03x01 - Mystery at Mile Marker 45

Episode transcripts for the TV series, "Unsolved Mysteries". Aired: 1987- 2022.*
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Documentary format to profile real-life mysteries and featured re-enactments of unsolved crimes, missing persons cases, conspiracy theories and unexplained paranormal phenomena (alien abductions, ghosts, UFOs, and "secret history" theories).
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03x01 - Mystery at Mile Marker 45

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[indistinct chatter]

[on video] Hey!

[Dianne Valiante] Tiffany was just…
just always beautiful.

Always bright. Energetic.

She got a scholarship
to play volleyball.

She was gonna
be a middle starter.

That doesn't happen in college,
being a freshman starter.

She wanted things in life.

We were all so
very proud of her.

That night, she was found approximately
four miles away from our house,

where she was hit by that train.

New Jersey Transit put it out there
that my daughter committed su1c1de.

There's absolutely no way!

No way at all.

I wanna know what happened to my
daughter.

[mysterious music playing]

[somber music playing softly]

This is my daughter's room.

The whole room is
the way she left it.

That's her writing
and her little hearts and what.

No one will ever
go in this room.

It's like a tomb.

She loved life,
and she was full of it too.

That's my baby.

[Dianne] I met Stephen in 1989,

and I had already had my girls,
Jessica and Krystal.

I ended up pregnant with Tiffany
and had her in 1997.

We were shocked
when we had Tiffany.

You know, we
didn't expect to get pregnant,

but the first time we laid eyes on her,
it was just like…

you know, just
heaven. It just…

She was absolutely gorgeous.

[Stephen Valiante] Tiff was just
a ball of joy.

She enjoyed what she was doing.
She didn't worry about nothing.

I mean, there's nothing
that she didn't like.

[Dianne] Picture up there
is of her on a beach in North Carolina.

This is New Year's Eve.

Uh, here's her graduation.
You can see how happy she is.

Tiffany's sisters are the ones
that had this made for me.

Just a memorial of all,
you know, of Tiffany's life.

To walk in here every day
just makes me feel close.

I feel like she's with me
'cause I miss her so much.

[intriguing music
playing quietly]

[Dianne] It was a Sunday.

We went to Tiffany's cousin's
graduation party across the street.

And Tiffany came with us.

We were there for several hours

steaming clams and
having a good old time.

Tiff was having a great time.

Playing volleyball, having fun,
waiting for her friends to come over.

[Dianne] I remember Tiffany
running back home.

We were still at the
party, and at 9:15,

I got a phone call
from one of her girlfriends and says,

"I'm pulling up now.
Can you come over to the house?"

I said, "Sure, is
everything okay?"

So I told my husband, Stephen,
that I gotta go over to the house,

and he said, "Oh,
I'll go with you."

And we walked up
to the road between the two houses.

Tiffany's friend got out
screaming and hollering,

and accused Tiffany of using
her credit card without her knowledge.

And Tiffany denied it
until after the friend left,

and then she told
me that she did use it.

And I said, "Why would
you use somebody else's card?"

"You know better than that.
Didn't raise you that way."

"And now I gotta go tell your dad
you used the card."

And I went in the house,

I got Stephen, and within one minute,
we walked back out, and Tiffany was gone.

[Stephen] We looked for her.
Looked around.

I walked up and down the street
many times.

There must've been at least 20 or 30 cars
going back and forth up this road.

They were all parked on the
side of the road. Nobody's seen nothin'.

[Dianne] I know if Tiffany walked,
somebody would have saw her.

There's no doubt in my mind.
She's 6'2". You couldn't miss her.

[Robert Valiante, Sr.]
We were walkin' up and down the streets,

looking behind houses
and everything close

'cause we knew
she wouldn't walk any distance

because she was scared to death
of the dark.

[phone chiming]

[Dianne] Everybody
was calling, texting,

you know,
trying to find out where she was.

Stephen's calling
and she's not answering her phone.

[Stephen on phone]
Tiff, please, just come home.

I love you to death.
You mean everything in the world to me.

Please just come home.

[Stephen] I walked
up and down that street.

And all of a sudden,
I looked down at the ground,

and I had seen something flat.

- And it was Tiff's phone.
- [phone vibrates]

[Stephen] Phone was about five to eight
feet off the side of the road.

In front of my house.

That kid would have
never left her phone here.

That phone was locked to her hand 24/7,
seven days a week.

She took a shower
with the phone.

Then when we found the phone,

all kinds of things
are going through my head.

I knew there was
something wrong.

We were searching,

and then later on,
Stephen remembered about

the deer camera
being in the woods.

[ominous music playing faintly]

[Stephen] Tiff left at 9:28,
according to my deer camera.

And me and Dianne walked out at 9:29
with Tucker, which is her dog.

We walked outside
and she was gone.

[Dianne] Tiffany was
wearing a black shirt,

white blue-jean shorts.

She had her flat shoes
that she had just bought,

and she put her hair up
with a messy bob on the top

and her white headband.

She's doing her regular stride,
walking down the driveway.

And because of the picture
on the deer camera,

the only thing I could come up with
is that somebody called her name.

And at that point, she was gone.

I got a phone call,
"Hey, Tiffany's missing."

"Can you come and
help look for Tiffany?"

I said, "Sure."

We went to my mom's house 'cause
they assumed she probably went there.

It's walking distance. I would say
roughly a half mile it would be at most.

She wasn't there.

So then we started
driving around different places.

We couldn't find her.

Something told me
just to go down Pomona.

And when I drove down Pomona,
I crossed the railroad tracks.

There's a roadway
alongside of the tracks.

- An access road for transit.
- [police siren chirps]

[Michael] It was lit up.

There was a Galloway police officer there
said somebody was hit, possibly a female.

But Galloway Township
didn't get involved in it

because this happened
in the jurisdiction of New Jersey Transit.

I saw a transit
police officer there.

I spoke to him.

I say, "Hey, did you
happen to see a very big girl,



And he said, "No, but we had somebody
who was struck by the train."

At that point, I'm
thinking, "I hope it's not Tiffany."

But they were pretty
confident that it was her.

The transit officer said to me,
"Can you identify her?"

And I said, "Yes, I can."

And I am very glad
that I am the one that went down there,

'cause I truly believe
in my whole heart

that my brother would never
have been able to handle it.

What I saw that night,
no one needs to see that.

It was probably one of
the most horrific things I've seen.

You know, being
struck by a train.

So I went there,
and I did do the identification,

and then they said, "Hey,
we have to go back to your brother's,

and you have to
tell your brother."

[Dianne] It was


And I remember walking out of the house,
and my son-in-law was standing there,

and he said that Uncle Mickey called him,
told us to stay put.

And I remember my son-in-law
looking totally white.

And I remember us waiting

and some type
of cop car pull in.

My brother, Mickey,
got out of a transit police car,

and Dianne's yelling, "What happened?
What happened? What happened?"

[Michael] And I told my brother
what happened. Tiffany was hit by a train.

He did say, "I wanna go down there."
I'm like, "No, you're absolutely not."

"You don't
need to see this."

[Stephen]
We just lost it.

It's like… you
lost your life.

When one of your kids die,
you lose part of your life.

[crying] Oh, God, I
miss her so much.

She was my baby.

I miss everything about her.

[Robert, Sr.] I mean,
we just held each other and cried.

It was like in disbelief.

It was the most horrible thing
you could even imagine at that time

that something like
that could happen.

[crying] We were in such shock.

Total shock.

'Cause, like, hit by a train?

It just didn't make sense to me.

[Stephen] Mickey said that
Tiffany got hit by a train.

We didn't know what happened.

Then the following morning,

it was already in the papers
Tiffany had committed su1c1de.

I was devastated.

I couldn't understand, you know,
how they could come up with that.

My daughter wasn't depressed.
She wasn't suicidal.

Tiffy was happy.

She was making
plans to go to college.

She was making
plans with her roommate.

She was making plans
to play softball that Wednesday.

She had plans to go to Great Adventure
the next morning with friends.

[Robert Valiante, Jr.] The night I spoke
with Tiffany, obviously, at the party,

she showed no signs
of any kind of stress.

She had her school clothes.
She had things prepared.

Tiffany was ready to
make that next move.

[Dianne] There's no way in hell
she committed su1c1de.

New Jersey Transit made the determination
that my daughter stood on those tracks

and committed su1c1de in less than


People that knew Tiffany
just couldn't believe it.

We were on a mission because we knew
our daughter didn't do this.

[intriguing music playing]

My name is Paul D'Amato.

I've been a trial
lawyer for 46 years.

Most of my cases
have involved representing victims.

And there have been those cases,
like Tiffany's case,

that you simply
cannot say no to.

When I first met
Steve and Dianne,

they were sitting right here.

And they were so broken

and so upset.

They told me that

their daughter did
not take her own life.

I didn't know if I could help them,
and I said to myself,

let me get the records

from the New Jersey Transit
Police Department.

I'll present the reports to them,
and sadly, I'll have to tell them,

"Your daughter
took her own life."

But that never happened
once we got the records.

Tiffany Valiante was 18 years old
and lived with her family

in a very rural area of New Jersey
west of Atlantic City.

Now here's what we know
about the night that she was k*lled.

On Sunday, July 12th,

New Jersey Transit
train number 4693

left Philadelphia
at 9:50 p.m.,

heading east to Atlantic City.

There were about


The train had just passed under the bridge
at Tilton Road in Galloway Township

and was headed toward the crossing
at Genoa Avenue.

It was 11:12 p.m.
at mile marker 45

on a very dark stretch of track
where Tiffany was hit by the train.

[dark music playing]

[Paul] When the train
was examined later,

it showed that the impact was specifically
on the lower left side of the train,

close to the track.

There were two engineers
on board the train.

A senior engineer
and a student engineer.

That night, they
both signed the report

saying that Tiffany
dove in front of the train.

But here's the problem.

Six days later, when
he's put under oath,

the senior engineer comes up
with a completely different version

of what he told the detective
the night of the incident.

Here's his story.

"I was talking to
the conductor."

"I never saw her.
My back was turned."

So you throw his statements out,

and then you look at what
the student engineer said.

Initially, he was asked,

"When did you first
see the trespasser?"

What was his answer?

"I didn't see her
until I was on top of her."

[train whistle blowing]

Ten days later,
he's put under oath,

and now here's his story.

"I see something
when I'm half a mile away."

"Then I see something
when I'm a quarter-mile away."

"And then I see this person

jump out of the
woods on to the tracks."

In the end, the student engineer
was the only witness.

A student engineer
who gave variations

of what he saw that night.

To this day,

the New Jersey Transit
Police Department

stands by the inconsistent,

contradictory statements
of the student engineer.

My name's Louise Houseman,

and I'm retired from the Atlantic County
Medical Examiner's Office,

where I was the senior investigator.
I worked there for 20 years.

I've probably been to
several thousand scenes

over the course of 20 years.

I was really concerned

with the sworn statements by the engineer
and the student engineer.

Because a great deal of weight
was apparently given

to the information
they provided at the scene,

which turned out
to not be correct.

The major incident event recorder
is considered the black box.

It records everything that happens
with the engine as it's going along.

The speed of the train,

when the hand brakes are used,

when the horn is rung,

if the headlights are on.

And it gives the distance
the train has traveled

when all this happens.

So it's very easy to read.

There's nothing mysterious about it.
It's very straightforward.

According to the event recorder,

from the time the apprentice engineer
sounded the horn, struck Tiffany,

and applied the emergency brake,

it took a total
of 4.1 seconds.

That train's traveling


So, did he see what
he thought he saw?

That she jumped in front of him?
I don't know.

I believe that the student engineer
was in a type of trauma, in shock.

Anyone would be.

If you hit someone in a car,

are you gonna be able
to describe exactly what happened?

Probably not.

When you read the transcription,
it seems to be rambling.

He's not really
sure of what he saw,

and it's possible
what he saw was

when the train struck her,

the body parts flew
in all different directions

because she was
being dismembered.

[train whistle blowing]

[Louise] I don't think
he saw her jump in front of the train.

And she may have
been dead on the tracks.

[Jim Brennenstuhl] If you assume
that it's a su1c1de right at the beginning

and then tailor the facts
to fit your assumption,

everything else
after that is suspect.

My name is Jim Brennenstuhl.

I have, for the last 45 years,

either done police work
or private detective work.

Mr. D'Amato called me and asked
if I would be involved in the case.

The train strike is variously recorded
as some time a little after 11:00.

According to the way they reported it,
this is where it happened.

Milepost 45.

It's pretty dark.

Why would she walk all of that distance
and jump in front of a train there?

What is it about there?

If she k*lled herself
that way, why?

Why go that far?
Why do it that way?

[Louise] When I saw exactly
where she was struck by the train,

I was really surprised.

She was a mile
from the closest intersection

into the woods.

And it was dark.
There's no light.

The hairs on the back of my head
just went up.

I said, "There's something
really wrong here."

[train whistle blowing]

I think there's probably not a day,
certainly not a week,

that goes by that
I don't ask myself the question.

"How did Tiffany
Valiante die?"

I am convinced
she did not take her own life.

The lead investigating agency
into the death of Tiffany Valiante

was the transit system.

New Jersey Transit is one of America's
largest transit operators.

It runs commuter rail trains

and it has a
significant-size police force.

And I have great respect
for transit police officers

and the job they do.

However, most transit police officers
will tell you,

their wheelhouse
is not homicide investigations

and not suspicious
death investigations.

The first thing
investigators need to do,

even in the case of
a suspected incident

of somebody
possibly taking their own life,

is first determine whether
they were the victim of a m*rder.

We have no indication
that was ever done.

[Paul] The area
where this whole event took place

was not treated
as a crime scene.

People were walking
all around there,

and it had not been
roped off appropriately.

[Stephan] It appeared
from the outset

to be a textbook example
of a rush to judgment

to misclassify
the manner by which she d*ed.

This is the death certificate.

Tiffany Valiante d*ed
shortly before midnight, July 12th.

On the 17th of July,
when this is dated,

the manner of death is su1c1de.

You cannot draw conclusions
that early in an investigation.

That's an impossibility.

[Louise] su1c1de closes a case,

as far as a
prosecutor's office is concerned.

As far as the medical examiner's
office is concerned.

As far as New Jersey
Transit is concerned.

"This is a su1c1de,"
and it's simply a statistic.

As far as the family's concerned,
it's their child,

and they wanna know
what happened to their child.

[Dianne] They should have
investigated like they were supposed to.

You know, the State of New Jersey
has books on procedures

on what they're supposed to follow,
and those procedures weren't followed.

[Stephan] A full autopsy
was never conducted.

No r*pe kit was ever performed.

DNA was never tested.

No organs were examined.

Why?

Why?

You have to give weight
to the toxicology report.

There was no alcohol,
no dr*gs in Tiffany Valiante's system.

A totally clean
toxicology report.

After the toxicology
report came back,

and it was found that Tiffany
had no dr*gs or alcohol in her system,

the manner of death probably should have
been amended to "undetermined."

There's no reason to rule the case
"su1c1de" unless you're sure,

you're absolutely sure,

that this was a su1c1de.

[Paul] Within a couple of days
after Tiffany's death,

her remains were cremated.

So it's not as if we
can exhume the body

and have a fresh look at this.

[Louise] Also, the detective
does write in his report

that no shoes were
found at the scene.

Her shoes were
not with the body.

To me, that is suspicious.

[Dianne] When she walked away,
she had a white headband on,

she had blue jean shorts
that were almost white,

and she had a black
T-shirt on and shoes.

When they found her, all she had on
was a sports bra and black underwear.

Well, where's her shorts?
Where's her shirt?

[Louise] Isn't that one of the questions
a medical examiner would wanna know?

The medical examiner's report
was so small, so scant.

I saw no evidence
that they contacted Tiffany's doctor,

that they contacted
anyone from her school.

Nobody ever came and talked to us
and asked me questions about my daughter.

[Robert, Jr.] They didn't talk to her mom
and dad. They didn't talk to anybody.

You're just gonna say "oh, it's a su1c1de"
because somebody got hit on the tracks?

That's crazy.

[Louise] She had no history
of any medical problems.

No history of drug abuse.
No history of alcohol abuse.

An active athlete.

Someone that was really loved
and was just doted on by her family.

The phone messages
that I was able to look at,

I didn't see anything
really unusual.

She had broken up with her girlfriend,
but it seemed to be amicable.

[Dianne] Tiffany had
a girlfriend from Philly.

It was, uh, right around that Friday
before she d*ed that they broke up.

But it was mutual.

[Louise] There didn't
seem to be any hostility

from the phone
records that I read.

And actually, Tiffany had started
another relationship with another woman,

according to her phone records.

[Dianne] She actually wrote,

even in her phone
the night before she d*ed,

that "I'm actually
content with my life."

[Louise] So, why
did she do this?

If she committed su1c1de,
was there a reason?

Why would she commit su1c1de?

[Robert, Sr.] This happened at night,
and I came down early the next morning.

I didn't want my brother, Stephen,
or his wife, Dianne,

to have to walk down that tracks
and see what I saw.

Pieces that they
just left behind.

[somber music playing]

[Robert, Jr.] My father and I were
looking for things that were missing.

We're looking for her sneakers.

We're looking for her headband.

We're looking for her earrings,
her jewelry, her shorts.

[Robert, Sr.] I don't
know how I did it,

but I picked up pieces of her skull
with hair on it.

I picked up a jawbone with teeth
and various parts of her bones.

We found one of her bracelets
and gave it to Dianne,

and she has that today.

And that was on her at the time.

To have to pick up
pieces of her off the track

was the most devastating thing
I ever done in my life.

[Robert, Jr.]
Walking to the tracks,

I see bloody rubber gloves
laying on the ground.

That scene's
already contaminated.

It wasn't even roped off.

New Jersey Transit just…
They're not trained for that.

And they didn't do a good job
cleaning the tracks.

We would go down there
and keep looking, and looking,

but we never found
her shoes there,

we never found
her headband there,

we never found any
of her clothes there.

Where is the stuff
that she was wearing from the party?

[Dianne] Walking down Tilton Road,
just walking,

I had already been up
and down that street a million times.

For weeks, we were walking just looking
for any kind of sign of something

'cause I knew
my daughter's shorts were missing.

Her headband was missing.
Her shoes were missing.

And as I'm walking along,

I got to about here, and I looked over,
and I saw my daughter's shoes.

[crying softly] And when I saw that,
I fell to the ground.

And when I fell to the ground,
about six feet away,

was Tiffany's white headband.

I felt like a Mack truck hit me.

I'll never forget that day.

And I remember
it like yesterday.

We got a phone call
from my Aunt Dianne.

That she found
Tiffany's shoes and headband.

And it was almost two miles away

from where she was struck.

I ran down there and
she's just losing it.

She's… I mean, my wife was hysterical.
I couldn't understand what she was saying.

Her shoes and stuff were,
like, in here, this area.

And they were side-by-side almost,
like a foot apart.

The way they were positioned,
like, I just…

I felt like somebody took her
right out of her shoes.

That's how I felt.

But other people thought
maybe somebody placed them there.

New Jersey Transit came here.

They took pictures of her shoes,
and they put the shoes in a brown bag.

They took the items in
and that was the last you heard of it.

You never heard anything else.

They had all these items,

but they were never sent out
for any type of testing

to see if there was any other
possible DNA on them.

Five years
after their daughter was k*lled,

the families had to pay
to have those items tested for DNA.

But the chain of custody
has been broken on that,

so it's not of any use at all.

[Dianne] After we
found her shoes,

we actually got
about 15 of us together,

and we scoured that woods

all the way to the train tracks
where she was hit,

looking for anything that would help
to prove that she didn't do this.

The one thing
that's still missing of my daughter's…

[voice breaks]
…is her shorts.

[dark music playing]

[Dianne] To this day,
those shorts are missing.

[Paul] I asked myself,
"How did the shoes get to this area?"

It may very well be
that Tiffany was the victim of foul play.

Someone that was involved
in the foul play

picked those items up and threw them away
when they were leaving the scene.

Another theory is that
Tiffany took her shoes and headband off

where Dianne found them
and walked barefoot to the tracks.

I don't know what
sense it would make

to walk from Tiffany's house
to where the shoes were found,

and then take your shoes off
and put them in the woods,

and then walk to
where the train strike happened.

You got your shoes
on. Why take 'em off?

See how far we've gone so far
on this ride down the tracks?

You're sitting in the back.
Can you feel this?

- Feel the road surface?
- [producer] Yeah.

How you doing that in bare feet?

This is just a railroad bed

and has nothing
but sharp rocks with edges.

[Paul] If you look at the photographs
of Tiffany's feet,

especially her right foot,

there are no markings whatsoever

that you would expect to see

if someone had walked
in their bare feet,

especially over the rocks
and the glass along the tracks.

[Dianne] If she walked
on the train tracks itself,

she would have had
splinters on her feet.

To walk for miles
and have her feet completely clean

proves to you that
she did not walk.

[Robert, Sr.] I walked that tracks
after the fact,

and I had a hard time
walking on 'em with work shoes,

and that's what makes me feel
that she never ever walked there.

[ominous music playing]

[Louise] If someone,
especially a female 6'3",

is walking on the roadway,

someone is going to see them,
and going to notice them,

because it's very unusual to see anyone
walking on the roadway in this area.

[Paul] If you look at the photos

from Steve's deer cameras
outside of his home,

you will see headlights
of motor vehicles

at the same time
Tiffany's walking down the driveway.

I believe she enters
a motor vehicle.

I suspect voluntarily.

I believe she got in a car
with somebody she thought she knew,

was very comfortable with them.

When she entered that vehicle,
somebody grabbed the phone.

And I think that phone

was thrown out of the car

as they were pulling away.

[Dianne] When they took her phone,
that's when I think reality hit.

She was in trouble.

[voice breaking] Everybody has
their own scenarios

of what happened to my daughter.

I thought, "Well,
maybe they tried to r*pe her,

and she ran from them,

and maybe she was trying
to get away from them,

and then she just
couldn't run anymore."

[crying] I truly believe that she
was hanging on to this for dear life,

trying to save herself,
you know what I mean?

And trying to keep
them from taking her.

[mysterious music playing]

[Robert, Sr.] Right behind us,
where the tracks are,

that's where
Tiffany lost her life.

It's really desolate back here.
It's really kind of creepy or spooky.

If you were to pull back here,
you wouldn't hear anybody.

You have the noise of the train
on one side,

and you have the noise of the pike
to the right of me here.

[Robert, Jr.] If I wanted to get rid
of somebody, what a better spot to do it.

That remote location,
you could do anything you want.

There's nothing there.
Nobody's gonna hear a scream.

Nobody's gonna hear anything.

What a perfect spot
to commit a m*rder.

[dark music playing]

[Paul] If you look
at the photographs

that were taken by the
New Jersey Transit Police Department,

as well as the New Jersey
State Medical Examiner's Office…

you will see that at the point
that the train and the body of Tiffany

came in contact with each other,

there is what looks like
a large pool of blood.

Which suggests that the body
could have been laid there

and was bleeding
before the train hit the body.

[ominous music playing]

[Paul] They never
tested anything.

They said they had enough
to conclude that it was su1c1de

without doing the testing.

So it was never determined

if that was, in fact,
Tiffany's blood on the tracks.

The medical examiner
in this report says,

when referring to
Tiffany's arms and legs,

that they were
cut from the torso.

That word "cut" is
right in their report.

Not ripped away, but cut.

And that says to me

that there is a viable theory

that she was harmed
before the body was placed on the tracks.

The arms were placed out,

and the legs
were hanging over the other track.

[Dianne] Her feet were intact,
and her hands were intact.

What's that tell you?

She wasn't standing on that track
and hit by the train.

She was laying there.

They were cut off.

[Robert, Sr.] I believe
somebody laid her on the tracks,

and, uh, she bled out there.

[Robert, Jr.]
Seeing the location,

definitely she was m*rder*d
and laid on that tracks.

No doubt in my mind.

She was laid on those tracks.
That's how they got rid of her.

And somebody's
getting away with it.

Somebody's getting away with it.

My name is Chuck Atkinson.
I'm a private investigator.

I was in New Jersey State Police
for 26 years.

As a detective for 17 years.

I've been working for Paul D'Amato
since early 2008.

[suspenseful music playing]

Paul and the family
had decided to set up a hotline,

and they were looking
for any type of anonymous tips.

And we got a call

from a convenience store worker

who had overheard three employees
of that convenience store

speaking about
the Valiante case.

[Paul] I remember quite clearly

my legal assistant telling me,
"There's a gentleman,

and he has information
about Tiffany's death."

[on video] Sergeant Rosell's gonna be
here
any minute. We can get started.

And that particular individual
was interviewed under oath.

Extensively.

[on video] Of course,
I read about it in the newspaper.

I heard about it, you know.
The kids were talking about it at work.

[Paul] He shared
with that detective

what he had heard.

I had been given some information
from these guys that work for me.

[Chuck] They were telling a story
about how it had been a homicide.

So the three subjects
that he overheard

did not have anything to do
with this homicide.

They were just relating
something that they had heard.

One of the subjects
was at the uncle's party

that Tiffany was at that night,

and he did see
Tiffany at the party.

There were references
to an argument.

[man on video] And the argument
went on,
and then Tiffany left.

Now they told me
she was picked up by somebody.

They knew Tiffany.

[Chuck] It was two females and a male
who pick Tiffany up in a vehicle,

taking her somewhere
near the train tracks.

Stripped her naked, held her at gunpoint,
and humiliated her.

- [man] I'm telling you third-party stuff.
- [officer] Yeah, right.

- I'm just telling you what was told to me.
- [officer] Okay.

[Chuck] The prosecutor
interviewed the three individuals

that were overheard
at the convenience store.

[officer] With
relation
to the possible homicide,

did you hear
anything about that?


Like how it went down
or where that came from?

[man 1] No.
I don't know.


[officer] Did
you hear any other rumors?


- [man 2] I haven't heard anything.
- Nothing.

[man 2] No.

[officer] There's rumors
that
you knew a lot about what happened.

[man 3] To be
honest,
that sounds completely absurd.

[Chuck] All three witnesses
denied ever saying anything

to the effect of what was overheard
by the convenience store worker.

[officer] Since that
night,
have you heard anything about it?

[man 1]
No, just…

It's just the… su1c1de.

[officer] So, there was no...

It was never brought up about

possibly being anything
other than a su1c1de?

[man 2] Uh,
no. No.


[Paul] In the reports of the interviews
of certain people that knew Tiffany,

some of them did say that she was sad,
that she was depressed.

[woman] I don't think she
was,
like, very happy.

Like… I mean, like…

I don't think you could see it unless
you were, like, really close to her.

- Because…
- [officer] Sure.

[woman] …she always was,
like,
so happy, and like…

Well, like, if you
really knew her,


she just, like, I don't know.

I just feel like
she felt like she could never fit in.

[officer] Did she ever
mention anything to you before about, um…

besides just noticing
she wasn't happy,


that she wanted to… she was thinking
about harming herself at all?

[woman] No.

[officer]
Um…

[somber music playing]

[mysterious music playing]

[Paul] How did Tiffany
get from her home

to where her body
came in contact with the train?

Did she walk?

Did someone pick her up
and drive her there?

Was her death
some kind of accident

or was it foul play?

[mysterious music continues]

[Paul] There are people out there,
as we speak,

that have knowledge
of what happened.

And I'm begging
them to come forward

and help this family.

[Stephen] Before my daughter
went to college,

I promised her
I'd build her a volleyball court.

And after Tiffany's
passing, I said,

"Well, I promised
it." So I built it.

Tiffany just couldn't wait to
go to college and have fun at volleyball.

But somebody took that away from her,
and it ain't fair.

We need justice.

[Stephen] Is it
rough every day? Sure.

Every day, it's a
job to wake up.

Every day, to go to sleep.

But it's what I have to do
until I find out who did this to our baby.

[Dianne] This here is a cabinet of nothing
but beautiful memories of Tiffany.

And…

friends and relatives
have brought things here

in memory of Tiffany
to put in her cabinet.

Tiffany's bracelet here.

This was on her
the night she d*ed.

So I wore it for a long time.

This is Tiffany here
in the solid wood urn.

It's a prayer box.
I pray every night.

Then I put a message in there.

"For justice for Tiffany

and hope that the people
that did this to her will come forward."

[kisses]

I love you, Tiffy.

[dramatic music playing]
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