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ashley.com today thank you [Music] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
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you are whatever you're doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me
00:01:18
as always is a man who waves to you all with the arms of a mountain here is the captain it's gonna be seen and good to
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see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend [Music] this week in the garage we are very
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happy to be featuring Jewels By The Good folks over at Canned Heat Craft Beer Company Jules is an n-e-i-p-a a more
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forward hazy New England IPA this has a good amount of oranges to smooth out the
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bitterness and with some grapefruit just adding to the fullness of this delicious
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beer garage grade 4 at a five bottle caps and let's give some praise and thanks to our friends for helping us
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fill up the fridge this week first up a shout out to Caroline Smith from the North Georgia Mountains and last but
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certainly not least we have Jill H in Dighton Massachusetts everybody we mentioned they went to truecrime
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garage.com clicked on the Pint glass helped us out with this week's beer running for that we thank you yeah BW
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double are you in beer run if you need more True Crime garage for your ear balls subscribe to us on Apple podcast
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or look us up on patreon and we want to thank you so much for keeping the lights
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on and keeping beer in the fridge and that's enough of the business all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab
00:02:45
a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] run it for every mystery there is some
00:03:04
somewhere who knows the truth perhaps that someone was watching perhaps it's you
00:03:10
join me watch close perhaps you may be able to help solve the Mysteries in Late July
00:03:22
2015. in the obituary section of the Atlantic County record there is a picture it was sure to catch everyone's eye
00:03:34
the picture was of a young woman smiling bright with long dark hair cascading down her
00:03:40
shoulders holding a single light-colored Rose the picture didn't stand out from the
00:03:49
others featured on page A6 simply because of the beauty of this young woman or the charm in her eyes
00:03:58
but the picture mostly stood out because the woman in the picture was so much younger than the others
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featured in this section most of them three times if not close to four times her senior
00:04:14
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
00:04:23
beautiful young woman ended up on the same page as a few men in their 60s a couple of ladies in their 70s
00:04:31
and even Clyde Bud Irwin Jr who had passed away peacefully at his home at the age of 80.
00:04:40
the young vibrant woman was Tiffany Valente and she was just 18. those who knew her
00:04:47
best called her by her shortened nicknames of Tiff and TT [Music] she was from Mays Landing New Jersey
00:04:57
an unincorporated community that would more than double its population from 2010 to 2020.
00:05:04
going from just a little over 2 000 citizens to Upward of five thousand this newspaper
00:05:12
was from 2015. and it stated that Tiffany passed away tragically on July 12th the medical examiner ruled her death
00:05:23
a suicide the Press of Atlantic City paper could not have posed the question any better
00:05:31
when they asked why would an 18 year old recent graduate of the Mays Landing school with a
00:05:40
volleyball scholarship waiting for her in the fall and the world seemingly at her
00:05:45
fingertips decide to take her own life to which one could only stop to think my now that is a good question
00:05:57
[Music] but later after that tragic night evidence would be brought into the light
00:06:04
that might make one think that a different manner of death should be further examined
00:06:10
because the mysteries of that night seem to still be hidden away in the dark which can only make us Wonder
00:06:19
that the experts get this right or perhaps did they get it so terribly wrong this
00:06:29
True Crime garage [Music] Tiffany Valente was a 2015 Oakcrest high school graduate she was going to attend
00:06:54
Mercy College on a volleyball scholarship Tiffany's love for sports included softball and volleyball and from my
00:07:03
understanding here Captain she was quite good at softball playing both on school
00:07:08
teams as well as travel and Club teams but then one day she picks up a volleyball and her love for sport
00:07:17
changed from softball to volleyball and she excelled almost immediately at volleyball well she was definitely
00:07:25
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
00:07:33
became her passion very quickly she was a middle hitter she played for Oakcrest high school and East Coast Crush Club
00:07:41
volleyball she was first team all Cal as well as ranked eighth in the state for number of volleyball kills in one
00:07:53
High School season she had 279 kills and 39 blocks her charm and her appeal certainly went
00:08:03
beyond the volleyball court and she was well liked she was popular unfortunately
00:08:09
she dies tragically in July of 2015 and there's much debate about her death it was ruled a suicide but there are
00:08:20
others that say not so fast we need to further examine and possibly amend the manner of death for this young woman and
00:08:30
if you amend that manner of death then that opens up a whole another line of questioning that could involve a foul
00:08:38
play investigation when she passed away Captain she was survived by her father and mother this
00:08:46
is Stephen and Diane along with their dog the family dog Tucker she did have two older sisters this was from Diane's
00:08:54
previous marriage and from my understanding Captain the older sisters were quite a bit older than Tiffany at
00:09:02
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
00:09:10
two half sisters she's basically an only child living with her parents and the dog and the parents were together and it
00:09:18
didn't seem like there was a a lot wrong with that relationship well we have her
00:09:23
sisters who are now grown they are married they have children of their own so yes she is kind of in this only child
00:09:30
situation and she's also a very cool aunt for her nieces and nephews now they lived in Mays Landing New Jersey and in
00:09:40
two thousand and 10. this is a rural area of New Jersey it's west of Atlantic City
00:09:48
and there's only a little more than 2100 people living there in 2010. by 2020 that population would more than double
00:09:57
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
00:10:07
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
00:10:16
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
00:10:22
and family and many others have been shouting from the mountaintops ever since July of 2015. another sad note
00:10:31
here too is regardless if this was a suicide or Foul Play we're sitting here talking about an
00:10:39
obituary for an 18 year old woman when less than three months earlier just less than three months prior
00:10:48
on April 29th this was Signing Day this is when she decided and chose and made it official her choice of college
00:10:56
because she was offered five scholarships to play volleyball and she chose Mercy College and on that
00:11:04
day April 29th she's featured in the newspaper this beautiful colored photograph of her with coaches and
00:11:13
faculty standing behind her as she's signing her commitment letter to Mercy College
00:11:20
so I understand look we all most of us have very highs and can have very lows as well but it's
00:11:29
it's very troubling to when putting together this week's episode and doing the research seeing this bright
00:11:37
beautiful young woman with the world at her feet on Signing Day smiling ear to ear and then less than three months
00:11:46
later she's going to be tragically killed well anybody that has dealt with depression or continues to deal with
00:11:53
depression knows that sometimes the hardest thing is to keep putting on the front that everything is okay yeah and
00:12:00
we're going to get conflicting reports here too we'll have some of her friends or people that knew her I I
00:12:08
I step lightly when I call these individuals friends because these were her peers but I I don't know for a fact
00:12:14
that they were in fact friends but we do have some of her peers that did believe
00:12:19
that she was depressed leading up to her death and then you have her family and others
00:12:25
saying the exact opposite know that she wasn't depressed at all well we also choose who we put the face on for right
00:12:31
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
00:12:40
gonna have Tiffany attending a graduation party this is a graduation party for her
00:12:46
cousin and it's at her uncle's house who lives across the street from her own house so the Party begins in that
00:12:55
afternoon and continues into the night with friends and family celebrating throughout the day in the evening we
00:13:01
need to keep in mind here too the relationship of the person hosting this party so of course
00:13:08
Tiffany's parents are there as well and this will be other classmates of Tiffany's there at this party as well so
00:13:15
a lot of people that know her are at this party and has said it's her cousin's graduation party just across
00:13:22
the street from her own that's going to lead us to a little bit later into the evening
00:13:29
and this is when one of Tiffany's friends this is a close friend of Tiffany's calls Tiffany's parents
00:13:38
Steve and Diane in some of the reports most of the reports in fact the states an unnamed friend calls Tiffany's mother
00:13:46
and father and they want to speak with them not with Tiffany and they're asking hey could you meet us
00:13:56
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
00:14:02
no problems right we will most certainly meet you they have something that they want to discuss with Tiffany's parents
00:14:09
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
00:14:14
over to talk to you you're probably thinking that this is pretty serious now I believe that this
00:14:20
conversation goes down just a little after 9 00 PM yeah and this is a weird conversation and I do want to clarify
00:14:29
here that there's going to be a dispute a money dispute so the friend and the friend's mother
00:14:36
they're telling Tiffany and her mother the day before Tiffany used the daughter's credit card her friend's
00:14:46
credit card for unauthorized purchases now for many of the sources don't State the dollar amount that was of concern
00:14:55
some state that it was three hundred dollars further digging I can confirm that the actual dollar amount in
00:15:02
question was 86 dollars right so not not a huge amount of money right and so what
00:15:09
happens here is the short of it is when confronted in front of her mother Tiffany says no I
00:15:17
don't I don't know what you're talking about she denies using her friend's credit card to make any of these
00:15:23
purchases then the mother and her friend leave the Valente residence and shortly
00:15:31
afterward Tiffany and her mother Diane are discussing the situation and at that time Tiffany does fess up
00:15:39
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
00:15:46
also why did you lie to us but it's reasonable why she would lie she was probably a little embarrassed but like
00:15:53
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
00:16:01
they could they could pay the amount back you know they could go on being friends
00:16:06
Tiffany could apologize and maybe she'd be in trouble and she'd have to pay the money back to her
00:16:13
parents and look I give her a little credit she did come clean in the end yes but again it's reasonable that when
00:16:22
she's confronted with all these people and especially around her father maybe she just felt embarrassed this
00:16:29
discussion and the using of her friend's credit card is going to lead to an additional argument between mother and
00:16:37
daughter and Tiffany's reaction to this argument look she's probably quite stressed out at this
00:16:45
point she's been confronted by her friend and her friend's mother and as you said and rightfully so
00:16:51
embarrassed about the situation then she gets into it with Mom probably hope that
00:16:56
hey when I came clean to Mom that that would be the end of it and we could move on
00:17:01
she storms off after this argument and there is some speculation as to why Tiffany actually left but when we say
00:17:10
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
00:17:18
is a rural area and she decides that she's going to walk down the road she's getting out of there
00:17:26
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
00:17:34
vehicle right and she chose to go walking instead and I'm sure her parents thought that this was a little weird but
00:17:41
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
00:17:47
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
00:17:54
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
00:17:59
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
00:18:04
parents thought was going on at the time there's been some reports that they have
00:18:10
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
00:18:15
the phone for a while they were a little surprised that she decided to walk and leave on foot
00:18:20
because both of them have stated that Tiffany was afraid of the dark and these are roads captain that don't have street
00:18:30
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
00:18:37
time you're going to have any light maybe you turn on the flashlight feature on your cell phone or would be from when
00:18:44
a car would pass by you would see the headlights right but other than that she's going to be walking alone in the
00:18:51
dark so she leaves the house around 9 30 they do have her on a camera that was on
00:18:59
the house yeah the father her father Stephen has a deer camera set up I believe it's near the edge of their
00:19:09
property toward the front and this camera captures her walking by and in my notes Here Captain I I have
00:19:19
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
00:19:30
set the clock yourself so I don't know if that is to the minute how exact that is right but
00:19:38
the other thing that was interesting to me too is that the trail cam also lists the temperature at that time of night
00:19:46
and it was in the upper 60s so it's still warm out but she's leaving in the picture you can see
00:19:58
her she's wearing some tiny shoes which from my understanding were brand new shoes that she might have even been
00:20:03
wearing them for the first day and she's wearing some pretty short white shorts or light colored shorts
00:20:11
with a dark t-shirt that's not particularly big and a large light colored headband
00:20:20
holding her hair up and I'm using headband for the lack of a better term there somebody out there will know what
00:20:26
to call these things but you can see her walking on this trail cam and it's it's
00:20:32
a still picture so she is actually turned and looking to her left and I believe it's very hard to tell
00:20:41
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
00:20:50
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
00:20:55
on social media her parents would eventually go out and start looking for her remember that trail cam
00:21:04
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
00:21:11
accurate because all reports all sources say that she was storming off on her walk around 9 30.
00:21:19
her parents will eventually go out looking for her now the first sign of trouble for Mom and Dad Captain is going
00:21:26
to be around the 11 o'clock hour this is when her father Steve finds Tiffany's cell phone
00:21:35
and this is near the end of their driveway so very close it's it's it's on their
00:21:42
property or very nearby their property and of course when you find a teenager's cell phone an 18 year old cell phone you
00:21:52
are immediately concerned this should be on her person and as Dad points out he States in an interview she was on
00:22:02
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
00:22:12
you compound that idea with it she has this fear of the dark some even describe it as an intense fear
00:22:22
of the dark now Mom and Dad are really concerned there it's not just oh Tiffany went out
00:22:28
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
00:22:35
over this uh Tiffany's friend contacts his parents says we need to talk to you about something
00:22:41
they sit down with Tiffany and her parents and say hey look she she used my credit card for these items Tiffany
00:22:48
denies it and then when her friend leaves she then confesses to her mom her mom has given her a lecture where
00:22:56
When Tiffany gets up and leaves she leaves their property by foot around 9 30. and uh about 11 30 once the parents
00:23:06
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
00:23:13
at the edge of the property they go if something's not right and they call in a missing person report
00:23:20
yeah they officially file a missing person's Report with the local police department there and on top of that now
00:23:28
we do have some extended family helping in the search for Tiffany as well and we're going to have to fast forward here
00:23:36
Captain almost exactly three hours and this is when Tiffany's parents get the very sad tragic and unfortunate news
00:23:49
that their daughter is dead and not only has something happened to her she was struck and killed by a train and her
00:23:58
body was dismembered approximately four miles from the family's home around 11 15.
00:24:06
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
00:24:21
Tiffany he's helping in the search and he gets to the train tracks again four miles approximately from the
00:24:29
family's home the Valenti home he goes over because he sees cop cars he sees emergency lights and something is
00:24:38
going on on the train tracks so he goes over to see what's going on to which one of the officers there tell
00:24:46
him somebody was hit by a train and we believe you know we're still trying to sort this
00:24:52
out but we believe it was a young female adult and after some time they figure out that
00:24:59
it was the missing teenager and they tell the uncle we need you to get in our car
00:25:07
we're going to have to go to Tiffany's parents home and notify them that she's been killed
00:25:15
that she's been hit by the train on it [Music] Wisconsin is no stranger to high profile
00:25:31
cases and horrific murderers from the notorious Jeffrey Dahmer to the perplexing Ed Gein but on a cold night
00:25:38
in February of 2022 a new name was added to the list of Wisconsin's worst Taylor
00:25:44
Show Business from the onset the details of the case shocked even the most hardened detectives and traumatized
00:25:51
young rookies using law and crime networks gavel to gavel coverage severed Affair provides an in-depth Narrative of
00:26:01
the disturbing case the law and crime original podcast uses exclusive audio and Court footage to piece together the
00:26:09
gruesome story you can listen to severed Affair exclusively and AD free on wondery plus join wondering Plus in the
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wondering app or on Apple podcast check out severed Affair by our friends from the law and crime Network
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garage today [Music] all right we are back onwards and upwards cheers to you Colonel cheers to
00:27:41
all the beautiful listeners cheers to all the people in the back tall cans in the air
00:27:50
now when we left off Captain we have the Valenti family getting the unfortunate news that their daughter was struck and
00:27:58
killed by the train and they're getting this news at 2 30 a.m now what they will later be told is
00:28:07
further detail that sometime after 11 pm and I say that because there is a bit of
00:28:16
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
00:28:29
only talking about the difference of eight or nine minutes here so early after the 11 o'clock hour early
00:28:39
into the 11 o'clock hour Tiffany is struck and hit by the train and what we will learn is a student
00:28:46
engineer operating a Southbound New Jersey Transit train so this is a commuter train
00:28:52
they're running these trains all the time and I believe there was a approximately 60 passengers
00:28:57
on this train now it's late at night this train is heading from Philadelphia to Atlantic City
00:29:06
and they report that they fatally struck a pedestrian which they will refer to as
00:29:13
a trespasser because you're not supposed to be on the tracks they hit this pedestrian
00:29:21
as the train is approaching the mile marker number 45. and this student engineer is being
00:29:30
supervised by an experienced engineer at the time they they both have the same story
00:29:40
and their story is the train was traveling at approximately 80 miles per hour of speed
00:29:45
and the engineer states that the individual the trespasser dove in front of the train from an east to west
00:29:53
Direction and again this was around 11 15 that night now it's later confirmed that the
00:30:03
person that was hit or run over because that's the debate here and we'll get into those details
00:30:10
very soon because there's there's really good arguments to suggest that this is not what it
00:30:18
looks like or not what is stated in the early reports but what we do know is our victim here
00:30:27
suffered multiple traumatic injuries especially to the Head area the limbs had been severed the feet had been
00:30:36
severed some reports State uh cut from the body other reports stayed ripped from the body
00:30:46
and some of the items that should have been found with Tiffany either were not found
00:30:52
or they were not reported to be found now there are a couple items that we know that that were not found at the
00:30:58
scene but it could be both right a couple of items that were not found at all that
00:31:04
should have been there should have been present with Tiffany and then there were some items that may
00:31:10
have been found but not recorded in the documents citing this tragic event well like you
00:31:18
said the two workers on the train report the same thing we don't know if that was them trying to
00:31:25
cover their tracks no pun intended but you also wonder is there a possibility that she was just walking
00:31:35
too close she gets hit by the train and it kind of throws her body into this this motion of where it looks
00:31:44
like maybe she dove in front of the train but it was just because she was too close to the train itself and got
00:31:51
hit if that makes any sense it does make sense I just don't know why anybody would
00:31:56
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
00:32:04
do here is review all of the information and see if we can possibly have an opinion as to what took place because
00:32:10
that said this is uh uh hotly debated item and topic and right I think rightfully so now as far
00:32:19
as the the manner of death ruling and labeling it a suicide the jury's out a little bit uh as to
00:32:28
when that ruling came about I have seen an interview with the mother with Diane with Tiffany's mother who says that look
00:32:38
the the authorities ruled this a suicide less than 24 hours after she was struck
00:32:43
by the train or run over by the train and there are other reports that indicate that it wasn't official until July until
00:32:52
July 18th so keep in mind late on July 12th she struck by the the Train on July 13th
00:33:02
is when they get it sorted out to the point of identifying the person who was hit and notifying the family
00:33:09
and so what I think here is oftentimes there's a little bit of checks and balances at the very least you should
00:33:16
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
00:33:24
have anybody telling different stories here I think all of it could be true it could be that the
00:33:31
the early investigation quickly determined or believed that what they were seeing is a suicide and then they
00:33:39
took a few days to officially call it a suicide because we're talking about the the ruling being July 18th at the very
00:33:47
latest I've seen some reports July 14th July 17th but we know that by the 18th for sure that it was ruled a
00:33:58
suicide now we talked about a couple of items that were missing from the scene of of of the train incident at mile
00:34:07
marker 45. and one of those items is an item that we talked about earlier her shoes
00:34:14
this is very bizarre but oh July 27th so 15 days after the incident Tiffany's mother finds her Tiffany's
00:34:30
shoes and headband she's walking and this would be about a mile from their home the shoes are clean the headband is
00:34:40
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
00:34:46
if Foul Play was involved whoever is responsible for the foul play did not take these shoes in headband
00:34:55
from the scene uh the train scene at mile marker 45. after the fact and then move them
00:35:04
so what you're looking at here Captain you really have two options with these shoes in the headband either Tiffany
00:35:12
decided to storm off and commit suicide and along the way she chose to drop her cell phone
00:35:20
near her family's home she walked about a mile from her home and then decided to discard her shoes
00:35:26
and her headband and then walked another two and a half miles approximately to where
00:35:34
she decided she was going to dive in front of the train as as the engineer stated in his report
00:35:43
one troubling Factor here is the route that she would have taken doesn't make a whole lot of sense if this was planned
00:35:51
by Tiffany or if she knew what she was going to do maybe she was completely hysterical and and her actions don't
00:35:58
hold any logic that would stand a reason but the other thing too is the fact that if she did
00:36:06
discard her shoes and decide to toss them and then keep on walking the train track area themselves
00:36:16
this is rough terrain we're talking about sharp rocks we're talking about Broken Glass we're talking about even if
00:36:23
you're walking on the railroad ties this is old wood and one thing that many have stated is
00:36:31
there's not evidence to suggest that she walked that distance without any shoes on but these items
00:36:39
were found in her neighborhood so one wonders was she going to continue her walk just a little further and then come
00:36:47
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
00:36:53
determination that she discarded these items and then walked close to three miles
00:37:00
from where these items were found to where she was struck by the train at mile marker 45 right
00:37:08
now what we're going to have here Captain very early on is as stated this is going to be disputed
00:37:16
the manner of death here is going to be disputed so the family wants the ruling to be an
00:37:23
indetermined death or suspicious death they believe that Foul Play likely occurred here and that's the only reason
00:37:31
why she was run over or struck by the train and then others in the media would share some of the same opinion
00:37:42
and so here's a couple of headlines from online articles that we found one says did 18 year old Tiffany Valente who was
00:37:51
terrified of the Dark Walk four miles at night without shoes to throw herself in
00:37:56
front of a train the other another headline here Captain was High School Grand being chased
00:38:03
before Grizzly trained death here's another one this one from w-h-y-y says family of New Jersey teen
00:38:12
killed by train disputes suicide ruling sues to to prove kidnap murder plot and finally from The Daily Mail family
00:38:23
of teen hit and killed by a train in 2015 say she may have been kidnapped and her death was wrongly ruled a suicide
00:38:33
and again citing that a law a lawsuit was being filed this lawsuit would not be officially
00:38:41
filed until the following year into into 2016. this is after the family hired um Paul diamatto as an attorney to
00:38:51
represent them and this case was featured on the some of the more recent episodes of
00:39:00
Unsolved Mysteries and Paul diamatto the attorney for the family was interviewed for this episode
00:39:08
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
00:39:19
he says look I thought here's here's look there's this horrible tragedy the family is in total shock
00:39:26
about what has happened and that he thought look you don't need to pay me a bunch of money what I'm
00:39:34
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
00:39:40
thought he says that I thought going into this I'm just gonna have to go get these official reports and then sit down
00:39:46
with the family and deliver them the news that they don't want to hear that yes in fact your daughter did commit
00:39:51
suicide and I've gone through all the reports and I can share them with you well he gets the official reports he
00:39:58
starts looking through them and he says look there might be something more here there's this doesn't seem quite right
00:40:05
there's a few things that are awfully sketchy about the details of that night and he says in his opinion that he think
00:40:13
it thinks it was a bit of a rush to judgment by the transit authority so it's the
00:40:19
Transit Police that are investigating this and we do have several individuals on that Unsolved Mysteries episode that
00:40:26
stay look we've got a lot of respect for the Transit Police there this is a large outfit too and
00:40:35
they say look they're very good at their jobs they're very good at what they do however they do not investigate hardly
00:40:42
any homicides it's very few and far between and frankly not a whole lot of accidents
00:40:48
either so there are some that have questioned if they have the if they're capable
00:40:55
of handling such an investigation and some even questioning the crime scene or the scene of the incident itself
00:41:02
if evidence was collected properly and if the one could make a good determination or good ruling based off
00:41:10
of that evidence that was found at the scene well because we know that she's very
00:41:16
upset and it's not again out of the realm of possibility that somebody is walking and doesn't
00:41:22
understand how close they actually are to the train that's coming right and as traveling as said according
00:41:32
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
00:41:40
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
00:41:48
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
00:41:58
situations here this is this is a suicide or there's Foul Play involved because the only way that you could
00:42:06
Loosely call this an accident is if somebody was chasing her or pushed her as some kind of prank
00:42:14
and then this happens but that is that then doesn't become that takes away the whole accident idea that means Foul Play
00:42:23
No I agree and disagree though because I don't know again what does the front of
00:42:30
the train look like is there a possibility that she would have been hit by something that would then thrown her
00:42:36
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
00:42:44
I'm not a train expert but but the train is traveling with lights on it and it's
00:42:50
blaring its horn you either want to be struck by the train or something caused you to be struck by the
00:42:58
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
00:43:05
seen of like where a vehicle Clips a person and then the person kind of instead of being clipped and thrown into
00:43:13
the grass or thrown to the side that their body actually gets thrown towards the center of the car
00:43:20
and so again I don't know what the van uh the the visuals of these individuals were either
00:43:28
and you you see what I'm saying like you I think there is a possibility that she is clipped by something that then
00:43:38
from their vantage point it looks as if the individual jumped in front of the the
00:43:45
tracks I think you the situation is this either she jumps in front of the tracks or
00:43:53
jumps in front of the train or she's lying on the tracks when the train hits her
00:43:59
yeah or like you said I mean is there a possibility that that she uh because this is not out there with
00:44:07
somebody and somebody pushed her right and we need to be clear here too for for people that have not seen the episode or
00:44:12
are unfamiliar with this case mile marker 45 is not like at an intersection with a road or anything or
00:44:21
at a Crossing or anything like that right this is out in the middle of the Woods
00:44:26
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
00:44:34
blaring its horn in fact according to the records they were blaring the horn because of a
00:44:43
Crossing that took place uh not terribly far from where she was struck but but far enough away that it
00:44:52
that she's not at this part of the train tracks because she happens to be Crossing because there's a road there
00:45:00
again this is out in the out in the woods and on uh the Unsolved Mysteries episode you will see an investigator who
00:45:08
is driving he has to go up a road and then drive down along the rocks for a long period of
00:45:16
time before he can get to mile marker 45 right now when the episode ends they do present a
00:45:26
good amount of material that would suggest that maybe something else took place here again you
00:45:32
have to call into question the cell phone the finding of the cell phone the location of that cell phone and where it
00:45:38
was found the finding of her shoes and the headband are much more important in my opinion
00:45:44
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
00:45:51
to go off and harm herself it's the shoes that I call into question I think I I think it would be incredibly
00:46:00
difficult the way that it is explained to us for one to dump their shoes and then
00:46:06
walk two and a half to three miles and some of it in some pretty rough terrain again sharp rocks broken glass
00:46:16
splinters from the wood in an area where she can't see can't pay good attention to her footing
00:46:23
and we understand and we've gone through some of the trauma some of the destruction of her
00:46:31
body due to due to the incident the nature of the incident right but one thing that we are able to view and see
00:46:40
is the bottom of her feet which don't show they don't show feet that are all cut up on the bottom either
00:46:48
she she hovered her way or somebody helped her to to that spot that those are the only things that
00:46:57
would stand to make scientific sense to me based off of looking at the bottom of
00:47:02
her feet and then knowing that to get there on foot to get there herself by herself she would have had to have
00:47:10
tossed her shoes and walked that great of a distance to get there now mind you we don't have anybody
00:47:16
coming forward saying yeah we we gave her a ride she was distraught she was upset we gave her a ride and dropped her
00:47:21
off near the train tracks right there's nobody saying that we have no eight years later she's
00:47:27
impaired in any way in fact she's not impaired we we know that because of the toxicology that's done right no alcohol
00:47:34
or drugs were found in her system and that further calls into question the uh well maybe she wasn't thinking
00:47:42
clearly and she was hysterical and decided to throw herself in front of the train
00:47:47
well there's been experts smarter than I that have said well once they determine
00:47:53
through the toxicology that there was no alcohol or drugs in her system you really got a call into question that
00:47:59
manner of death ruling yeah and we don't have any evidence that I mean we have some people saying or speculating that
00:48:07
she could have been depressed do we have any evidence that that she had any type of manic episodes
00:48:14
[Music] well we're going to get into that so we what I want to go through first is
00:48:21
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
00:48:28
can make a determination based off of what I saw in Unsolved Mysteries I don't know if I have enough of the information
00:48:35
to have an opinion did she take her own life or did something happen to her something
00:48:41
much more sinister and so following up from once that episode was released it was it was
00:48:51
volume three of Unsolved Mysteries on Netflix and the title of the episode is Mystery at mile marker 45. now
00:49:03
here's an article from screenrant.com and what they are talking about here is what did Unsolved Mysteries leave out of
00:49:15
the episode and so we present this to you and let you make the determination because some
00:49:23
of these items May Point toward Foul Play and some of them May Point toward the official ruling
00:49:30
now one thing that they're quick to state in this article is that the Transit Police investigators may have
00:49:37
lost a potential murder weapon and this is according to nj.com in 2022 they stated that an ax
00:49:51
that was covered with red markings was found near the site where Tiffany Valenti's body was found
00:49:58
and once this ax was found Tiffany's family or they find out that the ax was found Tiffany's family and friends hope
00:50:06
that forensic analysis of this item might prove that the red markings were blood and then that blood might even
00:50:12
match Tiffany's DNA right but unfortunately somehow this item goes missing while in storage before it could
00:50:22
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
00:50:28
this a good deal when we talk about murders that take place Outdoors the complications of the crime scene for
00:50:36
investigators is that it's not a controlled area so any and every item that you find in
00:50:44
close proximity to your victim or the trail that your victim traveled you need to collect all of that stuff
00:50:54
and then the problem then becomes for the experts and for detectives and investigators
00:51:00
how do I determine is there anything on this item to indicate to me that it's connected to the actual crime because
00:51:08
when you have an uncontrolled scene especially in a park setting or here a railroad track
00:51:16
you could have cigarette butts soda cans any type of debris that may just be there because it was discarded
00:51:28
well before the incident even took place yeah items at the scene because of happenstance yeah this item this acts
00:51:36
let's say for instance could have been left there at this scene for no reasons connected to this case could have been
00:51:44
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
00:51:53
the model uh make and model of the ax and I found this to be rather interesting here Captain because
00:52:06
it is of a newer make right so she's killed in 2015. I actually happen to have this same make
00:52:15
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
00:52:23
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
00:52:31
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
00:52:38
unable to determine what year that model was first being sold but I can say this
00:52:44
based off of my own experience it is a newer item so yeah they could mean this this wasn't
00:52:52
late or not mean something exactly but what I'm pointing what I'm trying to point out here Captain is I can with
00:52:59
every bit of confidence say to you that item was not laying there since 1985. it
00:53:04
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
00:53:14
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
00:53:24
the scene of where her body was recovered and that it was stored by law enforcement but then it goes
00:53:33
missing I can say with a lot of confidence that that item if it if it's not directly
00:53:41
connected to the crime it didn't end up there too long before this incident but what other items does
00:53:48
this article say that Unsolved Mysteries left out well a lot of these items Captain are I think suggestive that
00:53:55
maybe the suicide ruling was correct and they're painting us a little bit of a picture here and I want everybody to
00:54:01
take this information on their own and form their own opinions but according to this article they're going to talk again
00:54:08
about that credit card situation between Tiffany and her friend so it this is straight from the article
00:54:15
the Tiffany Unsolved Mysteries episode mentions that Tiffany Valente had a fight with a friend on the night of her
00:54:21
death and was accused of using that friend's credit card without permission Tiffany admitted that she was guilty of
00:54:28
the theft to her mother shortly before she disappeared while the episode paints Tiffany as a gifted scholar athlete who
00:54:36
should have known better than to steal this was not the first time Tiffany Valente had stolen from a loved one so
00:54:43
they go on to point out that Tiffany had stolen and I want to be I don't love the way they
00:54:50
word this so The Daily Beast words this in this manner Tiffany Valente had stolen money from her parents bank
00:54:58
account a few months before her death despite this her mother defended Tiffany from her friend's accusations of being a
00:55:06
thief indeed Unsolved Mysteries also doesn't show that the depositions reveal that Tiffany's parents had given her
00:55:13
their credit card nor that her mother specifically cited that as proof that Tiffany had no reason to steal from
00:55:20
anyone okay that paints a certain picture that makes it look like this is a habitual offender
00:55:27
of someone who is stealing from loved ones and constantly getting caught for it and of course we can imagine the
00:55:34
stress that that would put on a young person or a stress or even a fracture in these relationships
00:55:40
but as we do know now it was early reported that the amount in question was three hundred dollars from her friend
00:55:49
but we would learn that the amount the dollar amount was actually 86 dollars and Tiffany has an explanation for this
00:55:58
the explanation she states when she tells her mother yes I did use that my friend's credit card
00:56:05
but it was the day prior and it was because my friend was intoxicated and I was using the credit card to pay
00:56:15
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
00:56:21
don't have the full story there but but that sounds a lot less harmful to their relationship than
00:56:29
someone just straight out stealing a credit card out of someone's purse and using it to
00:56:34
to buy a necklace or something or or charge rack up three hundred dollars worth of charges the other thing too
00:56:40
with the stealing money from her parents bank account okay that's one way to word it
00:56:48
the but my understanding according to what her parents would tell us Tiffany's parents is that they gave
00:56:56
their daughter a credit card for emergencies this is not terribly uncommon and what usually happens when
00:57:03
you give a teenager a credit card for emergencies they typically find excuses to use your
00:57:09
credit card correct well everything becomes an emergency that's right there's new comic books out emergency I
00:57:16
was dying of thirst mom very thirsty I had to buy like 12 Gatorades like a couple cases of beer
00:57:27
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
00:57:33
full of mulch and they start doing yard work like how come that never happens it's
00:57:38
always like oh we were starving to death and I had to take my friends out to dinner
00:57:44
so it doesn't sound so bad when you really review the information this is not child stealing money out of
00:57:54
the bank account of desperate parents no this is they gave her a credit card for emergencies and she irresponsibly
00:58:03
used their credit card to buy something she probably shouldn't have and her parents probably knew that was going to
00:58:09
happen a couple times the other thing with the friend according to Tiffany's mother even though Tiffany denied it in
00:58:17
the face of her friend and her friend's mom Diane Tiffany's mother says that I told
00:58:23
them look I'll talk to Tiffany we'll get this sorted out but no matter what don't
00:58:27
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
00:58:34
deal it's not that big of a deal I mean if they came back and said look she racked up fifteen hundred dollars
00:58:42
then you go oh [ __ ] you know and depending on what their finances were but it seemed like again
00:58:51
seems like a really good family that and that's why too it's like I don't see where this girl
00:59:03
unless she was having other issues that we just don't know about this doesn't make any sense that she
00:59:11
would want to take her own life because of this credit card fraud let's see right
00:59:18
and she could have been having other issues as you pointed out earlier some people were good at putting on a front
00:59:24
putting on a personality in front of all of the people and then behind the scenes
00:59:30
they are miserable they are depressed they are in some in some real trouble and then that's the problem too is
00:59:38
this can happen again anybody that has dealt with depression it's like you could have everything in your life
00:59:47
going right and just not feel okay exactly and so a couple things that might have been going on for this young
00:59:53
woman now one thing that Unsolved Mysteries did point out and did Cover in their episode was
01:00:00
that she had recently ended a relationship or was broken up with it's a little unclear to me who
01:00:08
broke up the relationship that most reports state that it was Mutual but Tiffany did have a a female girl sorry
01:00:18
Tiffany did have a girlfriend and it was a girlfriend that was known to her friends into her family and they
01:00:26
split up the week of Tiffany's death one other item and this was not covered by Unsolved Mysteries was as stated by
01:00:38
this article and here we go I'll read right from the article here Captain another detail
01:00:43
missing from the Unsolved Mysteries Tiffany Valente episode is that the valentis had been suspected of abusing
01:00:50
Tiffany before her death according to medical records obtained by The Daily Beast Child Protective Services CPS
01:00:56
authorities visited the Valente home on at least one occasion and this was in 2014 remember her death occurred in
01:01:06
2015. and this is because of bruises a bruise that was seen on Tiffany's armed by a teacher and
01:01:17
reported by a teacher because this teacher believed that although this young woman's an athlete the the teacher
01:01:25
did not believe and thought that the bruise was inconsistent with a sports related injury
01:01:32
and when CPS caseworkers visited the home the Valente home there was a discussion with the parents and Tiffany
01:01:40
and it was their findings were that Tiffany's mother had punched her in the arm during
01:01:48
the course of a disagreement [Music] for everything True Crime Check out True Crime garage.com join us back here
01:02:08
for this mystery at mile marker 45 until then be good be kind and don't litter thank you
01:02:36
thank you