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subject to credit approval see store or ashley.com for details [Music] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage where you
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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
00:01:36
with the arms of a mountain here is the captain it's good to be seen and good to
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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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very happy to be featuring Jewels By The Good folks over at Canned Heat Craft Beer Company jewels is an
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neipa a more forward hazy New England IPA this has a good amount of oranges to smooth out the bitterness and with some
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grapefruit just adding to the fullness of this delicious beer garage grade 4 out of five bottle caps and let's give
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some praise and thanks to our friends for helping us fill up the fridge this week first up a shout out to Caroline
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Smith from the North Georgia Mountains and last but certainly not least we have Jill h in Dion Massachusetts everybody
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we mentioned they went to True Crim garage.com clicked on the Pint glass helped us out with this week's beer run
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and for that we thank you yeah BW are you in beer run if you need more True Crime garage for your
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earballs subscribe to us on Apple podcast or look us up on patreon and we want to thank you so much for keeping
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the lights on and keeping beer in the fridge and that's enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a
00:03:00
chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime for every Myst there is someone
00:03:20
somewhere who knows the truth perhaps that's someone was watching perhaps it's you join watch closely perhaps perhaps
00:03:30
you may be able to help solve a [Music] mystery in Late July of 2015 in the obituary section of the
00:03:42
Atlantic County record there was a picture that was sure to catch everyone's eye the picture was of a young woman
00:03:52
smiling bright with long dark hair cascading down her shoulders holding a single light light colored
00:04:01
Rose the picture didn't stand out from the others featured on page A6 simply because of the beauty of this young
00:04:10
woman or the charm in her eyes but the picture mostly stood out because the woman in the picture was so much younger
00:04:20
than the others featured in this section most of them three times if not close to four times her
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senior one could not help but to be drawn to this picture and to want to know more to
00:04:36
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
00:04:45
couple of ladies in their 70s and even Clyde Bud irn Jr who had passed away peacefully at his home at the age of
00:04:55
80 the young vibrant woman was Tiffany Valente and she was just 18 those who knew her best called her by her
00:05:05
shortened nicknames of Tiff and TT she was from ma Landing New Jersey an unincorporated community that would more
00:05:16
than double its population from 2010 to 2020 going from just a little over 2,000
00:05:22
citizens to Upward of 5,000 this newspaper was from 2015 and it stated that Tiffany passed
00:05:33
away tragically on July 12th the medical examiner ruled her death a suicide the Press of Atlantic
00:05:42
City paper could not have posed the question any better when they asked why would an 18-year-old recent
00:05:53
graduate of the maze Landing school with the volleyball scholarship waiting for her in the fall and the world seemingly
00:06:01
at her fingertips decide to take her own life to which one could only stop to think
00:06:10
my now that is a good question but later after that tragic night evidence would be brought into the
00:06:19
light that might make one think that a different manner of death should be further
00:06:26
examined because the mysteries of that night seem to still be hidden away in the
00:06:32
dark which can only make us Wonder did the experts get this right or perhaps did they get it so terribly wrong this
00:06:45
is true crime [Music] garage Sol Myst Tiffany Valente was a 2015 oakrest high school graduate she was going to
00:07:09
attend Mercy College on a volleyball scholarship Tiffany's love for sports included softball and volleyball and
00:07:18
from my understanding here Captain she was quite good at softball playing both on school teams as well as travel and
00:07:26
Club teams but then one day she picked up a volleyball and her love for sport changed from softball to volleyball and
00:07:36
she excelled almost immediately at volleyball well she was definitely athletic but it doesn't hurt when you're
00:07:43
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
00:07:51
a middle hitter she played for oakrest high school and East Coast Crush Club volleyball she was first team all
00:08:02
c as well as ranked eighth in the state for number of volleyball kills in one High School season she had 279 kills and
00:08:13
39 blocks her charm and her appeal certainly went beyond the volleyball court and she was well-liked she was
00:08:23
popular unfortunately she dies tragically in July of 2015 and there's much debate about her death it was ruled
00:08:34
a suicide but there are others that say not so fast we need to further examine and possibly amend the manner of death
00:08:44
for this young woman and if you amend that manner of death then that opens up a whole another line of questioning that
00:08:52
could involve a foul play investigation when she passed away Captain she was survived by her father
00:09:00
and mother this is Steven and Diane along with their dog the family dog Tucker she did have two older sisters
00:09:09
this was from Diane's previous marriage and from my understanding Captain the older sisters were quite a bit older
00:09:17
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
00:09:24
and Dad so she has two half sisters she's basically only child living with her parents and the dog and the parents
00:09:33
were together and it didn't seem like there was a a lot wrong with that relationship well we have her sisters
00:09:39
who are now grown they are married they have children of their own so yes she is
00:09:45
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
00:09:54
Landing New Jersey and in 2010 this is a rural area of New Jersey it's west of Atlantic City and there's
00:10:04
only a little more than 2100 people living there in 2010 by 2020 that population would more than
00:10:13
double it's like 5600 people in 2020 so I'm a little uncertain of the population
00:10:20
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
00:10:29
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
00:10:35
suicide at all and in fact that's what her parents and family and many others have been shouting from the mountain
00:10:41
tops ever since July of 2015 another sad note here too is regardless if this was a suicide or Foul
00:10:52
Play we're sitting here talking about an obituary for an 18-year-old woman when Less Than 3 months earlier just Less
00:11:02
Than 3 months prior on April 29th this was Signing Day this is when she decided and chose and made it official her
00:11:11
choice of college because she was offered five scholarships to play volleyball and she chose Mercy College
00:11:19
and on that day April 29th she's featured in the newspaper this beautiful colored photograph of her with coaches
00:11:29
and faculty standing behind her as she's signing her commitment letter to Mercy College so I understand look we all most
00:11:39
of us have very highs and can have very lows as well but it's it's very troubling to when putting together this
00:11:49
week's episode and doing the research seeing this bright beautiful young woman with the world at her feet on Signing
00:11:58
Day smiling ear to ear and then less than three months later she's going to be tragically killed well anybody that
00:12:06
has dealt with depression or continues to deal with depression knows that sometimes the hardest thing is to keep
00:12:13
putting on the front that everything is okay yeah and we're going to get conflicting reports here too we'll have
00:12:19
some of her friends or people that knew her I I I step lightly when I call these
00:12:26
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
00:12:33
have some of her peers that did believe that she was depressed leading up to her
00:12:38
death and then you have her family and others saying the exact opposite know that she wasn't depressed at all well we
00:12:44
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
00:12:52
2015 and on this night like many other people we're going to have Tiffany attending a graduation party party this
00:13:00
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
00:13:09
the Party begins in that afternoon and continues into the night with friends and family celebrating throughout the
00:13:16
day in the evening we need to keep in mind here too the relationship of the person hosting this party so of course
00:13:24
Tiffany's parents are there as well and this will be other class mates of Tiffany's there at this party as well so
00:13:31
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
00:13:38
from her own that's going to lead us to a little bit later into the evening and this is when one of
00:13:48
Tiffany's friends this is a close friend of Tiffany's calls Tiffany's parents Steve
00:13:55
and Diane in some of the reports most of the reports in fact that states an unnamed friend calls Tiffany's mother
00:14:02
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
00:14:12
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
00:14:19
we will most certainly meet you they have something that they want to discuss with Tiffany's parents yeah and if
00:14:26
you're Tiffany's parents and you're getting a call from her friend saying hey I need to bring my mother over to
00:14:31
talk to you you you're probably thinking that this is pretty serious now I believe that this conversation goes down
00:14:38
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
00:14:47
to be a dispute a money dispute so the friend and the friend's mother they're telling Tiffany and her
00:14:55
mother the day before Tiffany used the daughter's credit card her friend's credit card for unauthorized
00:15:05
purchases now for many of the sources don't State the dollar amount that was of concern some state that it was
00:15:13
$300 further digging I can confirm that the actual dollar amount in question was
00:15:19
$86 right so not not a huge amount of money right and so what happens here is the short of it is is when
00:15:30
confronted in front of her mother Tiffany says no I don't I don't know what you're talking about she denies
00:15:36
using her friend's credit card to make any of these purchases then the mother and her friend
00:15:44
leave the Valente residents and shortly afterward Tiffany and her mother Dian are discussing the
00:15:52
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
00:16:00
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
00:16:07
probably a little embarrassed but like you said it's under $100 this is not that big of a deal it's
00:16:15
not like her parents don't have any money they could they could pay the amount back you know they could go on
00:16:21
being friends Tiffany could apologize and maybe she'd be in trouble and she'd have to pay the money back to
00:16:28
her parents and look I give her a little credit she did come clean in the end yes
00:16:34
and again it's reasonable that when she's confronted with all these people and especially around her father maybe
00:16:43
she just felt embarrassed this discussion and the using of her friend's credit card is going to lead to an
00:16:51
additional argument between mother and daughter and Tiffany's reaction to this argument look
00:16:59
she's probably quite stressed out at this point she's been confronted by her friend and her friend's mother and as
00:17:05
you said and rightfully so embarrassed about the situation then she gets into it with Mom probably H that hey when I
00:17:13
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
00:17:20
is some speculation as to why Tiffany actually left but when we say left we mean she's at a Dodge she just she
00:17:30
doesn't just leave the home she walks down their driveway and again this is a rural area and she decides that she's
00:17:37
going to walk down the road she's getting out of there I found it awfully curious that she has a vehicle that is
00:17:47
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
00:17:54
sure her parents thought that this was a little weird but they probably just think look she's going to go off and
00:17:59
blow off some steam and she'll be back in no time at all well I couldn't find this
00:18:04
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
00:18:11
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
00:18:17
to take a walk around the neighborhood yeah and it's unclear too what her parents thought was going on at the time
00:18:23
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
00:18:29
the driveway and call a friend and be on the phone for a while they were a little
00:18:33
surprised that she decided to walk and leave on foot because both of them have stated that Tiffany was afraid of the
00:18:42
dark and these are roads captain that don't have street lights on them so when you decide to go down walking on that
00:18:50
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
00:18:56
flashlight feature on your cell phone or would be from when a car would pass by you would see the headlights right but
00:19:04
other than that she's going to be walking alone in the dark so she leaves the house around
00:19:10
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
00:19:21
set up I believe it's near the edge of their property toward the front and this camera captures her walking by and
00:19:32
in my notes Here Captain I I have listed that the the timestamp on that deer cam
00:19:39
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
00:19:49
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
00:19:57
trail cam also list the temperature at that time of night and it was in the upper 60s so it's still warm out
00:20:10
but she's leaving in the picture you can see her she's wearing some tiny shoes which from my understanding were brand
00:20:18
new shoes that she might have even been wearing them for the first day and she's wearing some pretty short
00:20:24
white shorts or light colored shorts with a dark t-shirt that's not particularly big and a large light
00:20:34
colored headband holding her hair up and I'm using headband for the lack of a better term there somebody out there
00:20:41
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
00:20:49
is actually turned and looking to her left and I believe it's very hard to tell because it's
00:20:58
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
00:21:06
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
00:21:12
media her parents would eventually go out and start looking for her remember that trail cam the time stamp is 928 we
00:21:22
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
00:21:29
sources say that she was storming off on her walk around 9:30 her parents will eventually go out
00:21:37
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
00:21:46
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
00:21:57
their their property or very nearby their property and of course when you find a teenager cell phone an
00:22:06
18-year-old cell phone you are immediately concerned this should be on her person and as Dad points out he States
00:22:16
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
00:22:27
cell phone and then you compound that idea with that she has this fear of the dark some even describe it as an intense
00:22:37
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
00:22:45
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
00:22:53
friend contacts his parents says we need to talk to you about something they sit
00:22:57
down with Tiffany and her parents and say hey look she she used my credit card for these items Tiffany denies it and
00:23:05
then when her friend leaves she then confesses to her mom her mom is giving her a lecture where when Tiffany gets up
00:23:14
and leaves she leaves their property by foot around 9:30 and about 11:30 once the parents
00:23:22
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
00:23:29
at the edge of the property they go something's not right and they call in a missing person
00:23:35
report yeah they officially file a missing person's Report with the local police department there and on top of
00:23:43
that now we do have some extended family helping in the search for Tiffany as well now we're going to have to fast
00:23:51
forward here Captain almost exactly 3 hours and this is when Tiff Tiff's parents get
00:24:00
the very sad tragic and unfortunate news that their daughter is dead and not only has something happened to her she
00:24:11
was struck and killed by a train yeah her body was dismembered approximately four miles from the family's home around
00:24:21
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
00:24:37
for Tiffany he's helping in the search and he gets to the train tracks again four miles approximately from the
00:24:45
family's home the Valente home he goes over because he sees cop cars he sees emergency lights and something is going
00:24:54
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
00:25:04
hit by a train and we believe you know we're still trying to sort this out but we believe it was a
00:25:10
young female adult and after some time they figure out that it was the missing teenager and they tell the uncle we need
00:25:21
you to get in our car we're going to have to go to Tiffany's parents home and notify
00:25:30
them that she's been killed that she's been hit by the [Music] train Wisconsin is no stranger to
00:25:46
high-profile cases and horrific murderers from the notorious Jeffrey dmer to the perplexing Ed Gan but on a
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cold night in February of 2022 a new name was added to the list of Wisconsin's worst Taylor shab business
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from the onset the details of the case shocked even the most hardened detectives and traumatized young rookies
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using law and crime networks gel toog gavel coverage severed Affair provides an in-depth Narrative of the disturbing
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can listen to Affair exclusively and add free on wondery plus join wondery Plus in the wondery app or on Apple podcast
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check out severed Affair by our friends from the law and crime Network this show is sponsored by better
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garage there's no safe like [Music] simplysafe all right we are back onwards and
00:30:00
upwards cheers to you Colonel cheers to all the beautiful listeners cheers to all the people in
00:30:07
the back tall cans in the air now when we left off Captain we have the Valente family getting the
00:30:17
unfortunate news that their daughter was struck and killed by the train and they're getting this news at
00:30:24
2:30 a.m. now what they will later be told is further detail that sometime after 11:00 p.m. and I say
00:30:36
that because there is a bit of a dispute I've seen the time reported differently it's as early as
00:30:46
1107 p.m. and as late as 11:16 so we're really only talking about the difference
00:30:53
of eight or nine minutes here so early after the 11:00 hour early into the 11:00
00:31:03
hour Tiffany is struck and hit by the train and what we will learn is a student engineer operating a Southbound
00:31:11
New Jersey Transit train so this is a commuter train they're running these trains all the time and I believe there
00:31:17
was a approximately 60 passengers on this train now it's late at night this train is heading from
00:31:25
Philadelphia to Atlantic City and they report that they fatally struck a pedestrian which they will
00:31:34
refer to as a trespasser because you're not supposed to be on the tracks they hit this
00:31:43
pedestrian as the train is approaching the mile marker number 45 and this student engineer is being
00:31:52
supervised by an experienced engineer at the time the they both have the same story and their story is the train was
00:32:04
traveling at approximately 80 mph of speed and the engineer states that the individual the trespasser dove in front
00:32:13
of the train from an east to west Direction and again this was around 11:15 that night now it's later
00:32:23
confirmed that the person that was hit or run over because that's the debate here and we'll get into those
00:32:32
details very soon because there's there's really good arguments to suggest that this is not
00:32:39
what it looks like or not what is stated in the early reports but what we do know
00:32:47
is our victim here suffered multiple traumatic injuries especially to the Head area the
00:32:56
limbs had been sever Ed the feet had been severed um some reports State uh cut from the body other reports State
00:33:05
ripped from the body and some of the items that should have been found with Tiffany either were not
00:33:14
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
00:33:20
scene but it could be both right a couple of items that were not found at all that should have been there should
00:33:27
have been present with Tiffany and then there were some items that may have been found but not
00:33:33
recorded in the documents citing this tragic event well like you said the two workers on the
00:33:42
train report the same thing we don't know if that was them trying to cover their tracks no pun
00:33:51
intended but you also wonder is there a possibility that she was just walk walking too close she gets hit by the
00:34:00
train and it kind of throws her body into this this motion of where it looks like maybe she dove in front of the
00:34:08
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
00:34:16
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
00:34:23
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
00:34:29
have an opinion as to what took place because as said this is a a hotly debated item and topic and right I think
00:34:39
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
00:34:50
to when that ruling came about I have seen an interview with the mother with Diane with Tiffany's mother who says
00:34:59
that look the the authorities ruled this as suicide less than 24 hours after she
00:35:04
was struck by the train or run over by the train and there are other reports that
00:35:12
indicate that it wasn't official until July until July 18th so keep in mind late on July
00:35:19
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
00:35:28
was hit and notifying the family and so what I think here is often times there's a little bit of checks and
00:35:36
balances at the very least you should hope and there's certain channels that these rulings need to go through and so
00:35:44
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
00:35:51
could be that the the early investigation quickly determined or believed that what they
00:35:58
were seeing is a suicide and then they took a few days to officially call it a suicide because we're talking about the
00:36:06
the ruling being July 18th at the very latest I've seen some reports July 14th July 17th but we know that by
00:36:16
the 18th for sure that it was ruled a suicide now we talked about a couple of items that were missing from the scene
00:36:26
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
00:36:37
this is very bizarre but oh July 27th so 15 days after the incident Tiff's mother finds her
00:36:52
Tiffany's shoes and headband she's walking and this would be about a mile from their home the shoes
00:37:00
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
00:37:06
items and say if Foul Play was involved whoever is responsible for the foul play did not take these shoes and
00:37:17
headband from the scene uh the train scene at mile marker 45 after the fact and then move them so
00:37:26
what you're looking at here Captain you really have two options with these shoes
00:37:31
and the headband either Tiffany decided to storm off and commit suicide and along the way she chose to
00:37:40
drop her cell phone near her family's home she walked about a mile from her home and then decided to discard her
00:37:48
shoes and her headband and then walked another two and a half miles approximately to where she decided she
00:37:57
was going to dive in front of the train as as the engineer stated in his report one troubling Factor here is the
00:38:09
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
00:38:16
she was going to do maybe she was completely hysterical and and and her actions don't hold any logic that would
00:38:22
stand a reason but the other thing too is the fact that if she did discard her shoes and decide to toss
00:38:31
them and then keep on walking the train track area themselves this is rough terrain we're
00:38:40
talking about sharp rocks we're talk talking about Broken Glass we're talking about even if you're walking on the
00:38:47
railroad ties this is old wood and one thing that many have stated is there's not evidence to suggest
00:38:56
suggest that she walked that distance without any shoes on but these items were found in her neighborhood so one
00:39:04
wonders was she going to continue her walk just a little further and then come back and get her items and then head
00:39:10
home possibly but if we're going to rule this as suicide then we have made the determination that she discarded these
00:39:18
items and then walked close to three miles from where these items were found to where she was struck by the train at
00:39:27
mile marker 45 right now what we're going to have here Captain very early on is as stated this is going to be
00:39:37
disputed the manner of death here is going to be disputed so the family wants the ruling
00:39:44
to be an indetermined death or suspicious death they believe that Foul Play likely occurred here and that's the
00:39:52
only reason why she was run over or struck by the the train and then others in the media would share some of the
00:40:01
same opinion and so here's a couple of headlines from online articles that we found one says did 18-year-old Tiffany
00:40:12
Valente who was terrified of the Dark Walk four miles at night without shoes to throw herself in front of a train the
00:40:21
other another headline here Captain was high school grad being chased before grizzly
00:40:27
death here's another one this one from wh says family of New Jersey teen killed by train disputes suicide ruling Su to
00:40:38
Pro to prove kidnap murder plot and finally from The Daily Mail family of teen hit and killed by a train
00:40:48
in 2015 say she may have been kidnapped and her death was wrongly ruled a suicide in again again citing that a law
00:40:58
a lawsuit was being filed this lawsuit would not be officially filed until the following
00:41:04
year into into 2016 this is after the family hired um Paul diamado as an attorney to represent them
00:41:15
and this case was featured on the some of the more recent episodes of Unsolved Mysteries and Paul D
00:41:26
the attorney for the family was interviewed for this episode of Unsolved Mysteries and he had read about it in
00:41:36
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
00:41:43
this horrible tragedy the family is in total shock about what has happened and that he thought look you
00:41:54
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
00:41:59
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
00:42:05
to have to go get these official reports and then sit down with the family and deliver them the news that they don't
00:42:11
want to hear that yes in fact your daughter did commit suicide and I've gone through all the reports and I can
00:42:16
share them with you well he gets the official reports he starts looking through them and he says look there
00:42:23
might be something more here there's this doesn't seem quite right there's a few things that are awfully sketchy
00:42:30
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
00:42:38
judgment by the transit authority so it's the Transit Police that are investigating this and we do have
00:42:45
several individuals on that Unsolved Mysteries episode that state look we've got a lot of respect for the Transit
00:42:53
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
00:43:00
what they do however they do not investigate hardly any homicides it's very few and far
00:43:08
between and frankly not a whole lot of accidents either so there are some that have questioned if they have the if
00:43:15
they're capable of handling such an investigation and some even questioning the crime scene or the scene of the
00:43:23
incident itself if evidence was collected properly and if the one could make a good determination or good ruling based
00:43:32
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
00:43:40
of the realm of possibility that somebody is walking and doesn't understand how close they actually are
00:43:48
to the train that's coming right and it's traveling as said according to the report about 80 miles
00:43:56
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
00:44:04
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
00:44:13
accident you I review this and immediately I can very quickly go well we got two situations here this is this
00:44:22
is a suicide or there's Foul Play involved because the only way that you could Loosely call this an accident is if
00:44:30
somebody was chasing her or pushed her as some kind of prank and then this happens but that is
00:44:39
that then doesn't become it that takes away the whole accident idea that means Foul Play No I agree and and disagree
00:44:48
though because I I don't know again what does the front of the train look like is
00:44:53
there a possibility that she would have been hit hit by something that would have then thrown her body into the
00:45:00
center um and that would have made but hit by what that's what I'm saying is I don't
00:45:06
know I'm not a train expert but what but the train is traveling with lights on it
00:45:12
and it's blaring its horn you either want to be struck by the train or something caused you to be
00:45:20
struck by the train that I don't think was an accident yeah I'm just I'm trying to
00:45:25
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
00:45:32
of instead of being clipped and thrown into the grass or thrown to the side that their body actually gets thrown
00:45:40
towards the center of the car and so again I don't know what the van uh the the visuals of these
00:45:48
individuals were either and you see what I'm saying like you I think there is is
00:45:56
a possibility that she is clipped by something that then from their vantage point it looks
00:46:02
as if the individual jumped in front of the the the tracks I think you the situation is
00:46:10
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
00:46:19
the train hits her yeah or like you said I mean is there a possibility that that she uh
00:46:27
because this is not was out there with somebody and somebody pushed her right and we need to be clear here too for for
00:46:33
people that have not seen the episode or are unfamiliar with this case mile marker 45 is not like at an intersection
00:46:41
with the road or anything or at a Crossing or anything like that right this is out in the middle of the
00:46:47
Woods at night and so there's no way to not see the lights of that train there's no way to not hear
00:46:55
that train com coming or blaring its horn in fact according to the records they were blaring the horn
00:47:04
because of a Crossing that took place uh not terribly far from where she was struck but but far enough away that
00:47:14
it that she's not at this part of the train tracks because she happens to be Crossing because there's a road
00:47:21
there again this is out in the out in the woods and on uh the Unsolved Mysteries episode you will see an
00:47:29
investigator who is driving he has to go up a road and then drive down along the
00:47:36
rocks for a long period of time before he can get to mile marker 45 right now when the episode ends they do
00:47:47
present a good amount of material that would suggest that maybe something else took place here again you have to call
00:47:55
into question question the cell phone the finding of the cell phone the location of that cell phone and where it
00:48:00
was found the finding of her shoes and the headband are much more important in my
00:48:05
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
00:48:13
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
00:48:22
incredibly difficult the way that it is explained to us for one to dump their shoes and then
00:48:28
walk two and a half to three miles and some of it in some pretty rough terrain again sharp rocks broken
00:48:37
glass splinters from the wood in an area where she can't see can't pay good attention to her
00:48:45
footing and we understand and we've gone through some of the trauma some of the destruction of
00:48:53
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
00:49:03
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
00:49:11
hovered her way or somebody helped her to to that spot that those are the only things that
00:49:19
would stand to make scientific sense to me based off of looking at the bottom of
00:49:24
her feet and then knowing that to get there on foot to get there herself by herself she would have had to have
00:49:32
tossed her shoes and walked that great of a distance to get there now mind you we don't have anybody coming forward
00:49:38
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
00:49:44
train tracks right there's nobody saying that we have no evidence she's impaired
00:49:49
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
00:49:57
were found in her system and that further calls into question the uh well maybe she wasn't thinking clearly and
00:50:05
she was hysterical and decided to throw herself in front of the train well there's been experts smarter
00:50:12
than I that have said well once they determined through the toxicology that there was no alcohol or drugs in her
00:50:18
system you really got to call into question that manner of death ruling yeah and we don't have any evidence that
00:50:26
I mean we have some people saying or speculating that she could have been depressed do we have any evidence that
00:50:32
that she had any type of manic episodes well we're going to get into that so we what I want to go through
00:50:41
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
00:50:50
I can make a determination based off of what I saw on Unsolved Mysteries I don't
00:50:54
know if I have enough of the information to have an opinion did she kill take her
00:50:59
own life or did something happen to her something much more Sinister and so following up from once
00:51:11
that episode was released it was it was volume three of Unsolved Mysteries on Netflix and the title of the episode is
00:51:20
Mystery at mile marker 45 now here's an article from screenrant.com and what they're
00:51:31
talking about here is what did Unsolved Mysteries leave out of the episode and so we present this to you
00:51:42
and let you make the determination because some of these items May Point toward Foul Play and some of them
00:51:48
may Point toward the official ruling now one thing that they're quick to state in the this article is that the
00:51:57
Transit Police investigators may have lost a potential murder weapon and this is according
00:52:05
to nj.com in 2022 they stated that an axe that was covered with red markings was
00:52:16
found near the site where Tiffany valente's body was found and once this axe was found
00:52:22
Tiffany's family or they find out that the axe was found Tiffany's family and friends hoped that forensic analysis of
00:52:29
this item might prove that the red markings were blood and then that blood might even match Tiffany's DNA right but
00:52:38
unfortunately somehow this item goes missing while in storage before it could be tested to see if it was connected to
00:52:46
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
00:52:52
murders that that take place outdoor doors the complications of the crime scene for investigators is that it's not
00:53:00
a controlled area so any and every item that you find in close proximity to your
00:53:07
victim or the trail that your victim traveled you need to collect all of that stuff and then the problem then becomes
00:53:18
for the experts and for detectives and investigators how do I determine is there anything on this item to indicate
00:53:27
to me that it's connected to the actual crime because when you have an uncontrolled
00:53:33
scene especially in a park setting or here a railroad track you could have cigarette
00:53:40
butts soda cans any type of debris that may just be there because it was discarded well before the incident even
00:53:52
took place yeah items at the scene because of of happen stance yeah this item this axe let's say for instance
00:54:00
could have been left there at this scene for no reasons connected to this case could have been left there the day
00:54:07
before she was killed a week before a month maybe a year I will say this though I they did report the
00:54:16
model uh making model of the axe and I found this to be rather interesting here captain
00:54:27
because it is of a newer make right so she's killed in 2015 I actually happen to have this same
00:54:36
make a model at my home now I was trying to figure out when this I when this was
00:54:43
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
00:54:50
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
00:54:58
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
00:55:07
based off of my own experience it is a newer item so yeah but they could mean something or not mean something exactly
00:55:17
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
00:55:23
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
00:55:32
newer item and it I believe that based off of how new this item is that it it was probably placed there and and
00:55:42
again we're being told that it was found at the scene of where her body was recovered and that it was
00:55:52
stored by law enforcement but then it goes missing I can say with a lot of confidence that that
00:56:00
item if it if it's not directly connected to the crime it didn't end up there too long before this incident well
00:56:09
what other items does this articles say that Unsolved Mysteries left out well a lot of these items Captain are I think
00:56:16
suggestive that maybe the suicide ruling was correct and they're painting us a little bit of a picture here and I want
00:56:23
everybody to take this information on their own and form their own opinions but according to this article they're
00:56:29
going to talk again about that credit card situation between Tiffany and her friend so it this is straight from the
00:56:36
article the Tiffany Unsolved Mysteries episode mentions that Tiffany Valente had a fight with a friend on the night
00:56:43
of her death and was accused of using that friend's credit card without permission Tiffany admitted that she was
00:56:50
guilty of the theft to her mother shortly before she disappeared while the episode paints Tiffany as a gifted
00:56:56
scholar athlete who should have known better than to steal this was not the first time Tiffany Valente had stolen
00:57:03
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
00:57:12
they word this so The Daily Beast words this in this manner Tiffany Valente had stolen money from her parents' bank
00:57:20
account a few months before her death despite this her mother defended Tiffany from her friend's accusations of being a
00:57:28
thief indeed Unsolved Mysteries also doesn't show that the depositions reveal that Tiffany's parents had given her
00:57:36
their credit card nor that her mother specifically cited that as proof that Tiffany had no reason to steal from
00:57:42
anyone okay that paints a certain picture that makes it look like this is a habitual offender of someone who is
00:57:51
stealing from loved ones and constantly getting caught for it and of course we can imagine the stress that that would
00:57:57
put on a young person or a stress or even a fracture in these relationships but as we do know now it
00:58:06
was early reported that the amount in question was $300 from her friend but we would learn that the
00:58:13
amount the dollar amount was actually $86 and Tiffany has an explanation for this the explanation she states when she
00:58:23
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
00:58:33
intoxicated and I was using the credit card to pay for meals and some things while we were hanging out I guess I
00:58:41
don't know if she was trying to sober up her friend we don't have the full story
00:58:44
there right but that sounds a lot less harmful to their relationship than someone just straight out stealing a
00:58:53
credit card out of someone's purse and using it to to buy a necklace or something or or or charge rack up $300
00:59:00
worth of charges the other thing too with the stealing money from her parents bank
00:59:06
account okay that's one way to word it the but my understanding according to what her parents would tell us Tiffany's
00:59:16
parents is that they gave their daughter a credit card for emergencies this is not terribly uncommon and what usually
00:59:25
happens when you give a teenager a credit card for emergencies they typically find excuses
00:59:31
to use your credit card correct well everything becomes an emergency that's right there's new comic books out
00:59:37
emergency I was dying of thirst Mom very thirsty I had to buy like 12 Gatorades couple cases of
00:59:48
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
00:59:55
truck bed full of mulch and they start doing yard work like how come that never happens it's always like oh we were
01:00:02
starving to death and I had to take my friends out to dinner so it's doesn't sound so bad when
01:00:10
you really review the information this is not child stealing money out of the bank account
01:00:18
of desperate parents no this is they gave her a credit card for emergencies and she
01:00:24
responsibly used their credit card to buy something she probably shouldn't have and her parents probably knew that
01:00:31
was going to happen a couple times the other thing with the friend according to Tiffany's mother even though Tiffany
01:00:38
denied it in the face of her friend and her friend's mom Diane Tiffany's mother says that I
01:00:44
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
01:00:52
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
01:00:58
if they came back and said look she racked up $1,500 then you go oh [ __ ] you know and depending on what their
01:01:10
finances were but it seemed like again seems like a really good family that and that's why too it's like
01:01:19
I don't see where this girl unless she was having other issues that we just don't know
01:01:30
about just doesn't make any sense that she would want to take her own life because
01:01:36
of this credit card fraud let's say right and she could have been having other issues as you pointed out earlier
01:01:43
some people were good at putting on a front putting on a a personality in front of all of the people and then
01:01:51
behind the scenes they are miserable they are depressed they are in some in some real trouble and then that's the
01:01:59
problem too is th this can happen again anybody that has dealt with depression it's like you could have
01:02:08
everything in your life going right and just not feel okay exactly and so a couple things that might have been going
01:02:15
on for this young woman now one thing that Unsolved Mysteries did point out and did Cover in their episode was that
01:02:22
she had recently ended a relationship or was broken up with it's a little unclear to me who
01:02:30
broke up the relationship that most reports state that it was Mutual but Tiffany did have a a female girl sorry
01:02:40
Tiffany did have a girlfriend and it was a girlfriend that was known to her friends and to her
01:02:47
family and they split up the week of Tiffany's death one other item and this was not
01:02:56
covered by Unsolved Mysteries was as stated by this article and here we go I'll read right
01:03:03
from the article here Captain another detail missing from the Unsolved Mysteries Tiffany Valente episode is
01:03:09
that the Valente had been suspected of abusing Tiffany before her death according to medical records obtained by
01:03:15
The Daily Beast Child Protective Services CPS authorities visited the Valente home on at least won an occasion
01:03:25
and this was in 2014 remember her death occurred in 2015 and this is because of bruises a
01:03:34
bruise that was seen on Tiffany's arm by a teacher and reported by a teacher because this teacher believed that
01:03:43
although this young woman's an athlete that the teacher did not believe and thought that the bruise was inconsistent
01:03:51
with a sports related injury and when CPS casew workers visited the home the Valente home there
01:04:00
was a discussion with the parents and Tiffany and it was their findings were that Tiffany's
01:04:07
mother had punched her in the arm during the course of a [Music] disagreement for everything True Crime
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Check out True Crime garage.com join us back here for this mystery at M marker 45 until then be
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good be kind and don't [Music] litter [Music] is it possible to predict the unpredictable could surgeons use a
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