosecutor's view of how the case will unfold.

In light of the fact none of the allegations against Rafferty have been proven in court, Skurka said it's significant that the Crown is not positioning McClintic as the lynchpin of its case.

While she's still a critical witness, the Crown made it clear that she has given conflicting versions to the police, which will make her credibility suspect, he said.

Instead, Skurka said the newly-revealed DNA evidence will likely be key to the Crown's case.

Superior Court Justice Thomas Heeney has told the jurors the trial will likely last at least 10 weeks, though proceedings could stretch into June.