There are a few facts that are known, but it is still unclear exactly what happened to Tiffany Valiante on the day of her passing.

Tiffany and her parents, Dianne and Steve, attended a graduation celebration on July 12, 2015. Around nine o’clock that evening, Tiffany’s friend requested a conversation with her parents and informed them that she had been using her debit card while at their Mays Landing residence.

Although a receipt from the card was later discovered in Tiffany’s room, The Daily Beast claims that this conversation lasted less than ten minutes. Tiffany also reportedly denied the allegations. But her parents managed the circumstance. However, Dianne claimed that while looking through her daughter’s car, she saw Tiffany put the disputed debit card in her pocket. Tiffany was nowhere to be found when Dianne went into her house to summon her husband.

Hours after she left, her parents started to worry and look around; it was then that they discovered her cell phone lying at the bottom of their driveway.

Tiffany never left the house without her phone, according to her mother.

By 11:30 p.m., her parents were so alarmed that they decided to call the police; however, four miles from her home, Valiante had been struck by a New Jersey Transit train traveling southbound at 80 mph 27 minutes earlier.

Theories behind Valiante’s death

She Committed Suicide

The case was closed the day after Tiffany’s death because the state determined that she committed suicide.

“I was in shock. In the Netflix series, Dianne says, “I couldn’t understand how they could come up with that.

She wasn’t depressed, my daughter. She wasn’t considering suicide. Tiffany was content. She was making plans to go to college, she was making plans with her roommate, she was making plans to play softball that Wednesday. The following morning, she and some friends were going to Great Adventure.

Tiffany was murdered

Her mother says in the film, “There was no way in hell that she committed suicide. People who knew Tiffany found it hard to believe.

Despite the state’s decision, Tiffany’s family didn’t think she had committed suicide, and a few hints gave them hope that there might be more to the story than first appeared.

There were several differences between the circumstances of Tiffany’s passing and the verdict that was reached. For instance, Tiffany was last seen by her parents fully dressed, yet she was discovered barefoot and only wearing her underwear.

Tiffany’s missing shoes and headband were found in a tidy pile more than a mile from the spot where she perished on the tracks when Dianne began to question the official conclusion two weeks after Tiffany’s death and set out to find her own answers. Her parents thought this was strange because the autopsy had revealed nothing about her feet that would indicate she had walked this distance barefoot.

Paul D’Amato, the family’s attorney, claims that after the family won a court order requiring the testing of the evidence, they were horrified by the state of the situation.

According to NJ.com, the family was given a picture of an axe that was discovered nearby and had “red markings” on it, but it was unable to be tested because it had vanished.

“NJ Transit lost the axe,” declared D’Amato. The question is, “How do you lose an axe?”

NJ Transit’s spokesman at the time declined to comment.

Tiffany’s parents are still unsure of what transpired to their daughter, but they believe that someone may have kidnapped her from the street, assaulted her sexually, and then chased her into the path of the train.

In 2017, D’Amato stated, “You have parents and sisters who have to live with the fact that some government agency concluded that their loved one committed suicide when the fundamentals of a suicide investigation weren’t done.” We are attempting to right a wrong in this situation for their benefit.

“We have no doubt Tiffany did not commit suicide, and the medical examiner’s office committed a serious error by incorrectly classifying her demise as a suicide,” he continued. In addition to the proper classification, it is our hope that this legal action will result in the prosecution of those accountable for her death.

The reward for information that results in the capture and conviction of those accountable for Tiffany’s demise has been doubled to $40,000 as a result of the news that Tiffany’s case will be featured on Unsolved Mysteries.

Tiffany’s parents said she was abducted and killed just before she was to begin her incredibly promising college career. “We know every day Tiffany is looking down on us, giving us the strength to help find those who snatched her and were responsible for her death just before she was to start her extremely promising college career,” they said.

“We know so many people who agree with us that Tiffany’s death was not a suicide, that the case was closed prematurely, and that the full truth about how and why she died has not yet been revealed. Through their family friend and attorney, Paul D’Amato, they continued, “The combination of this new, thoroughly researched, fact-based program and the increased reward may just be what’s needed to help get Tiff’s case reopened.