Reagan and Mik’s take on Unsolved Mysteries: Murder or Suicide?

Opinion on the Netflix series Unsolved Mysteries

Tiffany Valiente, an 18-year-old girl from New Jersey, was hit by a train on July 12th, 2015. Her death was ruled a suicide, but others disagree.

Tiffany was a young girl with a bright future ahead of her. Even her father, Stephan Valiante, said, “She loved life, and she was full of it too.” Family and friends say she had plans the next morning, also a long-term plan to play volleyball in college. Why would someone make plans for a future they wouldn’t want to have?

The night of her death, she left a neighborhood party at 9:15 and headed home to her friend yelling at her. Her mother was then called back to the house to discuss Tiffany misusing her friend’s credit card. 

Her mom went inside to tell her dad about the conflict, but when they returned Tiffany was gone. 

Family and friends searched for her right after she left, but she was nowhere to be found. Later, they saw her phone out in front of their house. Tiffany’s father says she would’ve never left her phone behind.

The uncle was off searching when he had a feeling to go down the road towards the train tracks. There he identified the young female that was hit by a train, Tiffany. In less than 24 hours her death was ruled a suicide.

However, where she was hit was four miles away from her house. Why walk that distance? When she was found she had missing clothes and shoes. Later on, her shoes and missing headband were found 1.5 miles away from the train, but, to this day, her shorts are still missing. This means she would’ve walked that distance barefoot on tough terrain, but the bottom of her feet were clean. 

Before Tiffany disappeared, a picture of her was caught on a deer camera outside of her house. Off to the side of the image, a pair of headlights is heading toward her. Tiffany also wasn’t a fan of the dark, so why would she walk such a distance at night?

The family’s attorney, Paul D’Amato believes there’s a chance for foul play based on two engineer statements. The night of the accident, a student and a senior engineer said that they saw Tiffany dive in front of the train but later both of their stories changed. 

The student engineer first said he never saw her until she jumped in front of the train. Later, he tells the transit police that he saw something ½ mile away, then a ¼ mile away, and then he saw her come out of the woods and jump. 

Louise Houseman, a retired medical examiner, thinks that the engineers were in trauma shock at the time of their statements. They used words like “Maybe, pretty far, I couldn’t discern what it was” which implies he doesn’t really know what he saw. 

If she did jump, the impact would’ve been all over the face of the train except the impact was mostly on the lower left. How can a 6’2 girl jumping only lead to an impact on the bottom left? This could lead to the possibility of Tiffany being placed down on the tracks before the train hit her.

A couple of weeks later a man in a convenience store overheard three boys talking about the case. They said they saw Tiffany get into a car with two females and a male then they brought her to the train tracks, took her clothes, and held her at gunpoint. When the guys were actually interviewed they denied everything. 

On top of all this evidence, the crime scene was not handled well by the New Jersey transit police. The transit police even said that homicide was not their strong suit and that they were not trained for that kind of investigation. There was also no indication that murder was ever in question because if they ruled it as a suicide the case closes quickly and easily. 

The investigation was not directed properly and adequately. The scene was not roped off properly, some procedures weren’t followed like no autopsy or rape kit was conducted. Tiffany’s body was never tested for any extra DNA or fingerprints, nor were her organs examined. 

Along with the poorly conducted investigation, the scene was left a mess.  There were bloody gloves left on the tracks along with pieces of the body. The tracks were not fully cleaned and most of the evidence that opened the possibility of murder was contaminated, making it unusable. 

The Netflix series Unsolved mysteries did provide all this information on Tiffany’s death but did leave out some key points. The Tudum article supplied further evidence including a red ax, a pocket knife, and a stained white towel that contained DNA, which individual testing suggests an unknown male presence, found near the train. 

After looking over all of the evidence and information that both the show and article gave us we DO believe that there is a big chance for murder but you never truly know what is going on in someone’s life. We also think that the family deserves justice and an explanation of what happened to their daughter, niece, and sister. 

This article provides additional information on the case like evidence photos and documents. 

To find these click on this link.