 Tiffany Valiante was only 18 years old when she went missing on a warm summer night in 2015. While Tiffany had, by all means, been your typical teenage girl, she had been involved in some extremely suspicious and mysterious situations in her final hours. Years later, her parents are still working to piece together what exactly took place on the night that their daughter vanished. Tiffany snuck out of her home that evening and was spotted on CCTV footage heading toward the nearby train tracks. Just before midnight, investigators located a crime scene on the tracks after it was reported that a train had struck a pedestrian. But this was only the tip of the iceberg. Detectives ruled that Tiffany had taken her own life that night, but subsequent investigations paint Tiffany's final moments in a much different light. In fact, many people, including Tiffany's own parents, now believe that Tiffany may have been ambushed in the woods that night and that the train wreck was nothing more than a disturbing cover story. Tiffany Valiante had grown up in Maze Landing, New Jersey. She attended high school at Oak Crest High School, where she was known for being an excellent volleyball player. In fact, volleyball was one of Tiffany's main callings in life. She was one of the best athletes in the school, so much so that after graduating high school, she planned on going to college free of charge, with a volleyball scholarship to Mercy College in New York. When Tiffany was a staggering 6'2'' tall, it's clear to see that she would have been a force to be reckoned with on the volleyball court, and talent scouts saw her massive potential. Growing up in Maze Landing, Tiffany had a relatively normal childhood to an extent. Maze Landing isn't known for being a particularly safe area and in fact it's one of the least safe areas in all of New Jersey, but as far as I can tell, neither Tiffany nor her family ever had any major issues in the area. Now, if this case is starting to sound a bit familiar to you at this point, it's likely because Tiffany's case was covered on the Netflix series Unsolved Mysteries. Specifically, the episode titled Mystery at Milemarker 45. But the reason I wanted to cover this case is because Netflix made, in my opinion, some pretty serious mistakes with their coverage of the story. They left out some pretty major details that ultimately changed the entire course of the investigation and the story. See, for the most part, Netflix painted Tiffany's upbringing as fairly typical, and it was, to an extent. The area where the writers really dropped the ball was in regards to the final couple years of Tiffany's life. In nearly every retelling of this story, Tiffany is often regarded as being a model student, a perfect daughter, a blameless innocent girl, all the typical stuff you hear after someone's lost their life. And in reality, when we look back on the people we love and care about, it's super easy to look over all the negatives and only remember people for the positive impact they left behind. And don't get me wrong, Tiffany left a positive impact on nearly everyone who knew her. Very few people had anything negative to say about her, but that doesn't mean she didn't have her flaws. One of the key aspects of her life that's often overlooked is that, while Tiffany's upbringing was fairly normal, relatively speaking, she certainly had her issues. In fact, in 2014 alone, it's been reported that Child Protective Services had visited the Valiente family home at least three times. It seems that these visits came after one of Tiffany's teachers reported some concerning bruises to the authorities. Now, Tiffany was always covered in small bruises. It was the nature of her volleyball career. She was bound to get hurt all the time. But according to her teacher, these bruises were not consistent with volleyball practice, and they appeared as though Tiffany had been being abused at home. When CPS visited the family home, they found that her teacher had in fact been correct. Tiffany's mother opened up about the issues that they'd been dealing with and admitted that she had punched Tiffany in the arm on at least one occasion during an argument. Both Tiffany and her mother were entered into therapy after this confession, and the therapists believed that they struggled from simple communication problems and that they had an otherwise stable relationship. Now, I don't know about you, but I've never struck a child due to communication problems. Becoming angry with your children is natural. Children's ideas and beliefs don't always align with your own, but crossing the line of abusing a child because of a disagreement is something else entirely. Now, I'm certainly not trying to incite a witch hunter to paint Tiffany's mother as a bad or violent person. The truth is, context is everything, and we simply don't know the context here. In all reality, Tiffany was six foot two, a very large girl, and may have struck her mother first, and her mother fought back in self-defense or even out of fear. We truly have no idea what took place here, but there were clearly issues at home and issues that seem to have often been overlooked during most retellings of Tiffany's story. But that's not where the story really ends with Tiffany's difficult teenage years. See, the Netflix documentary also mentioned a time when Tiffany stole money from one of her friends. Specifically, she stole her friend's credit card and spent her money without permission. Now, the Netflix documentary basically chalked this up to nothing more than a simple mistake, claiming that Tiffany was a well-educated girl who should have known better. But that's not the full story and not by a long shot. According to a civil disposition transcript that was pulled by the Daily Beast, Tiffany had stolen money from her parents on what appears to have been multiple occasions. In the past, Tiffany's mother had defended Tiffany's actions in regards to her stealing money from her friend, but she conveniently left out the fact that Tiffany had stolen from her own family just months before this. It's been suggested that Tiffany did this as a way to lash out against her parents when they had disagreements, but the truth may go much deeper than this. Kids steal for a variety of reasons. They may simply steal because someone else has something that they want. But in Tiffany's case, her actions seem to have been her way of communication. In particular, her family claims that she would steal from her parents when she was upset with him. This just further proves the major communication problems that her family was dealing with. A lot of times, children steal to get their parents' attention, to prove a point, or to bring awareness to an underlying issue in their home life, even if it's all done subconsciously. Now, I'm certainly not a child psychologist, but I'd be willing to bet that this is what was happening here. Tiffany was very clearly struggling, and if investigators are to be believed, this may have been what ultimately led to that terrible summer evening when Tiffany put an end to her struggles once and for all. It was July 12th, 2015. Tiffany and her family were out celebrating the high school graduation of her cousin. At around 9 p.m. that evening, Tiffany's friend made a call to Tiffany's parents and told them that she feared Tiffany may have stolen money from her by taking her debit card and purchasing clothes and food. This is the instance that I mentioned just a moment ago in regards to Tiffany's habit of stealing. Investigators were never called and no charges were ever filed, but obviously her parents were well aware of Tiffany's habit. Later that evening, a private investigation of their own was conducted by Tiffany's parents, and they looked through her room and found receipts that totaled around $86. And if I'm understanding the situation correctly, this is the exact amount that the friend claimed Tiffany had stolen. This was all the confirmation that Tiffany's mother needed to know that she'd been up to no good once again. Just a few minutes later, Tiffany's mother confronted her about the crimes that she'd been committing. Tiffany obviously wasn't happy to hear that her mother had found out about her secret habit, but she'd been caught red-handed. According to investigators, Tiffany had finally had enough of her mother's constant complaints and abuse. As soon as her mother left the area for a brief moment, Tiffany fled the home and ran away. But this is just one of the many unexplained details about Tiffany's sudden disappearance. See, Tiffany had recently been diagnosed with nyctophobia or an extreme fear of the dark. Yet she ran away into the darkness of the night and didn't look back. This was incredibly unusual and downright bizarre. The final image of Tiffany was captured on a CCTV camera in the family's yard. The camera took a surveillance image of Tiffany leaving the property at approximately 9.30 PM. In the photo, she can be seen wearing a t-shirt and shorts, as well as a headband and a brand new pair of shoes that she'd just bought for college. After her parents realized that Tiffany had snuck out, they did their best to contact her several times, but she never answered her phone. Her parents didn't contact investigators or file a missing person case immediately as they thought she might've just needed time to clear her head and she'd come back later that evening. But Tiffany never came home. In fact, the CCTV image was the final time that Tiffany would ever be seen alive. It would be around 11 PM that Tiffany's father left the home and finally began searching for her. This was about an hour and a half after the argument with her mother. Her father didn't even make it to the end of the driveway before he found a disturbing piece of evidence that gave him chills. Tiffany's cell phone had been dropped on the pavement just outside the home and Tiffany was nowhere to be found. According to her parents and crime scene investigators, Tiffany never went anywhere without her phone and the fact that she'd left it behind told her parents that her disappearance was far worse than they could have ever imagined. Just 30 minutes later, Tiffany's parents filed a missing person report with the local police department. Investigators got to work very quickly but unfortunately before proper investigation could even really begin, the police had terrible news for her parents. Detectives who were combing through the nearby woods found several harrowing pieces of evidence that painted a very grim picture of what had transpired that evening. Police say that they have reason to believe that immediately after fleeing the home, Tiffany had run through these very same woods. But strangely, all throughout these woods, they found various pieces of Tiffany's clothing. Her shoes were also found but no one knows why she would have removed her shoes while running through the thick brush like this. It would have only made things more difficult for her. But as investigators followed the pieces of evidence all throughout the woods, they quickly realized that all of the clothing led right to a set of train tracks. And as soon as they arrived at the tracks, their hearts sank. Tiffany had been found but she was no longer alive. It was around 11.03 p.m. when a report was made to the local police that a train passing through the area had struck a pedestrian. This report was called in less than 30 minutes before Tiffany's parents reported her missing. At this point, it doesn't seem that investigators had any reason to believe that Tiffany had been the one struck by the train but when all of her clothing was found leading to the tracks, the evidence was clear. A nurse who had been nearby arrived at Tiffany's side by 11.16 p.m. But it was already too late. It was early the following morning that Tiffany's parents were given the news that brought their world crumbling down around them. But to make matters worse, less than 24 hours later, police explained that they believed Tiffany had done this to herself. This came as a shock to Tiffany's parents because according to her mother, Tiffany wasn't depressed and she certainly hadn't planned to take her own life. But we have to keep in mind, Tiffany and her mother had very clear communication issues and Tiffany was obviously going through a lot in the months leading up to her disappearance. So it's entirely possible that her mother simply didn't recognize the signs or Tiffany didn't communicate them in a way that her mother was able to understand. But there's also another distinct possibility here. Tiffany didn't do this to herself. Someone had hunted her down through the woods that evening and claimed her life. And this theory isn't as far-fetched as you might believe. See, according to Tiffany's parents, the investigation into her disappearance was botched from the start. Unfortunately, since the crime occurred on a set of railroad tracks, the New Jersey Transit Police were the ones tasked with conducting the investigation. The Transit Police were not properly equipped and may not have even been trained to conduct homicide investigations. Their bread and butter is merely investigating transit crimes. It's right in the name. But considering the location of the crime, the County Sheriff's Office was severely limited in what they were able to do in terms of the investigation. According to unsolved mysteries, the Transit Police did a terrible job securing the scene of the crime, leading to mountains of evidence either being mishandled, poorly stored or overlooked entirely. But unsolved mysteries themselves actually skipped out on an incredibly vital piece of information that's been shared by nj.com. According to this report, investigators recovered an ax at the scene of the crime. Not only this, but the ax is listed as being covered in red stains. Now, the obvious assumption here is that this ax may have been covered in blood. And Tiffany's family believed that this is likely the case as well. But there's one big problem here. While this ax was mentioned during the investigation and it was collected as part of the investigation into Tiffany's passing, it was lost before it could even be processed. All that was left were vague descriptions of the weapon, but the weapon itself has since disappeared due to the poor handling of the investigation by the New Jersey Transit Police. Tiffany's family firmly believed that this ax may hold the answers to what happened to Tiffany that day. But until it's recovered, those answers will remain unknown. In all reality, this ax may have been completely unrelated to Tiffany's disappearance, but we have no way to prove this one way or the other. But that's only the tip of the iceberg. And there's one other vital piece of evidence that may just change everything. When detectives arrived at the scene of the crime to collect Tiffany's remains and process her for any additional evidence, they noticed a very specific detail that didn't make sense. If you remember, Tiffany's shoes were found in the woods surrounding the train tracks. We know that she'd run quite a considerable distance through the woods before eventually making her way to the tracks. Yet her feet showed no signs of running through the brush, through the thorns and the tree limbs that would have obviously been scattered all around the woods. Her feet were totally smooth and free of any abrasions. According to one report, Tiffany would have run nearly a full mile without her shoes. So this made no sense at all. Nearly all of Tiffany's clothing was recovered in the woods that day, including her headband and shirt that she'd been wearing in the CCTV footage. But investigators also found a key chain that Tiffany's parents didn't recognize. Now, it is possible that this key chain was already in the woods and was unrelated to the case. But when you consider the key chain in combination with the rest of the evidence, we have to ask ourselves, did Tiffany actually run through the woods that evening? Or was she carried? And could this key chain belong to the person who carried her? Considering her clothing had been removed, her feet were baby smooth and she allegedly showed no signs of depression, well, all of this in combination with the axe that was found nearby has led many people to believe that Tiffany may have been abducted that evening. This would also explain why her phone had been dropped at the bottom of the family's driveway. Now, to clarify something I mentioned earlier, in the moments before Tiffany allegedly ran off into the night that evening, her mother had been pressing her about the credit card that she had stolen from one of her friends. According to Tiffany's mother, both she and Tiffany headed out to Tiffany's car to search for the credit card. Tiffany told her mother that the card wasn't in the car because she wasn't the one who stole it. But her mother insisted that they check anyway, firmly believing that Tiffany was lying. As they were searching through the car, Tiffany's mother claims to have seen her daughter secretly grab a card and slip it into her back pocket, hiding it away from sight. When her mother pressed her about this, Tiffany once again denied it. This is when her mother walked back into the house to tell her father about the situation. And when she returned outside, Tiffany was gone. All that was left behind was the CCTV footage of Tiffany walking through the yard toward the end of the driveway. With this in mind, considering there were no witnesses to the exact moment when Tiffany left the family's home, we have to at least entertain the idea that Tiffany didn't leave her family's property of her own accord that day. Yes, the CCTV image captured her walking directly toward the end of the driveway. But who may have been waiting at the end of that driveway that we're completely unaware of? Who could have been lurking behind a tree or a bush? The fact that Tiffany dropped her cell phone at the end of the driveway that night just doesn't sit well with me. And the fact that she was stripped of nearly all of her clothing yet didn't have a single scratch on her feet is just plain suspicious. When you combine this with the ax and the key chain, well, it doesn't paint a pretty picture. Now, there is a distinct possibility that Tiffany did this to herself. And the ax, the cell phone, the key chain, and the lack of cuts on her feet are all simple coincidences. That is a possibility. But giving this case even two full seconds of thought leads me to believe that something far more sinister took place in those woods that evening. And I don't believe Tiffany did this to herself not for one moment. I haven't been able to confirm whether or not the transit police are still investigating Tiffany's case, but her family are certainly doing everything they can to keep things moving. There have been several developments and new pieces of evidence that have come out over the years, but nothing has led to any arrests or warrants. And considering the transit police believe she did this to herself, well, arrests are beginning to seem increasingly unlikely unless something major happens, such as the aforementioned ax being found. As it stands, the best I can tell, Tiffany's case is considered solved. But the trail of evidence that was left behind has left so many people wondering what really happened to Tiffany Valiante. Thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of True Crime Stories. If you enjoyed this video, check out this other interesting case I covered and don't forget to subscribe. It's totally free and keeps you up to date with all of my future videos. You can also click that join button below to support the channel and see new videos long before everyone else does. But my name is Ty Nottz and I'll catch you guys in the next one.