Mystery at Mile Marker 45 /// Part 1 /// 704 | Forensic Files

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a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] run it for every mystery there is some
somewhere who knows the truth perhaps that someone was watching perhaps it's you
join me watch close perhaps you may be able to help solve the Mysteries in Late July
2015. in the obituary section of the Atlantic County record there is a picture it was sure to catch everyone's eye
the picture was of a young woman smiling bright with long dark hair cascading down her
shoulders holding a single light-colored Rose the picture didn't stand out from the
others featured on page A6 simply because of the beauty of this young woman or the charm in her eyes
but the picture mostly stood out because the woman in the picture was so much younger than the others
featured in this section most of them three times if not close to four times her senior
one could not help but to be drawn to this picture and to want to know more to know more of the story of how this
beautiful young woman ended up on the same page as a few men in their 60s a couple of ladies in their 70s
and even Clyde Bud Irwin Jr who had passed away peacefully at his home at the age of 80.
the young vibrant woman was Tiffany Valente and she was just 18. those who knew her
best called her by her shortened nicknames of Tiff and TT [Music] she was from Mays Landing New Jersey
an unincorporated community that would more than double its population from 2010 to 2020.
going from just a little over 2 000 citizens to Upward of five thousand this newspaper
was from 2015. and it stated that Tiffany passed away tragically on July 12th the medical examiner ruled her death
a suicide the Press of Atlantic City paper could not have posed the question any better
when they asked why would an 18 year old recent graduate of the Mays Landing school with a
volleyball scholarship waiting for her in the fall and the world seemingly at her
fingertips decide to take her own life to which one could only stop to think my now that is a good question
[Music] but later after that tragic night evidence would be brought into the light
that might make one think that a different manner of death should be further examined
because the mysteries of that night seem to still be hidden away in the dark which can only make us Wonder
that the experts get this right or perhaps did they get it so terribly wrong this
True Crime garage [Music] Tiffany Valente was a 2015 Oakcrest high school graduate she was going to attend
Mercy College on a volleyball scholarship Tiffany's love for sports included softball and volleyball and from my
understanding here Captain she was quite good at softball playing both on school
teams as well as travel and Club teams but then one day she picks up a volleyball and her love for sport
changed from softball to volleyball and she excelled almost immediately at volleyball well she was definitely
athletic but it doesn't hurt when you're 6'2 or 6'3 it's like she was meant to play volleyball that's right and it
became her passion very quickly she was a middle hitter she played for Oakcrest high school and East Coast Crush Club
volleyball she was first team all Cal as well as ranked eighth in the state for number of volleyball kills in one
High School season she had 279 kills and 39 blocks her charm and her appeal certainly went
beyond the volleyball court and she was well liked she was popular unfortunately
she dies tragically in July of 2015 and there's much debate about her death it was ruled a suicide but there are
others that say not so fast we need to further examine and possibly amend the manner of death for this young woman and
if you amend that manner of death then that opens up a whole another line of questioning that could involve a foul
play investigation when she passed away Captain she was survived by her father and mother this
is Stephen and Diane along with their dog the family dog Tucker she did have two older sisters this was from Diane's
previous marriage and from my understanding Captain the older sisters were quite a bit older than Tiffany at
the time of her death she was the only child of the three that was still living in the home with Mom and Dad so she has
two half sisters she's basically an only child living with her parents and the dog and the parents were together and it
didn't seem like there was a a lot wrong with that relationship well we have her
sisters who are now grown they are married they have children of their own so yes she is kind of in this only child
situation and she's also a very cool aunt for her nieces and nephews now they lived in Mays Landing New Jersey and in
two thousand and 10. this is a rural area of New Jersey it's west of Atlantic City
and there's only a little more than 2100 people living there in 2010. by 2020 that population would more than double
it's like 5 600 people in 2020. so I'm a little uncertain of the population at the time of 2015 because that area was
growing so quickly now you said it was ruled a suicide do we know if there was a note left there was no note left and
in fact there are a lot of things that point to that this was not a suicide at all and in fact that's what her parents
and family and many others have been shouting from the mountaintops ever since July of 2015. another sad note
here too is regardless if this was a suicide or Foul Play we're sitting here talking about an
obituary for an 18 year old woman when less than three months earlier just less than three months prior
on April 29th this was Signing Day this is when she decided and chose and made it official her choice of college
because she was offered five scholarships to play volleyball and she chose Mercy College and on that
day April 29th she's featured in the newspaper this beautiful colored photograph of her with coaches and
faculty standing behind her as she's signing her commitment letter to Mercy College
so I understand look we all most of us have very highs and can have very lows as well but it's
it's very troubling to when putting together this week's episode and doing the research seeing this bright
beautiful young woman with the world at her feet on Signing Day smiling ear to ear and then less than three months
later she's going to be tragically killed well anybody that has dealt with depression or continues to deal with
depression knows that sometimes the hardest thing is to keep putting on the front that everything is okay yeah and
we're going to get conflicting reports here too we'll have some of her friends or people that knew her I I
I step lightly when I call these individuals friends because these were her peers but I I don't know for a fact
that they were in fact friends but we do have some of her peers that did believe
that she was depressed leading up to her death and then you have her family and others
saying the exact opposite know that she wasn't depressed at all well we also choose who we put the face on for right
let's get into the timeline so we're going to go to July 12th of 2015. and on this night like many other people we're
gonna have Tiffany attending a graduation party this is a graduation party for her
cousin and it's at her uncle's house who lives across the street from her own house so the Party begins in that
afternoon and continues into the night with friends and family celebrating throughout the day in the evening we
need to keep in mind here too the relationship of the person hosting this party so of course
Tiffany's parents are there as well and this will be other classmates of Tiffany's there at this party as well so
a lot of people that know her are at this party and has said it's her cousin's graduation party just across
the street from her own that's going to lead us to a little bit later into the evening
and this is when one of Tiffany's friends this is a close friend of Tiffany's calls Tiffany's parents
Steve and Diane in some of the reports most of the reports in fact the states an unnamed friend calls Tiffany's mother
and father and they want to speak with them not with Tiffany and they're asking hey could you meet us
I'm going to get my mother as well and we would like to meet you at your house well they're just across the street so
no problems right we will most certainly meet you they have something that they want to discuss with Tiffany's parents
yeah and if you're Tiffany's parents and you're getting a call from our friend saying hey I need to bring my mother
over to talk to you you're probably thinking that this is pretty serious now I believe that this
conversation goes down just a little after 9 00 PM yeah and this is a weird conversation and I do want to clarify
here that there's going to be a dispute a money dispute so the friend and the friend's mother
they're telling Tiffany and her mother the day before Tiffany used the daughter's credit card her friend's
credit card for unauthorized purchases now for many of the sources don't State the dollar amount that was of concern
some state that it was three hundred dollars further digging I can confirm that the actual dollar amount in
question was 86 dollars right so not not a huge amount of money right and so what
happens here is the short of it is when confronted in front of her mother Tiffany says no I
don't I don't know what you're talking about she denies using her friend's credit card to make any of these
purchases then the mother and her friend leave the Valente residence and shortly
afterward Tiffany and her mother Diane are discussing the situation and at that time Tiffany does fess up
and say look yes I did use my friend's credit card and of course her mother scalding her for doing so yeah and then
also why did you lie to us but it's reasonable why she would lie she was probably a little embarrassed but like
you said it's under a hundred dollars this is not that big of a deal it's not like her parents don't have any money
they could they could pay the amount back you know they could go on being friends
Tiffany could apologize and maybe she'd be in trouble and she'd have to pay the money back to her
parents and look I give her a little credit she did come clean in the end yes but again it's reasonable that when
she's confronted with all these people and especially around her father maybe she just felt embarrassed this
discussion and the using of her friend's credit card is going to lead to an additional argument between mother and
daughter and Tiffany's reaction to this argument look she's probably quite stressed out at this
point she's been confronted by her friend and her friend's mother and as you said and rightfully so
embarrassed about the situation then she gets into it with Mom probably hope that
hey when I came clean to Mom that that would be the end of it and we could move on
she storms off after this argument and there is some speculation as to why Tiffany actually left but when we say
left we mean she's at a Dodge she just she doesn't just leave the home she walks down their driveway and again this
is a rural area and she decides that she's going to walk down the road she's getting out of there
I found it awfully curious that she has a vehicle that is not one that she borrows from Mom and Dad she has her own
vehicle right and she chose to go walking instead and I'm sure her parents thought that this was a little weird but
they probably just think look she's going to go off and blow off some steam and she'll be back in no time at all
well and I couldn't find this information but I wanted to know if the car had gas in it or not because it's a
possibility that she's like okay I need to go somewhere to blow off some steam but I can't get in my car because it
doesn't have any gas so I'm just going to take a walk around the neighborhood yeah and it's unclear too what her
parents thought was going on at the time there's been some reports that they have
said that they thought well maybe she was just going to go down to the edge of the driveway and call a friend and be on
the phone for a while they were a little surprised that she decided to walk and leave on foot
because both of them have stated that Tiffany was afraid of the dark and these are roads captain that don't have street
lights on them so when you decide to go down walking on that Country Road you are in the dark my friend and the only
time you're going to have any light maybe you turn on the flashlight feature on your cell phone or would be from when
a car would pass by you would see the headlights right but other than that she's going to be walking alone in the
dark so she leaves the house around 9 30 they do have her on a camera that was on
the house yeah the father her father Stephen has a deer camera set up I believe it's near the edge of their
property toward the front and this camera captures her walking by and in my notes Here Captain I I have
listed the the time stamp on that deer cam or trail cam is I 9 28. now again I believe that when you set those up you
set the clock yourself so I don't know if that is to the minute how exact that is right but
the other thing that was interesting to me too is that the trail cam also lists the temperature at that time of night
and it was in the upper 60s so it's still warm out but she's leaving in the picture you can see
her she's wearing some tiny shoes which from my understanding were brand new shoes that she might have even been
wearing them for the first day and she's wearing some pretty short white shorts or light colored shorts
with a dark t-shirt that's not particularly big and a large light colored headband
holding her hair up and I'm using headband for the lack of a better term there somebody out there will know what
to call these things but you can see her walking on this trail cam and it's it's
a still picture so she is actually turned and looking to her left and I believe it's very hard to tell
because it's black and white picture there and it's not very descript but it looks to me like her cell phone may be
in her right hand at that time yeah it's really hard to tell and if you want to look for yourself we'll put this photo
on social media her parents would eventually go out and start looking for her remember that trail cam
the time stamp is 9 28. we don't know exactly how close to the minute it is but what we can say is it's fairly
accurate because all reports all sources say that she was storming off on her walk around 9 30.
her parents will eventually go out looking for her now the first sign of trouble for Mom and Dad Captain is going
to be around the 11 o'clock hour this is when her father Steve finds Tiffany's cell phone
and this is near the end of their driveway so very close it's it's it's on their
property or very nearby their property and of course when you find a teenager's cell phone an 18 year old cell phone you
are immediately concerned this should be on her person and as Dad points out he States in an interview she was on
that phone 24 7. that was a part almost a part of her body at this point and so to find the cell phone and then
you compound that idea with it she has this fear of the dark some even describe it as an intense fear
of the dark now Mom and Dad are really concerned there it's not just oh Tiffany went out
to blow off some steam anymore it's now where is my daughter we need to be out looking for Tiffany so let's go back
over this uh Tiffany's friend contacts his parents says we need to talk to you about something
they sit down with Tiffany and her parents and say hey look she she used my credit card for these items Tiffany
denies it and then when her friend leaves she then confesses to her mom her mom has given her a lecture where
When Tiffany gets up and leaves she leaves their property by foot around 9 30. and uh about 11 30 once the parents
are like hey she hasn't returned home we haven't seen her and the cell phones found and and they find her cell phone
at the edge of the property they go if something's not right and they call in a missing person report
yeah they officially file a missing person's Report with the local police department there and on top of that now
we do have some extended family helping in the search for Tiffany as well and we're going to have to fast forward here
Captain almost exactly three hours and this is when Tiffany's parents get the very sad tragic and unfortunate news
that their daughter is dead and not only has something happened to her she was struck and killed by a train and her
body was dismembered approximately four miles from the family's home around 11 15.
after she went missing right and it was the uncle so Tiffany's father's brother was the one she he's out looking for
Tiffany he's helping in the search and he gets to the train tracks again four miles approximately from the
family's home the Valenti home he goes over because he sees cop cars he sees emergency lights and something is
going on on the train tracks so he goes over to see what's going on to which one of the officers there tell
him somebody was hit by a train and we believe you know we're still trying to sort this
out but we believe it was a young female adult and after some time they figure out that
it was the missing teenager and they tell the uncle we need you to get in our car
we're going to have to go to Tiffany's parents home and notify them that she's been killed
that she's been hit by the train on it [Music] Wisconsin is no stranger to high profile
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garage today [Music] all right we are back onwards and upwards cheers to you Colonel cheers to
all the beautiful listeners cheers to all the people in the back tall cans in the air
now when we left off Captain we have the Valenti family getting the unfortunate news that their daughter was struck and
killed by the train and they're getting this news at 2 30 a.m now what they will later be told is
further detail that sometime after 11 pm and I say that because there is a bit of
a dispute I've seen the time reported differently it's as early as 1107 P.M and as late as 11 16. so we're really
only talking about the difference of eight or nine minutes here so early after the 11 o'clock hour early
into the 11 o'clock hour Tiffany is struck and hit by the train and what we will learn is a student
engineer operating a Southbound New Jersey Transit train so this is a commuter train
they're running these trains all the time and I believe there was a approximately 60 passengers
on this train now it's late at night this train is heading from Philadelphia to Atlantic City
and they report that they fatally struck a pedestrian which they will refer to as
a trespasser because you're not supposed to be on the tracks they hit this pedestrian
as the train is approaching the mile marker number 45. and this student engineer is being
supervised by an experienced engineer at the time they they both have the same story
and their story is the train was traveling at approximately 80 miles per hour of speed
and the engineer states that the individual the trespasser dove in front of the train from an east to west
Direction and again this was around 11 15 that night now it's later confirmed that the
person that was hit or run over because that's the debate here and we'll get into those details
very soon because there's there's really good arguments to suggest that this is not what it
looks like or not what is stated in the early reports but what we do know is our victim here
suffered multiple traumatic injuries especially to the Head area the limbs had been severed the feet had been
severed some reports State uh cut from the body other reports stayed ripped from the body
and some of the items that should have been found with Tiffany either were not found
or they were not reported to be found now there are a couple items that we know that that were not found at the
scene but it could be both right a couple of items that were not found at all that
should have been there should have been present with Tiffany and then there were some items that may
have been found but not recorded in the documents citing this tragic event well like you
said the two workers on the train report the same thing we don't know if that was them trying to
cover their tracks no pun intended but you also wonder is there a possibility that she was just walking
too close she gets hit by the train and it kind of throws her body into this this motion of where it looks
like maybe she dove in front of the train but it was just because she was too close to the train itself and got
hit if that makes any sense it does make sense I just don't know why anybody would
want to walk that close to the train um I'm not saying it's never happened before it's just I think what we need to
do here is review all of the information and see if we can possibly have an opinion as to what took place because
that said this is uh uh hotly debated item and topic and right I think rightfully so now as far
as the the manner of death ruling and labeling it a suicide the jury's out a little bit uh as to
when that ruling came about I have seen an interview with the mother with Diane with Tiffany's mother who says that look
the the authorities ruled this a suicide less than 24 hours after she was struck
by the train or run over by the train and there are other reports that indicate that it wasn't official until July until
July 18th so keep in mind late on July 12th she struck by the the Train on July 13th
is when they get it sorted out to the point of identifying the person who was hit and notifying the family
and so what I think here is oftentimes there's a little bit of checks and balances at the very least you should
hope and there's certain channels that these rulings need to go through and so I think that it's possible that we don't
have anybody telling different stories here I think all of it could be true it could be that the
the early investigation quickly determined or believed that what they were seeing is a suicide and then they
took a few days to officially call it a suicide because we're talking about the the ruling being July 18th at the very
latest I've seen some reports July 14th July 17th but we know that by the 18th for sure that it was ruled a
suicide now we talked about a couple of items that were missing from the scene of of of the train incident at mile
marker 45. and one of those items is an item that we talked about earlier her shoes
this is very bizarre but oh July 27th so 15 days after the incident Tiffany's mother finds her Tiffany's
shoes and headband she's walking and this would be about a mile from their home the shoes are clean the headband is
clean so I'll tell you where right now you don't have to be an expert to look at these two items and say
if Foul Play was involved whoever is responsible for the foul play did not take these shoes in headband
from the scene uh the train scene at mile marker 45. after the fact and then move them
so what you're looking at here Captain you really have two options with these shoes in the headband either Tiffany
decided to storm off and commit suicide and along the way she chose to drop her cell phone
near her family's home she walked about a mile from her home and then decided to discard her shoes
and her headband and then walked another two and a half miles approximately to where
she decided she was going to dive in front of the train as as the engineer stated in his report
one troubling Factor here is the route that she would have taken doesn't make a whole lot of sense if this was planned
by Tiffany or if she knew what she was going to do maybe she was completely hysterical and and her actions don't
hold any logic that would stand a reason but the other thing too is the fact that if she did
discard her shoes and decide to toss them and then keep on walking the train track area themselves
this is rough terrain we're talking about sharp rocks we're talking about Broken Glass we're talking about even if
you're walking on the railroad ties this is old wood and one thing that many have stated is
there's not evidence to suggest that she walked that distance without any shoes on but these items
were found in her neighborhood so one wonders was she going to continue her walk just a little further and then come
back and get her items and then head home possibly but if we're going to rule this a suicide then we have made the
determination that she discarded these items and then walked close to three miles
from where these items were found to where she was struck by the train at mile marker 45 right
now what we're going to have here Captain very early on is as stated this is going to be disputed
the manner of death here is going to be disputed so the family wants the ruling to be an
indetermined death or suspicious death they believe that Foul Play likely occurred here and that's the only reason
why she was run over or struck by the train and then others in the media would share some of the same opinion
and so here's a couple of headlines from online articles that we found one says did 18 year old Tiffany Valente who was
terrified of the Dark Walk four miles at night without shoes to throw herself in
front of a train the other another headline here Captain was High School Grand being chased
before Grizzly trained death here's another one this one from w-h-y-y says family of New Jersey teen
killed by train disputes suicide ruling sues to to prove kidnap murder plot and finally from The Daily Mail family
of teen hit and killed by a train in 2015 say she may have been kidnapped and her death was wrongly ruled a suicide
and again citing that a law a lawsuit was being filed this lawsuit would not be officially
filed until the following year into into 2016. this is after the family hired um Paul diamatto as an attorney to
represent them and this case was featured on the some of the more recent episodes of
Unsolved Mysteries and Paul diamatto the attorney for the family was interviewed for this episode
of Unsolved Mysteries and he had read about it in the newspaper he's a local guide seen it on the news and he thought
he says look I thought here's here's look there's this horrible tragedy the family is in total shock
about what has happened and that he thought look you don't need to pay me a bunch of money what I'm
going to do for you guys is I'll get all the official reports and then I'll sit down and talk with you and he actually
thought he says that I thought going into this I'm just gonna have to go get these official reports and then sit down
with the family and deliver them the news that they don't want to hear that yes in fact your daughter did commit
suicide and I've gone through all the reports and I can share them with you well he gets the official reports he
starts looking through them and he says look there might be something more here there's this doesn't seem quite right
there's a few things that are awfully sketchy about the details of that night and he says in his opinion that he think
it thinks it was a bit of a rush to judgment by the transit authority so it's the
Transit Police that are investigating this and we do have several individuals on that Unsolved Mysteries episode that
stay look we've got a lot of respect for the Transit Police there this is a large outfit too and
they say look they're very good at their jobs they're very good at what they do however they do not investigate hardly
any homicides it's very few and far between and frankly not a whole lot of accidents
either so there are some that have questioned if they have the if they're capable
of handling such an investigation and some even questioning the crime scene or the scene of the incident itself
if evidence was collected properly and if the one could make a good determination or good ruling based off
of that evidence that was found at the scene well because we know that she's very
upset and it's not again out of the realm of possibility that somebody is walking and doesn't
understand how close they actually are to the train that's coming right and as traveling as said according
to the report about 80 miles per hour she would I mean if whether she's facing the train or not she would have ample
time to get out of the way of the train right there's no question about that what I'm getting at here is that
I don't think that that this is an accident you I review this and immediately I can very quickly go well we got two
situations here this is this is a suicide or there's Foul Play involved because the only way that you could
Loosely call this an accident is if somebody was chasing her or pushed her as some kind of prank
and then this happens but that is that then doesn't become that takes away the whole accident idea that means Foul Play
No I agree and disagree though because I don't know again what does the front of
the train look like is there a possibility that she would have been hit by something that would then thrown her
body into the center um and that would have made but hit by what that's what I'm saying is I don't know
I'm not a train expert but but the train is traveling with lights on it and it's
blaring its horn you either want to be struck by the train or something caused you to be struck by the
train that I don't think was an accident yeah I'm just I'm trying to think of like some of the video footage that I've
seen of like where a vehicle Clips a person and then the person kind of instead of being clipped and thrown into
the grass or thrown to the side that their body actually gets thrown towards the center of the car
and so again I don't know what the van uh the the visuals of these individuals were either
and you you see what I'm saying like you I think there is a possibility that she is clipped by something that then
from their vantage point it looks as if the individual jumped in front of the the
tracks I think you the situation is this either she jumps in front of the tracks or
jumps in front of the train or she's lying on the tracks when the train hits her
yeah or like you said I mean is there a possibility that that she uh because this is not out there with
somebody and somebody pushed her right and we need to be clear here too for for people that have not seen the episode or
are unfamiliar with this case mile marker 45 is not like at an intersection with a road or anything or
at a Crossing or anything like that right this is out in the middle of the Woods
at night and so there's no way to not see the lights of that train there's no way to not hear that train coming or
blaring its horn in fact according to the records they were blaring the horn because of a
Crossing that took place uh not terribly far from where she was struck but but far enough away that it
that she's not at this part of the train tracks because she happens to be Crossing because there's a road there
again this is out in the out in the woods and on uh the Unsolved Mysteries episode you will see an investigator who
is driving he has to go up a road and then drive down along the rocks for a long period of
time before he can get to mile marker 45 right now when the episode ends they do present a
good amount of material that would suggest that maybe something else took place here again you
have to call into question the cell phone the finding of the cell phone the location of that cell phone and where it
was found the finding of her shoes and the headband are much more important in my opinion
she could have she could have just tossed that cell phone out of anger and she's off on a mission to to run away or
to go off and harm herself it's the shoes that I call into question I think I I think it would be incredibly
difficult the way that it is explained to us for one to dump their shoes and then
walk two and a half to three miles and some of it in some pretty rough terrain again sharp rocks broken glass
splinters from the wood in an area where she can't see can't pay good attention to her footing
and we understand and we've gone through some of the trauma some of the destruction of her
body due to due to the incident the nature of the incident right but one thing that we are able to view and see
is the bottom of her feet which don't show they don't show feet that are all cut up on the bottom either
she she hovered her way or somebody helped her to to that spot that those are the only things that
would stand to make scientific sense to me based off of looking at the bottom of
her feet and then knowing that to get there on foot to get there herself by herself she would have had to have
tossed her shoes and walked that great of a distance to get there now mind you we don't have anybody
coming forward saying yeah we we gave her a ride she was distraught she was upset we gave her a ride and dropped her
off near the train tracks right there's nobody saying that we have no eight years later she's
impaired in any way in fact she's not impaired we we know that because of the toxicology that's done right no alcohol
or drugs were found in her system and that further calls into question the uh well maybe she wasn't thinking
clearly and she was hysterical and decided to throw herself in front of the train
well there's been experts smarter than I that have said well once they determine
through the toxicology that there was no alcohol or drugs in her system you really got a call into question that
manner of death ruling yeah and we don't have any evidence that I mean we have some people saying or speculating that
she could have been depressed do we have any evidence that that she had any type of manic episodes
[Music] well we're going to get into that so we what I want to go through first is
when they leave when you walk away from this episode I think a lot of people walk away going well I don't know if I
can make a determination based off of what I saw in Unsolved Mysteries I don't know if I have enough of the information
to have an opinion did she take her own life or did something happen to her something
much more sinister and so following up from once that episode was released it was it was
volume three of Unsolved Mysteries on Netflix and the title of the episode is Mystery at mile marker 45. now
here's an article from screenrant.com and what they are talking about here is what did Unsolved Mysteries leave out of
the episode and so we present this to you and let you make the determination because some
of these items May Point toward Foul Play and some of them May Point toward the official ruling
now one thing that they're quick to state in this article is that the Transit Police investigators may have
lost a potential murder weapon and this is according to nj.com in 2022 they stated that an ax
that was covered with red markings was found near the site where Tiffany Valenti's body was found
and once this ax was found Tiffany's family or they find out that the ax was found Tiffany's family and friends hope
that forensic analysis of this item might prove that the red markings were blood and then that blood might even
match Tiffany's DNA right but unfortunately somehow this item goes missing while in storage before it could
be tested to see if it was connected to the crime at all now one thing we need to point out here and we've talked about
this a good deal when we talk about murders that take place Outdoors the complications of the crime scene for
investigators is that it's not a controlled area so any and every item that you find in
close proximity to your victim or the trail that your victim traveled you need to collect all of that stuff
and then the problem then becomes for the experts and for detectives and investigators
how do I determine is there anything on this item to indicate to me that it's connected to the actual crime because
when you have an uncontrolled scene especially in a park setting or here a railroad track
you could have cigarette butts soda cans any type of debris that may just be there because it was discarded
well before the incident even took place yeah items at the scene because of happenstance yeah this item this acts
let's say for instance could have been left there at this scene for no reasons connected to this case could have been
left there the day before she was killed a week before a month maybe a year I will say this though I they did report
the model uh make and model of the ax and I found this to be rather interesting here Captain because
it is of a newer make right so she's killed in 2015. I actually happen to have this same make
and model at my home now I was trying to figure out when this I when this was first available to the public you know
when it when it was made and then being sold to all of us and look there's only so much time between cases we got one
week between last week's case and this week's case there are a lot there's a lot to go through in this case I was
unable to determine what year that model was first being sold but I can say this
based off of my own experience it is a newer item so yeah they could mean this this wasn't
late or not mean something exactly but what I'm pointing what I'm trying to point out here Captain is I can with
every bit of confidence say to you that item was not laying there since 1985. it
wasn't lying there since 1995. right it wasn't lying there since 2005. it's a newer item and it I believe that based
off of how new this item is that it was probably placed there and and again we're being told that it was found at
the scene of where her body was recovered and that it was stored by law enforcement but then it goes
missing I can say with a lot of confidence that that item if it if it's not directly
connected to the crime it didn't end up there too long before this incident but what other items does
this article say that Unsolved Mysteries left out well a lot of these items Captain are I think suggestive that
maybe the suicide ruling was correct and they're painting us a little bit of a picture here and I want everybody to
take this information on their own and form their own opinions but according to this article they're going to talk again
about that credit card situation between Tiffany and her friend so it this is straight from the article
the Tiffany Unsolved Mysteries episode mentions that Tiffany Valente had a fight with a friend on the night of her
death and was accused of using that friend's credit card without permission Tiffany admitted that she was guilty of
the theft to her mother shortly before she disappeared while the episode paints Tiffany as a gifted scholar athlete who
should have known better than to steal this was not the first time Tiffany Valente had stolen from a loved one so
they go on to point out that Tiffany had stolen and I want to be I don't love the way they
word this so The Daily Beast words this in this manner Tiffany Valente had stolen money from her parents bank
account a few months before her death despite this her mother defended Tiffany from her friend's accusations of being a
thief indeed Unsolved Mysteries also doesn't show that the depositions reveal that Tiffany's parents had given her
their credit card nor that her mother specifically cited that as proof that Tiffany had no reason to steal from
anyone okay that paints a certain picture that makes it look like this is a habitual offender
of someone who is stealing from loved ones and constantly getting caught for it and of course we can imagine the
stress that that would put on a young person or a stress or even a fracture in these relationships
but as we do know now it was early reported that the amount in question was three hundred dollars from her friend
but we would learn that the amount the dollar amount was actually 86 dollars and Tiffany has an explanation for this
the explanation she states when she tells her mother yes I did use that my friend's credit card
but it was the day prior and it was because my friend was intoxicated and I was using the credit card to pay
for meals in some things while we were hanging out I guess I don't know if she was trying to sober up her friend we
don't have the full story there but but that sounds a lot less harmful to their relationship than
someone just straight out stealing a credit card out of someone's purse and using it to
to buy a necklace or something or or charge rack up three hundred dollars worth of charges the other thing too
with the stealing money from her parents bank account okay that's one way to word it
the but my understanding according to what her parents would tell us Tiffany's parents is that they gave
their daughter a credit card for emergencies this is not terribly uncommon and what usually happens when
you give a teenager a credit card for emergencies they typically find excuses to use your
credit card correct well everything becomes an emergency that's right there's new comic books out emergency I
was dying of thirst mom very thirsty I had to buy like 12 Gatorades like a couple cases of beer
I want how come we can never give the credit card to a teenager and they just show up in the driveway with a truck bed
full of mulch and they start doing yard work like how come that never happens it's
always like oh we were starving to death and I had to take my friends out to dinner
so it doesn't sound so bad when you really review the information this is not child stealing money out of
the bank account of desperate parents no this is they gave her a credit card for emergencies and she irresponsibly
used their credit card to buy something she probably shouldn't have and her parents probably knew that was going to
happen a couple times the other thing with the friend according to Tiffany's mother even though Tiffany denied it in
the face of her friend and her friend's mom Diane Tiffany's mother says that I told
them look I'll talk to Tiffany we'll get this sorted out but no matter what don't
worry me and my husband will pay you back the 86 dollars that's what I was saying earlier it's not that big of a
deal it's not that big of a deal I mean if they came back and said look she racked up fifteen hundred dollars
then you go oh [ __ ] you know and depending on what their finances were but it seemed like again
seems like a really good family that and that's why too it's like I don't see where this girl
unless she was having other issues that we just don't know about this doesn't make any sense that she
would want to take her own life because of this credit card fraud let's see right
and she could have been having other issues as you pointed out earlier some people were good at putting on a front
putting on a personality in front of all of the people and then behind the scenes
they are miserable they are depressed they are in some in some real trouble and then that's the problem too is
this can happen again anybody that has dealt with depression it's like you could have everything in your life
going right and just not feel okay exactly and so a couple things that might have been going on for this young
woman now one thing that Unsolved Mysteries did point out and did Cover in their episode was
that she had recently ended a relationship or was broken up with it's a little unclear to me who
broke up the relationship that most reports state that it was Mutual but Tiffany did have a a female girl sorry
Tiffany did have a girlfriend and it was a girlfriend that was known to her friends into her family and they
split up the week of Tiffany's death one other item and this was not covered by Unsolved Mysteries was as stated by
this article and here we go I'll read right from the article here Captain another detail
missing from the Unsolved Mysteries Tiffany Valente episode is that the valentis had been suspected of abusing
Tiffany before her death according to medical records obtained by The Daily Beast Child Protective Services CPS
authorities visited the Valente home on at least one occasion and this was in 2014 remember her death occurred in
2015. and this is because of bruises a bruise that was seen on Tiffany's armed by a teacher and
reported by a teacher because this teacher believed that although this young woman's an athlete the the teacher
did not believe and thought that the bruise was inconsistent with a sports related injury
and when CPS caseworkers visited the home the Valente home there was a discussion with the parents and Tiffany
and it was their findings were that Tiffany's mother had punched her in the arm during
the course of a disagreement [Music] for everything True Crime Check out True Crime garage.com join us back here
for this mystery at mile marker 45 until then be good be kind and don't litter thank you
thank you

Mystery at Mile Marker 45 /// Part 1 /// 704

Part 1 of 2

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Eighteen year old Tiffany Valiante died tragically on July 12, 2015. She was either struck by or run over by a train approximately four miles from her families’ home in Mays Landing, New Jersey. The last two hours of her life are a mystery. The investigation quickly ruled the manner of death a suicide, but were the authorities too quick to judge? Since, the family with the help of an attorney have gathered experts that say the manner of death should be changed to a “suspicious death” or “undetermined.” This case aired on Unsolved Mysteries on Netflix in October of 2022 as part of a Halloween event. There is a reward to help solve the 2015 suspicious death of Tiffany Valiante. Tips and Reward Claims: Reward@justiceforTIFF.com

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Brief Summary

Tiffany Valente's death raises questions of suicide versus foul play after she was found dead by a train in 2015.

Key points

The Tragic Death of Tiffany Valente. Tiffany Valente, an 18-year-old volleyball star, was found dead under mysterious circumstances.
A Family's Heartbreak. Tiffany's parents face the unimaginable after their daughter goes missing and is found dead.
Tragic News Delivered. The Valenti family receives the devastating news about Tiffany's death at 2:30 a.m.
Mystery Surrounds Tiffany's Death. Questions arise about the circumstances of Tiffany's death and the ruling of suicide.
Attorney Questions Investigation. Attorney Paul Diamatto expresses doubts about the quick ruling of suicide in Tiffany's case.
Mystery at Mile Marker 45. Exploring the unresolved questions surrounding Tiffany Valenti's disappearance and the evidence left behind.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Why would an 18 year old with everything at her fingertips take her own life?

Questioning the circumstances surrounding Tiffany's death.

5:35WatchOct 5, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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