Tiffany Valiante was just 18 when she was killed by a train under mysterious circumstances

It’s been 10 years since Tiffany Valiante’s disappearance, and her death remains unsolved.

Tiffany Valiante at her high school graduation.Credit :

Netflix© 2022

In 2015, Tiffany had just graduated from her New Jersey high school and earned a volleyball scholarship to attend Mercy College. The teenager was making plans for the future when she went missing on the evening of July 12, following an argument with her parents.

Hours later, her body was discovered on a train track four miles from her family’s home. She had been hit and killed by a train heading for Atlantic City — and it was almost immediately ruled a suicide.

In the days that followed, an investigation was opened and closed with no full autopsy performed, evidence was improperly handled, and Tiffany’s family and friends weren’t contacted for interviews, according to the family’s lawyer, Paul D’Amato. Additionally, the only known witnesses, the engineers on the train, had varying accounts of what happened.

For her family, the news was shocking. Tiffany had shown no indication of being depressed or in emotional distress. As time went on, many other facts didn’t add up. The teenager’s body had been found in only a sports bra and underwear, despite having left her family’s home fully clothed.

Years later, Tiffany’s family and their team of private investigators have maintained their belief that she did not die by suicide and that foul play was involved in her death. Still, authorities have continued to uphold their ruling that Tiffany took her own life.

So what happened to Tiffany Valiante? Here’s everything to know about the teenager’s final hours and the aftermath of her mysterious death.

Who was Tiffany Valiante?

Tiffany Valiante.Netflix© 2022

Before her death, Tiffany was an 18-year-old student who had recently graduated from Oakcrest High School in Mays Landing, N.J. She was a dedicated volleyball athlete after growing up on softball teams.

“I started playing volleyball my freshman year of high school. As soon as I touched a ball I knew my life was about to change,” Tiffany wrote on her NCSA college recruiting profile. “My introduction to volleyball changed my life dramatically. I feel so in love with the sport.”

Her talent on the court earned her a volleyball scholarship to attend Mercy University in New York, where she planned to study criminal justice and pursue a career in the police force or military.

Outside of school, Tiffany was close with her parents, Dianne and Stephen, as well as her two older sisters, Jessie and Krystal. Despite having been a tight-knit family, Dianne admitted that over the past year, she and Tiffany had bickered more frequently, but she told The Daily Beast that she considered it “normal teenage stuff.”

During that time, child protection officials visited the family’s home after a teacher noticed bruising on Tiffany’s arm. Dianne later admitted to punching Tiffany after an argument, and they were recommended to seek counseling.

In their only therapy session in late 2014, Dianne shared that she had been short-tempered and attributed it to menopausal changes. Meanwhile, Tiffany told the therapist she was neither depressed nor suicidal. In the report, the therapist noted that while the pair had “trouble communicating,” they still had a “stable” family relationship.

Then, in early 2015, Tiffany came out as gay. While Dianne says she thought it was a phase at first, she and Stephen were accepting of Tiffany’s sexuality. She began dating a young woman in Philadelphia, but the pair had amicably split less than a week before her death, according to the outlet.

What happened on the day that Tiffany Valiante disappeared?

The last known sighting of Tiffany Valiante taken by a deer camera the night she disappeared.Netflix© 2022

On July 12, 2015, Tiffany spent the day with her family. That afternoon, the group attended a party across the street at Stephen’s brother’s home, celebrating the graduation of one of Tiffany’s cousins. Dianne and Stephen recalled that Tiffany spoke enthusiastically about leaving for college at the event.

“Tiff was having a great time. Playing volleyball, having fun, waiting for her friends to come over,” Stephen shared on Unsolved Mysteries: Mystery at Mile Marker 45.

Later that evening, Dianne and Stephen spoke with one of Tiffany’s friends and her mother. The friend claimed Tiffany had used her debit card to buy clothes and food without permission, per The Daily Beast. At the time, Tiffany denied the accusation.

According to the Valiante family lawyer, D’Amato, Dianne and Tiffany began to search her car for her friend’s debit card. Dianne witnessed Tiffany sneaking the card into her back pocket and confronted her. Tiffany confessed, and Dianne went inside the house to get Stephen to discuss the situation.

“I said, ‘Why would you use somebody else’s card? You know better than that. I didn’t raise you that way. And now I gotta go tell your dad you used the card.’ And I went in the house, I got Stephen, and within one minute, we walked back out, and Tiffany was gone,” Dianne recalled on Unsolved Mysteries.

The last trace of Tiffany was footage from an outdoor deer camera, which showed her leaving the family’s driveway at 9:28 p.m. She was wearing a headband, a T-shirt, shorts and shoes.

Who found Tiffany Valiante after she disappeared?

Shortly after Tiffany vanished, family and friends began to search the surrounding area.

At around 11 p.m., Stephen discovered Tiffany’s cell phone in a brush area near their home’s driveway. This immediately raised a red flag for the family, who knew Tiffany was never without her phone. Around midnight, they called the police.

As the search continued, Stephen’s brother Michael drove to his mother’s house, within walking distance of the Valiante home. When Tiffany wasn’t there, Michael continued driving, eventually crossing a railroad track and noticing police activity.

After speaking with a New Jersey Transit police officer, Michael learned that a woman had been hit and killed by a train around 11:12 p.m. When he inquired about Tiffany, authorities said they believed it was her based on his description, and he was able to identify her body. She was wearing only a sports bra and underwear at the time.

“What I saw that night, no one needs to see that. It was probably one of the most horrific things I’ve seen, being struck by a train,” Michael said on Unsolved Mysteries.

Around 2:30 a.m., he broke the news to Tiffany’s parents that she had died.

Was Tiffany Valiante’s death ruled a suicide or murder?

The location where Tiffany’s body was hit by an oncoming train.Netflix© 2022

A few days after Tiffany’s death, it was ruled that she had died by suicide.

According to family advocate Stephan M. Rosenfeld, who spoke in the Unsolved Mysteries episode, New Jersey Transit conducted the initial investigation, which didn’t include a complete autopsy. No testing for sexual assault was performed, and Tiffany’s DNA and organs were not examined either. The report also indicated no one spoke to Tiffany’s family, friends or doctors.

While Tiffany’s family accepted that their daughter had died by suicide and cremated her body, they still had looming questions. To their knowledge, she was not depressed nor emotionally unstable. Just the night before her death, Tiffany had posted online that she was “content” with life.

According to Dianne and Stephen, Tiffany was excited about college and her future.

“My daughter wasn’t depressed. She wasn’t suicidal. Tiffy was happy,” Dianne said on Unsolved Mysteries. “She was making plans to go to college. She was making plans with her roommate. She was making plans to play softball that Wednesday. She had plans to go to Great Adventure the next morning with friends.”

On top of that, Tiffany was sober at the time of the incident. She had no drugs or alcohol in her system that could have impacted her decision-making.

Her parents also say she dealt with nyctophobia — a debilitating fear of the dark — which made it unlikely that she would venture so far alone in the dark.

What mistakes were made during the investigation into Tiffany Valiante’s death?

Tiffany Valiante with her parents, Stephen and Dianne Valiante.Netflix© 2022

The Valiante family continues to have unanswered questions about Tiffany’s death, with them pointing toward errors in judgment of authorities and investigators.

Notably, the location where she was killed was not treated as a crime scene and potential evidence was contaminated.

“The area where this whole event took place was not treated as a crime scene. People were walking all around there, and it had not been roped off appropriately,” D’Amato said on Unsolved Mysteries.

The day after Tiffany was found, Michael and his son returned to the train tracks to find anything left behind. The pair came across pieces of Tiffany’s bones and jewelry she had been wearing.

“Walking to the tracks, I see bloody rubber gloves laying on the ground. That scene’s already contaminated. It wasn’t even roped off. New Jersey Transit … they’re not trained for that and they didn’t do a good job cleaning the tracks,” Tiffany’s cousin Robert Valiante Jr. said on Unsolved Mysteries.

Additionally, evidence was mishandled. While walking in their neighborhood, Dianne discovered Tiffany’s headband and shoes neatly placed on the side of the road, about two miles from where she was struck by the train. Nearby was a sweatshirt and a key chain that did not belong to Tiffany.

Dianne immediately contacted the police, and soon after, she and Stephen were interviewed for the first time. Authorities collected the belongings from the side of the road for analysis, but they misplaced the keychain before it could be looked into, per The Daily Beast.

Along with the missing keychain, an axe with “red markings” found near the crash site went missing before testing could be conducted.

According to The Daily Beast, when Tiffany’s shirt was found, it was stuffed into a plastic bag and tied with a knot, leaving it “covered with mold.” Other items were left outside for a few weeks before being collected. When Tiffany’s family sought a private lab to conduct DNA testing years after her death, most evidence was deemed scientifically useless.

Apart from evidence, some of the most important testimonies in the case were also deemed useless during the investigation. When the train’s conductors — supervising engineer Wayne Daniels and apprentice engineer Marvin Olivares — were interviewed, they gave different versions of events several times.

What are the theories behind Tiffany Valiante’s death?

The gravestone of Tiffany Valiante.Netflix© 2022

Since Tiffany’s death, her family and their team of investigators have theorized that she was the victim of foul play.

They believe Tiffany may have been lured into a car with someone at the end of their driveway. In footage from their deer camera, she can be seen walking away from the house. The possibility that she was taken somewhere in a vehicle could explain why no one saw her on the road.

Tiffany’s family also believes that Tiffany may have been harmed, and her body was placed on the track to cover up any crime. Some evidence points to this theory; the way Tiffany’s body was impacted by the train makes it appear like she could have been lying down.

According to photographs taken by the New Jersey Transit Police Department, there also appeared to be a pool of blood at the point on the tracks where Tiffany was hit, suggesting she may have been there for some time before the crash.

While no one has come forward with information about their involvement in Tiffany’s death, the Valiante family has continued to search for answers.

In 2017, authorities agreed to reevaluate the initial medical examiner’s findings but have upheld the suicide determination. The Valiantes’ lawyer has also taken New Jersey Transit to court several times to obtain investigative records, but has not yet obtained all the paperwork, per The Daily Beast.

Currently, the family is still trying to have Tiffany’s case reopened and her cause of death changed from suicide, according to a Change.org petition.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health challenges, emotional distress, substance use problems, or just needs to talk, call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org 24/7.