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

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are whatever you doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who waves to you all
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see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music] friend this week in the garage we are
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chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime for every Myst there is someone
somewhere who knows the truth perhaps that's someone was watching perhaps it's you join watch closely perhaps perhaps
you may be able to help solve a [Music] mystery in Late July of 2015 in the obituary section of the
Atlantic County record there was a picture that 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 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 irn 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 she was from ma 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 5,000 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 maze Landing school with the 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 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 did the experts get this right or perhaps did they get it so terribly wrong this
is true crime [Music] garage Sol Myst Tiffany Valente was a 2015 oakrest 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 picked 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 63 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 oakrest high school and East Coast Crush Club volleyball she was first team all
c 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 Steven 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 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 MA
Landing New Jersey and in 2010 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 5600 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 a suicide to 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 mountain
tops 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 3 months earlier just Less
Than 3 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 going to have Tiffany attending a graduation party 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 class mates of Tiffany's there at this party as well so
a lot of people that know her are at this party and as 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 that 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 her friend saying hey I need to bring my mother over to
talk to you you you're probably thinking that this is pretty serious now I believe that this conversation goes down
just a little after 900 p.m. yeah and this is a 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
$300 further digging I can confirm that the actual dollar amount in question was
$86 right so not not a huge amount of money right and so what happens here is the short of it is 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 residents and shortly afterward Tiffany and her mother Dian 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 scolding her for doing so yeah and then also why did you lie to us but it's reasonable why she lie she was
probably a little embarrassed but like you said it's under $100 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
and 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 H 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 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 a camera that was on the house yeah the father her father Stephen has a deer camera right
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 that the the timestamp on that deer cam
or trail cam is I 9:28 now again I believe that when you set those up you set the 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 list 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 928 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 11:00 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 their property or very nearby their property and of course when you find a teenager 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 247 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 that 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 they're it's not just old 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 is giving her a lecture where when Tiffany gets up
and leaves she leaves their property by foot around 9:30 and about 11:30 once the parents
are like hey she hasn't returned home we haven't seen her and the cell phone's found and and they find her cell phone
at the edge of the property they go 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 now we're going to have to fast
forward here Captain almost exactly 3 hours and this is when Tiff Tiff'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 yeah 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 Valente 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 [Music] train Wisconsin is no stranger to
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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 Valente 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 11:00 p.m. 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 11:00 hour early into the 11:00
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 the they both have the same story and their story is the train was
traveling at approximately 80 mph 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 sever Ed the feet had been severed um some reports State uh cut from the body other reports State
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 walk 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 as said this is a a 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 out a little bit on 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 as 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 often times 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 Tiff'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 right 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 and
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
and 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 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 talk 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
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 as 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 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 grad being chased before grizzly
death here's another one this one from wh says family of New Jersey teen killed by train disputes suicide ruling Su to
Pro 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 in again 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 diamado as an attorney to represent them
and this case was featured on the some of the more recent episodes of Unsolved Mysteries and Paul D
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 guy had seen it on the news and he thought he says look I thought here's here 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 going
to 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 state look we've got a lot of respect for the Transit
Police they're this is a large outfit too and they State 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 it's traveling as said according to the report about 80 miles
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 it that takes away the whole accident idea that means Foul Play No I agree and and disagree
though because I I don't know again what does the front of the train look like is
there a possibility that she would have been hit hit by something that would have 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 what 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 see what I'm saying like you I think there is 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 the tracks I think you the situation is
this either 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 was 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 the 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 com 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 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 evidence she's impaired
in any way in fact she's not impaired we we know that because of a 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 determined through the toxicology that there was no alcohol or drugs in her
system you really got to 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 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 I I don't know if
I can make a determination based off of what I saw on Unsolved Mysteries I don't
know if I have enough of the information to have an opinion did she kill 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're
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 the 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 axe that was covered with red markings was
found near the site where Tiffany valente's body was found and once this axe was found
Tiffany's family or they find out that the axe was found Tiffany's family and friends hoped 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 that take place outdoor doors 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 of happen stance yeah this item this axe 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 making model of the axe 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 a 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 but they could mean something 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 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 well
what other items does this articles 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 an 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 $300 from her friend but we would learn that the
amount the dollar amount was actually $86 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 and 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 right 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 or charge rack up $300
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 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's 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
responsibly 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 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 $1,500 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 just doesn't make any sense that she would want to take her own life because
of this credit card fraud let's say 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 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 th 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 and to 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 Valente 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 won an 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 arm by a teacher and reported by a teacher because this teacher believed that
although this young woman's an athlete that the teacher did not believe and thought that the bruise was inconsistent
with a sports related injury and when CPS casew workers 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 [Music] disagreement for everything True Crime
Check out True Crime garage.com join us back here for this mystery at M marker 45 until then be
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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 in 2015 raises questions of suicide versus foul play after being struck by a train.

Key points

The Tragic Story of Tiffany Valente. Tiffany Valente, an 18-year-old volleyball star, was found dead under mysterious circumstances.
A Night of Celebration Turns to Tragedy. Tiffany attended a graduation party, but later went missing, leading to a tragic discovery.
Tragic Train Incident. A young female, Tiffany, is struck and killed by a train late at night.
Missing Items Raise Questions. Tiffany's shoes and headband are found days later, raising suspicion of foul play.
Controversial Ruling. The authorities quickly ruled Tiffany's death a suicide, sparking family disputes.
Attorney's Discovery. Tiffany's attorney uncovers inconsistencies in the reports, suggesting a rush to judgment.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

The mysteries of that night seem to still be hidden away in the dark.

Discussing the unresolved questions surrounding Tiffany's death.

6:31WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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