Tiffany Valiante’s Parents Doubled The Reward For New Tips About Her Death

In Season 3 of Netflix’s Unsolved Mysteries, Tiffany Valiante’s death is examined by her family members and several professionals, united by their doubt that Tiffany died by suicide in a 2015 train crash. The latest installment of the show, which premiered Oct. 18, revisits the case of the college-bound New Jersey teenager who had a scholarship to play volleyball at university.

On July 12 of that year, hours after attending a family graduation party, Tiffany was found dead — struck by a train four miles away from home. Though New Jersey Transit deemed Tiffany’s death a suicide, “Mystery at Mile Marker 45” offers several different theories about what happened to Tiffany, who her mom, Dianne Valiante described as “happy” during her final days. “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 ... there is no way in hell that she committed suicide.”

Dianne questioned several details about Tiffany’s case, including missing clothing items and shoes that were found far from the crash site. “It may very well be that Tiffany was the victim of foul play,” the family’s attorney, Paul D’Amato, said during the doc. “Someone that was involved in the foul play picked those items up and threw them away when they were leaving the scene.”

The attorney also noted findings that there was “a large pool of blood” at the crash site, proposing that Tiffany might have been injured before actually coming into contact with the train.

As is explained in the Unsolved Mysteries episode, the case was reviewed by the New Jersey Medical Examiner in 2018 — but ultimately, suicide was still considered the cause of Tiffany’s death. Still, the late teenager’s family is not done searching for answers. The Press of Atlantic City reports that Stephen and Dianne Valiante doubled the reward for tips that help solve Tiffany’s case from $20,000 to $40,000.

“We know so many others that also believe Tiffany’s death was not suicide, that there was a rush to judgment to close the case, and that the real story of how and why she died has yet to be told,” Tiffany’s parents said in a statement, via D’Amato. “The combination of this new, deeply researched, fact-based program and the increased reward might just be what’s necessary to help get Tiff’s case reopened.” Bustle reached out to D’Amato for additional comment and will update this article if a statement is provided.

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741. You can also reach out to the Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860, the Trevor Lifeline at 1-866-488-7386, or to your local suicide crisis center.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit hotline.rainn.org.