Tiffany Valiante

Case background and investigation

Tiffany Valiante was an 18-year-old recent graduate of Oakcrest High School in Mays Landing, New Jersey, and an accomplished volleyball player who had committed to play in college. On the night of July 12, 2015, she was at a family graduation party near her home in the Galloway Township area of Atlantic County. According to accounts, after a dispute over a friend's credit card, Tiffany left the gathering and walked away from her family's property around 9:30 p.m. Her cell phone was later found dropped near the driveway. Less than two hours later, she was struck and killed by a New Jersey Transit train traveling at roughly 80 mph along tracks miles from her home.

Within about 48 hours, the New Jersey state medical examiner's office ruled Tiffany's death a suicide. Investigators concluded she had walked several miles, part of it barefoot along dark, isolated railroad tracks, before stepping in front of the train. To her parents, Stephen and Dianne Valiante, that scenario made no sense. They said Tiffany showed no signs of distress, was excited about college, feared the dark, and never went anywhere without her phone, yet it was found abandoned at the edge of their property. The family has argued that the ruling was rushed and that key questions were never adequately investigated.

Support for the family's doubts came from Louise Houseman, a former investigator for the Atlantic County Medical Examiner's Office, who reviewed the case and wrote that it was highly unlikely a fit young athlete would walk barefoot, alone, over stones and brush for nearly four miles on a hot summer night to take her life. The family also pointed to Tiffany's shoes and a headband being found separately from the impact site, the absence of expected foot injuries, inconsistent statements from train personnel, and evidence that was reportedly lost or never properly preserved for forensic testing.

The Valiantes launched a years-long campaign to have the suicide ruling overturned, filing legal actions, seeking independent forensic review, and pressing NJ Transit and state officials to reopen the investigation. They noted that the train crew gave differing accounts of what the engineer saw, questioned whether warning signals were sounded, and complained that evidence had been poorly stored or lost, preventing meaningful forensic testing. In 2018, the state medical examiner, Andrew Falzon, formally upheld the suicide determination, a decision that deepened the family's frustration rather than resolving their doubts.

In 2020, a judge allowed additional discovery, including DNA testing that had not been performed during the original investigation. The case reached a national audience when it was featured in Netflix's 'Unsolved Mysteries' in October 2022, drawing millions of viewers and a wave of renewed public interest and amateur scrutiny. The family has kept the case in the public eye with signs across South Jersey and repeated appeals to the governor and to NJ Transit's board. Despite all these efforts, the official ruling has not been changed, and the Valiante family continues to insist their daughter did not take her own life, leaving Tiffany's death disputed and, in their view, an unsolved possible homicide.