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Unsolved Mysteries (2020)

“New Jersey Transit put it out there that my daughter committed suicide. There’s absolutely no way. No way at all. I wanna know what happened to my daughter.”

Those chilling words are from Dianne Valiante, the mother of the subject of the first episode of Unsolved Mysteries Volume 3, Tiffany Valiante. In July of 2015, Tiffany, an 18-year-old who planned to attend New York’s Mercy College on a volleyball scholarship, was hit by a train on a remote stretch of tracks in Mays Landing, New Jersey. Authorities were quick to rule her death a suicide, but Tiffany’s family vehemently disagrees, believing Valiante was murdered and her body was left on the tracks to destroy the evidence.

If you already watched the episode, you’re well aware of the uncertainty surrounding Tiffany’s death. Here’s a brief summary of “The Mystery at Mile Marker 45,” followed by a few links to a variety of articles about the case.

What We Know About The Death Of Tiffany Valiante:

On the night of Tiffany’s death, the Valiante family went to a graduation party for Tiffany’s cousin located across the street from their house. At 9:15 p.m., Tiffany returned home and her mother received a phone call from one of her friends asking Tiffany’s mom to come to the house. When Dianne and her husband Stephen (Tiffany’s dad) arrived, Tiffany’s friend was screaming, accusing Tiffany of using her credit card without her knowledge. Tiffany initially denied it but after her friend left, she admitted to her mom that it was true. Dianne went in the house to get Stephen, and when they returned Tiffany was gone.

A bevy of calls/texts went unanswered, and Stephen soon found Tiffany’s phone on the side of the road in front of their house. Stephen’s deer camera captured the last photo of Tiffany, which shows her exiting the area at 9:28 p.m.

Unsolved Mysteries Vol 3 — Photo: Netflix

Tiffany’s uncle, Michael Valiante, eventually joined the search and discovered police officers around the railroad tracks — an individual had been struck by the train. The death happened in the jurisdiction of the New Jersey Transit Police Department, so they took control of the case.

The following morning, it was already in the paper that Tiffany committed suicide. Her family strenuously denies the claim. “We were on a mission because we knew our daughter didn’t do this,” Dianne Valiante says on Unsolved Mysteries.

The senior and student engineers aboard the train initially claimed that Tiffany “dove in front of the train,” but six days later, under oath, the senior engineer changed his story, admitting he didn’t actually see Tiffany before the train struck her. Their accounts of what transpired have been inconsistent at best.

The family believes Tiffany was killed before making contact with the train (and was placed on the tracks) or that she was running away from potential captors and couldn’t avoid the speeding train.

Puzzling Details Surrounding The Case:

Tiffany was reportedly scared of the dark, which makes the idea of her walking four miles alone to the railroad tracks appear unlikely.
The toxicology report showed that Tiffany had no drugs or alcohol in her system.
Tiffany’s shoes weren’t found at the scene. When her remains were discovered all she had on was a sports bra and underwear.
Tiffany had just broken up with her girlfriend, but there didn’t appear to be any hostility between the two.
Three weeks after Tiffany’s death, her mother found Tiffany’s shoes and white headband almost two miles from where her body was discovered.
Steve’s deer camera shows headlights from a motor vehicle at the same time Tiffany is walking down the driveway.
Photos taken by the NJTPD show a large pool of blood at the point where the train and the body of Tiffany came in contact with each other, suggesting the body could have been placed there, bleeding, before the train struck the body.
A convenience store worker said he overheard three employees talking about how the case was a homicide. He was allegedly told that Tiffany was picked up by someone she knew (two females and a male) and was taken near the tracks, stripped naked, held at gunpoint, and humiliated. All three employees denied ever saying anything.

The next few tidbits are from Justin Rohrlich’s Daily Beast article about the case:

The article adds a bit more information about the fight Tiffany had with her friend minutes before she went missing. A few months earlier, Tiffany had been caught by her parents taking money from their bank account. The article also notes that Dianne found out Tiffany was lying about using her friend’s credit card when “she saw [Tiffany] slip the card into her back pocket.”
NJ Transit detectives lost an ax with “red markings” found near the crash site before it could be tested.
In March 2022, it was discovered that the remaining evidence in Tiffany’s case had been stored improperly by police, “making it all but worthless for a new round of DNA testing.”
In 2014, child protection officials paid three separate visits to the Valiante home after a teacher noticed bruising on Tiffany’s arm. Per the Daily Beast, Dianne admitted to having caused the bruise by punching Tiffany after an argument.
Six months before her death, Tiffany came out as gay. “Some of the other girls in school wanted to ‘experiment’ with her,” Valiante family lawyer Paul D’Amato said to the Daily Beast. “Which may have upset certain girls, and also certain guys.”
A classmate heard that Tiffany sent a text to a friend on the night of her death that read “Just answer yes or no: should I do it?”
A few of Tiffany’s friends told investigators that she had harmed herself, intentionally cutting her wrist and her leg on two separate occasions.
The friend Tiffany was arguing with before her death wrote a speech for Tiffany’s funeral, and “brought over mementoes of Tiffany for Dianne.” But two weeks later, the Valiante family blocked the friend’s phone number and kicked her mom off their property when she showed up to find out what was going on. The friend said she never received an explanation as to why she was suddenly iced out.
In regards to the convenience store worker who allegedly overheard three teens talking about the case, each teen seemed “flummoxed by what they considered to be nothing short of an outlandish tale” when questioned by the police. “None of them had any idea what the manager was talking about, and each appeared to have an airtight alibi.”

After streaming “The Mystery at Mile Marker 45,” true crime fanatics are on the hunt for any additional information about Valiante’s death. Here are a few links to help get you started: