Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Teen Girl Walks 10 Miles BAREFOOT to COMMIT SUICIDE? NO WAY Say Parents

Transcript

Teen Girl Walks 10 Miles BAREFOOT to COMMIT SUICIDE? NO WAY Say Parents · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grece.
0:12
Speaker 2: A teen girl allegedly commits suicide, but it doesn't make sense.
0:20
Speaker 1: It makes no sense at all. A young teen.
0:24
Speaker 2: Girl, barely clothed suicide by train. I'm not buying it.
0:33
Speaker 2: I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for
0:36
Speaker 2: being with us here at Foxination and Serious xem one eleven.
0:40
Speaker 1: What do you do if you're the parent of a child.
0:46
Speaker 2: And authorities insist your child committed suicide, but you know,
0:53
Speaker 2: based on the facts, she didn't, absolutely did not. And
0:59
Speaker 2: what about experts tell you there's no way this is
1:03
Speaker 2: a suicide, this is a homicide. But yet seemingly cops
1:10
Speaker 2: and authorities won't budge. First of all, take a listen
1:17
Speaker 2: to our friends at crime Online.
1:19
Speaker 3: When Stephen and Diane met, Diane already had two girls,
1:23
Speaker 3: Jessica in Crystal, and they didn't plan on having any more.
1:26
Speaker 3: They were surprised and shocked in a good way when
1:29
Speaker 3: Diane found out if she was going to have Tiffany.
1:32
Speaker 3: Diane says, the first time they laid eyes on her,
1:34
Speaker 3: it was heaven. Tiffany was a happy child, and after
1:37
Speaker 3: the older girls grew up and out, friends and family
1:40
Speaker 3: say Tiffany was raised kind of like an only child.
1:43
Speaker 2: You know, I've got an all star panel to try
1:46
Speaker 2: to make sense of what we know right now. But
1:49
Speaker 2: first I want to go to special guests joining us,
1:52
Speaker 2: Stephen and Diane Belliente. These are the parents of Tiffany,
1:59
Speaker 2: the teen girl who lost her life. Mister and missus Valiante,
2:03
Speaker 2: thank you for being with us. And I've studied the
2:06
Speaker 2: case very carefully, and from what I can see, your
2:11
Speaker 2: daughter's case is a complete divergence from every statistical data
2:20
Speaker 2: that I know to be true regarding suicide, methods of homicide,
2:26
Speaker 2: and suicide. I understand where you're coming from based on
2:32
Speaker 2: the facts, but I want to hear about the moment
2:37
Speaker 2: that was just described by our friends at crimeonline dot Com.
2:41
Speaker 2: I remember the first moment I saw my children's faces,
2:47
Speaker 2: my twins. That moment I will never forget it. Tell
2:54
Speaker 2: me about that, Diane.
2:59
Speaker 4: When we first saw to me, she was just so precious, beautiful.
3:09
Speaker 4: We just loved it for the moment we actually put
3:12
Speaker 4: our eyes on her. She was just gorgeous.
3:18
Speaker 2: Now I can't remember the twins that are extremely premature,
3:21
Speaker 2: about two months premature, and I had an emergency c section,
3:28
Speaker 2: and the nurses showed them to me, and I remember
3:33
Speaker 2: their little blue eyes looking at me like help me,
3:39
Speaker 2: I will never forget it, and I was so I
3:43
Speaker 2: didn't know, but at that point I was near death too.
3:46
Speaker 2: I couldn't even sit up, and I touched a kiss
3:49
Speaker 2: to my lips and put it on each one of
3:51
Speaker 2: their foreheads, and then we were all torn apart to
3:56
Speaker 2: ICUs Stephen, what do you remember about that moment.
4:00
Speaker 5: When she came? Its just a miracle, that's I mean
4:04
Speaker 5: state the miracle changed my whole life in what way?
4:08
Speaker 5: In every perspective of the is I mean like I've
4:13
Speaker 5: worked hard, got the house bill, it's just more given
4:18
Speaker 5: more of a stride.
4:19
Speaker 2: Guys, you were hearing the parents of Tiffany Valiente, a
4:24
Speaker 2: teen girl whose death was ruled suicide by train.
4:30
Speaker 1: Joining me.
4:31
Speaker 2: So everyone who has been working so hard on this case.
4:34
Speaker 2: But I want to go to doctor Donald Jason uh
4:39
Speaker 2: former Atlantics County Medical Examiner and forensic pathologists, currently Professor
4:46
Speaker 2: Emeritus of Pathology at Wake Forest. Doctor Jason, thank you
4:51
Speaker 2: so much for being with us. You know, when you
4:53
Speaker 2: study over years and years and years, as I have done,
4:57
Speaker 2: the method and assessment of homicide and suicid. I've seen
5:01
Speaker 2: zero suicide by train. I mean I see it on movies,
5:07
Speaker 2: but in real life not so much, doctor, have you.
5:11
Speaker 6: No, I have not.
5:12
Speaker 7: I've seen homicide by train. Well, actually, I've seen a homicide.
5:17
Speaker 6: Covered up by train, right.
5:20
Speaker 7: I've seen accidents right, usually people in cars, right, not
5:26
Speaker 7: just on tracks.
5:28
Speaker 2: I'm with you, doctor, I'm just thinking back. In all
5:31
Speaker 2: the years I prosecuted, I've never once, not once, seen
5:39
Speaker 2: suicide by train.
5:41
Speaker 1: Never.
5:42
Speaker 6: It's extremely rare.
5:44
Speaker 2: In fact, in all the years that I prosecuted in
5:47
Speaker 2: intercity Atlanta strictly felonies, and all the cases we have
5:52
Speaker 2: covered and investigated ourselves, I've never seen suicide by train.
5:57
Speaker 1: That's a lot of cases.
5:59
Speaker 6: Well, it's are that. It's even more rare in the
6:03
Speaker 6: teen years.
6:04
Speaker 1: Yes, well, I mean suicide itself.
6:07
Speaker 2: Although when a teen does commit suicide it makes the headlines. Why,
6:11
Speaker 2: because it's so rare, it's an anomaly. It's highly unusual
6:17
Speaker 2: for a teen to commit suicide. Now, we see it
6:19
Speaker 2: a lot in the media because the media will seize
6:23
Speaker 2: on anything that is unusual, and naturally because we are
6:29
Speaker 2: curious about it. But when you look at the bulk
6:34
Speaker 2: of suicides, they are largely not teens. And also, isn't
6:41
Speaker 2: it true, doctor Donald Jason that statistically women practically never
6:48
Speaker 2: commit suicide unclothed.
6:50
Speaker 7: Well, we tend not to do it where their bodies
6:53
Speaker 7: will be.
6:54
Speaker 1: Mangled, exactly mangled.
6:56
Speaker 2: In fact, when women commit suicide, you rarely see them
7:00
Speaker 2: shooting themselves in the head just doesn't happen, or commuting.
7:04
Speaker 2: And I remember the first time I had cause to
7:07
Speaker 2: study this my district attorney, my elected d eight, longest
7:10
Speaker 2: serving DA in the country at that time, I think
7:12
Speaker 2: it was thirty seven years elected, mister Slayton. I heard
7:16
Speaker 2: him on the loud speaker, Nancy come to my office.
7:19
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, I ran literally ran to his office,
7:23
Speaker 2: and he said, I want you to look at this file.
7:26
Speaker 2: I said fine. Because the father of the victim was
7:31
Speaker 2: a lawyer I think was in a sunny school class.
7:34
Speaker 2: I can't remember that connection, but I looked at it
7:36
Speaker 2: and immediately I saw that the female victim was completely
7:42
Speaker 2: nude and shot herself in the head right there. Although
7:46
Speaker 2: I didn't understand it, it seemed wrong to me. That's
7:49
Speaker 2: what led me to begin studying method and assessments of
7:52
Speaker 2: suicide and homicide. It's extremely rare for a woman to
7:58
Speaker 2: mangle her body. As you said, much less not fully closed,
8:03
Speaker 2: statistically speaking, rarely happens. Joining me is Justin Rorlick joining
8:10
Speaker 2: us out of Manhattan. He is with the Daily Beast
8:13
Speaker 2: and you can find him at the Dailybeast dot com
8:15
Speaker 2: on Twitter at Justin Rorlick.
8:18
Speaker 1: Justin take a listen to our friend Dave Mack.
8:22
Speaker 3: Tiffany grew into a striking young woman with a large
8:24
Speaker 3: circle of friends. She was an excellent athlete, and at
8:27
Speaker 3: six foot two, she made an impact on the volleyball court.
8:31
Speaker 3: Tiffany loved the game and received multiple scholarship offers for colleges.
8:35
Speaker 3: She decided to take her game to the next level
8:37
Speaker 3: at Mercy College in New York, where she was expected
8:39
Speaker 3: to start as a freshman and pursue a degree in
8:42
Speaker 3: criminal justice.
8:43
Speaker 2: You know, it seems to me, Justin Orlick, that she
8:46
Speaker 2: had everything going for her. You know how hard it
8:49
Speaker 2: is to make a volleyball team, Justin, have you ever
8:52
Speaker 2: tried that?
8:52
Speaker 5: I have none.
8:53
Speaker 2: Can I tell you my daughter has. She's made it
8:57
Speaker 2: twice and one time she didn't.
8:59
Speaker 1: It's hard. These girls are tough.
9:02
Speaker 2: I mean you've got to be a real athlete to
9:06
Speaker 2: get on a school volleyball team.
9:09
Speaker 1: I'm just telling you, Justin, it's not easy.
9:11
Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean, this was a young woman who had
9:14
Speaker 5: everything going for her and certainly had everything to live for.
9:18
Speaker 5: From what I've been told by the Valente family, by
9:22
Speaker 5: Paul Tomato, people that knew her, we spent a lot
9:27
Speaker 5: of time together and really dug in deeply to this case.
9:32
Speaker 5: And you know, while I certainly don't know exactly what
9:34
Speaker 5: happened that night because I wasn't there, obviously, I do
9:37
Speaker 5: believe the Valente family deserves a proper investigation because it
9:41
Speaker 5: definitely appears that the conclusion of suicide was reached very
9:44
Speaker 5: very quickly.
9:45
Speaker 2: Man, you're not kidding, Justin Royaler Guys, justin joining me
9:48
Speaker 2: from the Daily Based.
9:50
Speaker 1: Okay, take a listen to more from.
9:52
Speaker 3: Dave mac On a beautiful Sunday, July and twelfth, the
9:55
Speaker 3: Valente family went to a graduation party for Tiffany's cousin
9:59
Speaker 3: across the street from their Maize Landing, New Jersey home.
10:02
Speaker 3: This was a big party, with family and friends filling
10:06
Speaker 3: up the yard, cars parked on either side of the roadway.
10:10
Speaker 3: This was not a one hour party and open up presence.
10:12
Speaker 3: This was a full party, complete with steaming clams, fun
10:16
Speaker 3: in the swimming pool, competitive and fun volleyball games going on. Finally,
10:21
Speaker 3: a little after nine pm, Tiffany unexpectedly heads back across
10:24
Speaker 3: the street to her house.
10:26
Speaker 1: So there's a big party.
10:28
Speaker 8: Now.
10:29
Speaker 2: Let me ask you, Stephen and Dianne. Let me go
10:31
Speaker 2: to you, Diane. That was on July twelve, around nine
10:37
Speaker 2: o'clock pm. Correct, that's when she left the party.
10:40
Speaker 4: Yeah, somewhere maybe a few minutes before that.
10:42
Speaker 2: Okay, And you saw her that evening. Correct, You were
10:45
Speaker 2: at the party also.
10:46
Speaker 4: We were with her since all day actually, other than
10:50
Speaker 4: her going to wah wah get to get lemonade.
10:52
Speaker 2: That brings back good memories. I used to live on
10:55
Speaker 2: top of a wah wah in Philly with my sister.
10:59
Speaker 2: So the party, it sounds like a really great party
11:04
Speaker 2: for Tiffany's cousin.
11:07
Speaker 1: Was she downcast? Was she sad? Was she upset about anything?
11:10
Speaker 4: Now she's totally excited talking to everyone about you know,
11:14
Speaker 4: college and shopping and apparently was scoping out for a
11:22
Speaker 4: kitten for me for my birthday, you know, which was
11:25
Speaker 4: the following week.
11:39
Speaker 1: Time Stories with Nancy.
11:41
Speaker 2: Grace with Me is doctor Angela Arnold, a renowned psychiatrist
11:46
Speaker 2: out of the Atlanta jurisdiction, and she specializes in the
11:49
Speaker 2: treatment of women in all aspects of their life. Doctor Angie,
11:55
Speaker 2: we need you, and we need you now because I
11:58
Speaker 2: want to know if you agree or disagree with any
12:00
Speaker 2: or part of what I've been saying about teen suicide.
12:05
Speaker 2: While we hear about it a lot, it is by
12:08
Speaker 2: far not the main percentage of suicides across our country
12:14
Speaker 2: and especially here where this young girl is happy. She's
12:21
Speaker 2: got all these college scholarships being offered to her, and
12:25
Speaker 2: she's doing forward thinking planning. In other words, I'm looking
12:30
Speaker 2: for kittens to give my mom for her birthday. We're
12:33
Speaker 2: going shopping for X, Y and Z. I'm looking forward
12:37
Speaker 2: to blah blah blah, it goes on and on. That's
12:41
Speaker 2: not typically what you see when a young girl is
12:45
Speaker 2: planning to kill herself.
12:46
Speaker 9: No, Nancy, you are exactly right about that. And there
12:49
Speaker 9: are things that we typically see when a young girl
12:53
Speaker 9: is thinking about killing herself, like what oh, Nancy, There's
12:58
Speaker 9: so many things, like they have a substance abuse disorder,
13:03
Speaker 9: if they typically show impulsive kinds of behavior. If they've
13:08
Speaker 9: had a change in their friendships, if there's been a
13:10
Speaker 9: change in their family, like divorce or moving to a
13:13
Speaker 9: new town. You see how negative all of those things,
13:16
Speaker 9: how negatively these things can impact the child. But like
13:21
Speaker 9: you said, Nancy, this young girl is getting scholarships, she's
13:26
Speaker 9: graduating from high school as happy as a lark, she's
13:30
Speaker 9: an amazing athlete, she's moving on to do wonderful things
13:34
Speaker 9: in her life. And none of that, none of that
13:38
Speaker 9: looks like suicide. And I'll tell you something, Nancy, what
13:41
Speaker 9: young beautiful woman is going to stand on some train
13:46
Speaker 9: tracks and wait for a train to come by. You
13:50
Speaker 9: would change your mind before you did something like that.
13:53
Speaker 9: Who's gonna wait for a train to come by to
13:56
Speaker 9: get hit by a train?
13:57
Speaker 10: You know what?
13:57
Speaker 2: The way you just put it, guys got to go
14:00
Speaker 2: to an incredible guest joining us, Paul Dematto. He is
14:06
Speaker 2: a veteran trial lawyer and he has been representing the
14:09
Speaker 2: Valiante family. You can find me at Demato Law Firm
14:12
Speaker 2: dot com. Paul, I actually had not, and I've looked
14:16
Speaker 2: at this this case over and over since I first
14:19
Speaker 2: found it. But what doctor Angie just said, I didn't
14:24
Speaker 2: think of that. And it's so obvious, is stearing me
14:27
Speaker 2: right in the face. What girl, a ten girl is
14:30
Speaker 2: going to stand out at the train tracks and wait
14:33
Speaker 2: all alone for a train to leap in front of it.
14:37
Speaker 1: I mean, none, that's who. None. It's just so obvious it.
14:43
Speaker 10: Is, And I thank you for your insight. All of
14:48
Speaker 10: us that have been working for Bono, including doctor Jason
14:54
Speaker 10: and other consultants retired from law enforcement, everybody has concluded
15:02
Speaker 10: that you cannot rule this as a suicide. And if
15:08
Speaker 10: the New Jersey Transit Police Department at the very least
15:13
Speaker 10: had done a psychological autopsy of Tiffany, if they had
15:19
Speaker 10: taken the time to interview Steve and Diane, and Tiffany's
15:26
Speaker 10: two sisters, the grandmother, the relatives, the friends, the coaches,
15:31
Speaker 10: they would have learned that there was nothing, nothing, at
15:35
Speaker 10: all in her background that would have motivated this young
15:41
Speaker 10: lady to die by suicide. And they would have learned
15:46
Speaker 10: the Transit police that though she was not formally diagnosed
15:51
Speaker 10: with this psychiatric disorder, she was an e classic example
15:55
Speaker 10: of suffering from nictophobia, a fear of darkness.
16:00
Speaker 1: Wait to wha wha, wha whah, wah.
16:01
Speaker 2: Wait, wait, wait, it was already nine pm when she
16:03
Speaker 2: left the party. Wouldn't it have been dark? And somebody's
16:07
Speaker 2: trying to tell me this girl who was afraid of
16:09
Speaker 2: the dark and that was her only mental disturbance. She's
16:13
Speaker 2: afraid of the dark, like probably everybody. She's afraid of
16:17
Speaker 2: the dark. You're going to stand out on a train
16:19
Speaker 2: track in the dark. It just I mean, Stephen, would
16:26
Speaker 2: your daughter have stood out in the dark and waited
16:29
Speaker 2: for a train?
16:31
Speaker 5: No, never happened.
16:32
Speaker 2: Tell me about her fear of darkness? What did you
16:35
Speaker 2: do to relieve that?
16:37
Speaker 5: She came? She used to work a wildwide too, I said,
16:39
Speaker 5: but she worked more or less came home at eleven
16:41
Speaker 5: twelve o'clock at night. So what I did? I put
16:44
Speaker 5: us emotionally that in front. So and she pulled up,
16:47
Speaker 5: because she pulled right in front of the house. As
16:49
Speaker 5: soon as she pulled up, that labor come on in
16:51
Speaker 5: this way. She wasn't scared, but she was still run
16:54
Speaker 5: from her car to the house, which is only probably
16:57
Speaker 5: twenty five feet twenty feet What about inside?
17:00
Speaker 1: What about it inside?
17:01
Speaker 2: Diane?
17:02
Speaker 1: Did she keep a night light on in her room?
17:04
Speaker 10: Yeah?
17:04
Speaker 4: She had a well, she had she would leave her
17:06
Speaker 4: bathroom light on. Actually, even when she would watch TV,
17:10
Speaker 4: she would shut the shades in the living room because
17:14
Speaker 4: she was afraid somebody would look them at her. Huh,
17:16
Speaker 4: you know, she was just you know, it's just the
17:19
Speaker 4: way she was. She shut the shade gay.
17:22
Speaker 2: So she leaves the party just a tiny bit before
17:26
Speaker 2: nine o'clock.
17:27
Speaker 1: Take a listen to clime online.
17:30
Speaker 3: When Stephen and Diane come back outside to find Tiffany gone,
17:33
Speaker 3: they assumed she went back across the street to the party. However,
17:37
Speaker 3: after discovering Tiffany is not at the party, they enlist
17:40
Speaker 3: help of family and friends to start looking. Everyone gets
17:43
Speaker 3: very concerned because it's now dusk and getting darker. It's
17:47
Speaker 3: common knowledge that Tiffany is petrified of the dark and
17:50
Speaker 3: would never put herself in a situation where she was
17:53
Speaker 3: alone in the dark. Not only is it getting darker,
17:56
Speaker 3: but Tiffany isn't answering calls, her text messages. No matter what,
18:00
Speaker 3: Tiffany has her phone with her at all times, but
18:03
Speaker 3: now she isn't answering. After walking back and forth along
18:06
Speaker 3: the road, Tiffany's father finds out why Tiffany isn't responding
18:10
Speaker 3: to calls and text messages.
18:11
Speaker 1: Why take a listen to our friends? Why why?
18:14
Speaker 8: The family found Tiffany's phone on the ground after she disappeared,
18:17
Speaker 8: but they said she was basically attached to her phone,
18:20
Speaker 8: so much so that she bought a waterproof case to
18:23
Speaker 8: be able to bring it into the shower. Also, it
18:25
Speaker 8: was nighttime when Tiffany disappeared, and she was afraid of
18:28
Speaker 8: the dark. But most of all, Tiffany was happy, her
18:31
Speaker 8: family said she had promised. Her mother, Diane, says that
18:35
Speaker 8: never seemed to matter to investigators.
18:37
Speaker 4: How come nobody's questioned us, I can't understand.
18:40
Speaker 1: Nobody's been on my home. Nobody's I just don't understand.
18:46
Speaker 2: So Jim Brendan Steel joining us a private eye working
18:50
Speaker 2: with Paul Dematto and the Valiante family, the owner of
18:55
Speaker 2: Investech and former police officer.
18:59
Speaker 1: Jim how far away.
19:03
Speaker 2: From her cell phone where her dad found it to
19:08
Speaker 2: the location of her death? What was the distance between
19:11
Speaker 2: those two points.
19:12
Speaker 6: Depending on the route, at least a mile, if not
19:15
Speaker 6: almost two and some And depending on what route or
19:20
Speaker 6: whether you used roadways.
19:22
Speaker 1: Like a more straight line, got it so between one
19:24
Speaker 1: to two miles?
19:26
Speaker 2: Jim, could you describe the place. The location where Tiffany
19:32
Speaker 2: allegedly killed herself.
19:35
Speaker 6: It's some distance from any roadway along the train tracks
19:39
Speaker 6: from Chilton Road east towards General Avenue.
19:45
Speaker 2: Jim, when you say it's some distance from a roadway,
19:47
Speaker 2: what do you mean by that?
19:48
Speaker 6: Within a few hundred yards. It is very dark. There's
19:51
Speaker 6: no lighting at the scene.
19:53
Speaker 2: So she would have had to walk several hundred yards
19:57
Speaker 2: to wait for a train to jump in front of
20:01
Speaker 2: I want to circle back to Stephen Valiente. This is
20:04
Speaker 2: Tiffany's dad. What went through your mind the moment you
20:10
Speaker 2: saw her cell phone?
20:12
Speaker 5: It's just weird because why was the phone here? But
20:15
Speaker 5: we could get a hold of it. I mean it
20:17
Speaker 5: just I just knew the or something wrong, because there's
20:20
Speaker 5: no way that kids left your phone anywhere.
20:23
Speaker 2: Wouldn't you agree, Doctor Angela Arnold, People especially teens, are
20:30
Speaker 2: glued to their phone. That is a threat that I
20:35
Speaker 2: use if I have to to get the twins to
20:39
Speaker 2: do just about anything. If I say I'm going to
20:43
Speaker 2: wait till you're sleep tonight, I'm going to take your phone.
20:45
Speaker 1: Oh, they'll do anything.
20:47
Speaker 4: Of course.
20:47
Speaker 9: And Nancy, we talk about this all the time on
20:49
Speaker 9: your show. We talk about patterns of behavior, and it's
20:54
Speaker 9: such an obvious pattern of behavior if it listen to me,
20:58
Speaker 9: that needs to be a red flag. We need to
21:00
Speaker 9: write about this in a book. Okay, we need to
21:03
Speaker 9: scream it from the rooftops. If a teen is dissociated
21:08
Speaker 9: from her phone, from his or her phone, that is
21:11
Speaker 9: a red flag that something has gone wrong, because that
21:14
Speaker 9: is how much teams are attached to their phones in
21:17
Speaker 9: the life, in the world that we live in today.
21:20
Speaker 2: Is anybody in this studio or on our panel right
21:23
Speaker 2: now further away from your phone than arms reach anybody.
21:29
Speaker 1: I've got mine right here.
21:30
Speaker 2: Why I'm not looking at it, But if it pops
21:33
Speaker 2: up and it's from one of the twins, one of
21:35
Speaker 2: my children, I'm going to look at it because they
21:39
Speaker 2: may need me, and that's the only way. I don't
21:41
Speaker 2: think they even know home phone number. They that's how
21:47
Speaker 2: they reach me at all times. And I'm just stunned
21:52
Speaker 2: that she would have left her phone lying on the ground.
21:57
Speaker 2: Back to you, Stephen, it was lying on the ground where.
22:02
Speaker 5: Probably fifteen twenty feet from on one driveway, face down.
22:06
Speaker 5: Is the reason they've seen it because it lit up.
22:09
Speaker 1: It lit up, Okay, well.
22:10
Speaker 5: It was spacing downward, Jammy in the league.
22:13
Speaker 2: Was she driving a vehicle, Diane, No, she didn't have
22:17
Speaker 2: her vehicle, so she would have walked one two miles
22:22
Speaker 2: by foot. She would have walked that far without her
22:25
Speaker 2: phone and the dark and waited for a train. Is
22:31
Speaker 2: that My understanding of the analysis to Justin Rolick joining
22:35
Speaker 2: us from the Daily Base is that the theory that
22:39
Speaker 2: has been advanced by law enforcement, that is the theory.
22:44
Speaker 5: You know, as as some of the other guests mentioned before.
22:48
Speaker 5: Tiffy had a crippling fear of the dark, So just
22:53
Speaker 5: that alone would seem to indicate that she wouldn't be
22:57
Speaker 5: walking four miles in the dark to find the place
23:01
Speaker 5: to die by suicide, and certainly not by walking onto
23:05
Speaker 5: train tracks.
23:06
Speaker 2: Now, you're absolutely right, Doctor Angela Arnold joining as a psychiatrist,
23:10
Speaker 2: Doctor Angie. Isn't it true that a majority of suicides
23:14
Speaker 2: take place in the home.
23:15
Speaker 9: Yes, And I'll tell you yes, the majority of suicides
23:18
Speaker 9: takes place in the home. And as you said previously, Nancy,
23:22
Speaker 9: I just want.
23:22
Speaker 4: To reiterate this.
23:24
Speaker 9: When female attempt to commit suicide, they don't do it
23:30
Speaker 9: in a way to mangle their body.
23:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, overwhelmingly you're correct. Take a listen to our friend
23:36
Speaker 2: Joe Hernandez.
23:38
Speaker 8: On July twelfth, she was struck and killed by a
23:40
Speaker 8: New Jersey Transit train a few miles from her home.
23:43
Speaker 8: Investigators said she killed herself, but right away her mother
23:47
Speaker 8: Diane had doubts when.
23:49
Speaker 11: They first came to the house to tell us. I,
23:55
Speaker 11: I said, I mean, it'll repeat themselves because I just
23:59
Speaker 11: was in shock.
24:02
Speaker 2: A slutely Tiffany, you know.
24:04
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe I'm away off base.
24:07
Speaker 2: But it seems to me to Jim Brennan, Steel veteran
24:11
Speaker 2: private eye, former cop, that she left the party for
24:16
Speaker 2: a reason. Either she went to go meet someone or
24:20
Speaker 2: she was called out of the party. The party for
24:23
Speaker 2: her cousin, the graduation party across the street. Remember she
24:26
Speaker 2: left a little bit before nine, and then somehow her
24:30
Speaker 2: phone ends up not far from there on the ground.
24:36
Speaker 2: To me, it's clear she was taken somewhere.
24:39
Speaker 6: If the question is why did no one wonder what
24:44
Speaker 6: she did or what or whereabouts were Was she with
24:47
Speaker 6: anybody for the hour and a half between the time
24:49
Speaker 6: she was last seen in the time of the train strike.
24:52
Speaker 6: It's a fundamental flaw in the investigation. For the very inception.
24:55
Speaker 2: You're going to walk that far in the night, catch
24:59
Speaker 2: a truck that happens to be coming by, to kill yourself,
25:02
Speaker 2: and it all happens in the space of about ninety minutes.
25:07
Speaker 1: It's not making sense.
25:09
Speaker 2: Guys, take a list st our friends at whyy.
25:12
Speaker 8: Tiffany's shoes were found far from where she died, But
25:15
Speaker 8: to get to the spot where the train hit her,
25:17
Speaker 8: she'd have had to walk over rocks and dirty ground,
25:20
Speaker 8: Yet her feet were clean and undamaged in the autopsy photos.
25:24
Speaker 8: That's one of the many criticisms Attorney Paul Dematto has
25:27
Speaker 8: of the investigation into her death.
25:29
Speaker 12: What is in that file of the State Medical Examiner's
25:33
Speaker 12: office that led them to rush to judgment to conclude
25:37
Speaker 12: that it was suicide? And that is quite disturbing because
25:42
Speaker 12: just think about it for a second. You have parents,
25:44
Speaker 12: you have sisters that have to live with the fact
25:48
Speaker 12: that some governmental agency concluded that their loved one committed suicide.
25:53
Speaker 2: You know, joining me is esteemed Atlantic County former Medical
25:59
Speaker 2: ex forensic pathologist doctor Donald Jason Donald.
26:06
Speaker 1: What about this?
26:08
Speaker 2: In addition to what we've already pointed out, screams to you,
26:13
Speaker 2: this is no suicide.
26:14
Speaker 7: Atlanta County used to be my jurisdiction for ten years
26:17
Speaker 7: from nineteen eighty two to ninety two, and when I
26:23
Speaker 7: was medical, she's county medical examiner in Atlanta County. Case
26:27
Speaker 7: like this, first, I would have sent out a nurse
26:31
Speaker 7: or paramedic investigator, and when I would have heard what
26:36
Speaker 7: this case was, I would have gone myself. I would
26:39
Speaker 7: have spent all night looking at the scene, gathering the
26:45
Speaker 7: evidence and piecing together where she must have been, which
26:51
Speaker 7: would have been quite difficult. That's why I would have
26:53
Speaker 7: taken all night.
26:54
Speaker 2: Do you believe that her injuries are consistent with being
26:58
Speaker 2: hit by trained.
26:59
Speaker 6: Well, course, of course she was not only hit by
27:01
Speaker 6: a train, but the entire train went over her body
27:04
Speaker 6: and cut her into pieces with the train tracks.
27:08
Speaker 1: What about toxicology?
27:10
Speaker 7: And then the autopsy was described as taking only fifteen minutes.
27:15
Speaker 1: How can that? They have never heard of an autopsy
27:17
Speaker 1: taken fifteen minutes.
27:18
Speaker 6: Well, if you don't do much of an autopsy, it
27:21
Speaker 6: was really an external examination. It wasn't really an autopsy.
27:24
Speaker 2: You cannot do an autopsy in fifteen minutes, that's impossible.
27:28
Speaker 7: Well, there was no microscopical examination of anything, and there
27:32
Speaker 7: was no attempt to piece the skull back together. Most important, Nancy,
27:38
Speaker 7: there was no x rays taken. In a case like
27:41
Speaker 7: this where a body has been so badly mangled and
27:44
Speaker 7: train is just one example. You do the same thing
27:47
Speaker 7: if you implying the body decomposed or body hit by
27:52
Speaker 7: a car and badly mangled, you x ray the entire
27:55
Speaker 7: body and look for foreign radio, opaque things, right, bullets
28:00
Speaker 7: or what have you.
28:02
Speaker 1: This was not done, doctor Donald Jason. Was there a
28:06
Speaker 1: toxicology test?
28:07
Speaker 5: Yes?
28:08
Speaker 1: What if anything? Did they show nothing?
28:11
Speaker 6: There's no drugs and no alcohol in her body.
28:14
Speaker 1: Guys, take a listen to this.
28:16
Speaker 3: Tiffany's death was ruled a suicide and the case was
28:18
Speaker 3: closed in less than forty eight hours, but many questions remain.
28:22
Speaker 3: In the last known photo of Tiffany, she has seen
28:25
Speaker 3: on her dad's deer camera leaving the driveway of their
28:27
Speaker 3: house wearing a black shirt, blue jean shorts, white headband,
28:31
Speaker 3: and shoes. Tiffany was found barefoot and just wearing her underwear,
28:35
Speaker 3: no short pants. Investigators didn't find her shoes or headband.
28:39
Speaker 3: Her mother did while walking the root of his believe
28:42
Speaker 3: Tiffany walked her last night. Her mother Diane found her
28:45
Speaker 3: shoes and headband more than a mile away from where
28:48
Speaker 3: she was hit by the train. According to the autopsy report,
28:51
Speaker 3: Tiffany's feet were clean and free of injury. So how
28:54
Speaker 3: did Tiffany walk barefoot over rugged terrain for more than
28:57
Speaker 3: a mile at night and not show any physical signs
29:00
Speaker 3: of doing so?
29:01
Speaker 2: To Diane Valiante, this is Tiffany's mom, Miss Valiente, I
29:06
Speaker 2: see why you are fighting this suicide ruling. It seems
29:11
Speaker 2: to me like her clothing, her shoes, her headband.
29:15
Speaker 1: Were thrown away.
29:17
Speaker 2: It doesn't sound to me like she discarded them in
29:22
Speaker 2: a stone cold, sober walk through the dark over rocks barefoot.
29:27
Speaker 2: That did not happen. So why were her shoes so
29:31
Speaker 2: far away? Why were her feet completely unharmed? And why
29:38
Speaker 2: did you have to find evidence? Why not police?
29:42
Speaker 4: I can't answer for the police why they didn't find
29:45
Speaker 4: anything because they didn't do an investigation. Tiffany wasn't one
29:50
Speaker 4: to walk around barefoot, except in the house.
29:53
Speaker 1: Take a listen to our friends at crime Online.
29:55
Speaker 3: According to the Daily Beast, investigators did such a bad
29:59
Speaker 3: job storing in track of evidence that some has become unusable,
30:03
Speaker 3: while other items are missing altogether. One example is Tiffany's shirt.
30:07
Speaker 3: She was seen on her dad's deer camera walking down
30:09
Speaker 3: the driveway in a black T shirt. That shirt was
30:12
Speaker 3: collected at the scene, but it was stored in a
30:15
Speaker 3: plastic bag with a knot tied in the top of
30:18
Speaker 3: the bag. This allowed for mold to flourish and destroy
30:21
Speaker 3: the evidentiary value of the shirt. Meanwhile, during the investigation,
30:25
Speaker 3: New Jersey Transit recovered an axe with red marks from
30:28
Speaker 3: the scene. However, when it came time to examine the axe,
30:31
Speaker 3: it turned up missing. So they destroyed the shirt and
30:34
Speaker 3: lost an axe.
30:35
Speaker 2: Okay, justin roll it with me from the Daily Based
30:40
Speaker 2: Please explain what I just heard from crime online.
30:44
Speaker 5: It's difficult to explain. To be honest, it is a
30:50
Speaker 5: remarkably shoddy way of handling evidence, no matter how serious
30:55
Speaker 5: the case, but especially with something concerning the death of
30:59
Speaker 5: a young woman like that ne Valente. The axe was lost.
31:03
Speaker 5: It was lost before it could be tested, and in
31:09
Speaker 5: March twenty twenty two, Paul Dematto hired a forensic examiner
31:16
Speaker 5: who found that the remaining evidence in the case had
31:18
Speaker 5: been stored improperly by police, making it all but worthless
31:21
Speaker 5: for a new round of DNA testing. You mentioned the
31:24
Speaker 5: shirt that Tiffany had been wearing the night she died
31:27
Speaker 5: that had been stuffed into a plastic bag which was
31:29
Speaker 5: tied with a knot, and the conditions left it covered
31:34
Speaker 5: with mold and useless Scientifically, other items had been left
31:39
Speaker 5: outdoors and exposed to the elements prior to being collected,
31:42
Speaker 5: and those were similarly contaminated, according to a private DNA
31:46
Speaker 5: testing lab that the family hired. I tried to get
31:51
Speaker 5: in touch with New Jersey Transit about this, and they
31:53
Speaker 5: didn't respond to my inquiries. But this, on top of
31:57
Speaker 5: conflicting accounts from the engine here and the trainee engineer
32:01
Speaker 5: who were in the h in the front cab of
32:04
Speaker 5: the train that night, all sort of combined to at
32:08
Speaker 5: least raise an eyebrow or two. And certainly I believe
32:12
Speaker 5: that the family deserves some closure here and definitely deserved
32:18
Speaker 5: some further investigation. Uh it, You know there, there's really
32:22
Speaker 5: no downside that I can see for a New Jersey
32:25
Speaker 5: Transit to just open up the books again and take
32:29
Speaker 5: it take a more in depth look at what might
32:33
Speaker 5: have happened.
32:34
Speaker 1: Justin Rorlake.
32:35
Speaker 2: Who is the law enforcement arm that was in charge
32:40
Speaker 2: of the homicide investigation.
32:42
Speaker 5: From what I understand it was New Jersey Transit.
32:44
Speaker 2: They are in charge of a homicide New Jersey Transit,
32:48
Speaker 2: that is.
32:49
Speaker 5: What That is what I was informed. And yeah, I
32:53
Speaker 5: mean the you know, they they obviously have a you know,
32:59
Speaker 5: a proper police department there, but as mister Dematto has
33:04
Speaker 5: mentioned many times, they deal with very few homicides in
33:12
Speaker 5: relation to the other sorts of crimes or violations that
33:17
Speaker 5: they're dealing with.
33:17
Speaker 2: Look, I'm not locking Transit. My dad was a railroad
33:22
Speaker 2: man his whole life, so was his father and all
33:25
Speaker 2: of his brothers, and that's what put me through school.
33:28
Speaker 2: But I don't think of New Jersey Transit as being
33:33
Speaker 2: a homicide investigation expert.
33:37
Speaker 1: To Paul Demato, the trial.
33:40
Speaker 2: Lawyer who's been working with Valientes, was this case investigated
33:46
Speaker 2: by Transit?
33:48
Speaker 10: There was no investigations and that is the fundamental problem.
33:53
Speaker 10: We have corresponded with the New Jersey Attorney Generalist Office,
33:58
Speaker 10: the State Medical Office. We've asked repeatedly to reopen the investigation.
34:05
Speaker 10: They're never going to reopen it because to do so
34:09
Speaker 10: will expose the fact that there wasn't an investigation. This
34:13
Speaker 10: is a classic case of something that you've seen hundreds
34:17
Speaker 10: of times before, confirmation bias. They made it. They rushed
34:22
Speaker 10: to judgment. Within less than twelve hours, a statement was
34:26
Speaker 10: issued that Tiffany had died by suicide. With less than
34:31
Speaker 10: twelve hours it was in the local newspaper. Imagine how
34:35
Speaker 10: Steve and his beautiful wife, who's been fighting this course, Diane,
34:43
Speaker 10: over and over, have they thought that it's in the
34:46
Speaker 10: paper less than twelve hours later. I'm going to go
34:50
Speaker 10: to step further. A friend of mine that belongs to
34:54
Speaker 10: the same church, he introduced me to a retired FBI agent,
35:00
Speaker 10: and that gentleman approached me and he said, how can
35:04
Speaker 10: I and my wife help? She also was a retired
35:09
Speaker 10: is a retired FBI agent. I said, what you can
35:12
Speaker 10: do is look at the entire file of the SND
35:17
Speaker 10: and New Jersey Transit Police Department. By then, as a
35:21
Speaker 10: result of three lawsuits, I was able to get what
35:24
Speaker 10: I believe is most of the files for both of
35:27
Speaker 10: these agencies. They spent three months studying the file. They
35:34
Speaker 10: issued a fifty nine page report which I was told
35:38
Speaker 10: to send to the New Jersey New Jersey Sorry General's Office.
35:43
Speaker 10: The New Jersey Transit Police Department and the State Medical
35:47
Speaker 10: Examiner's Office and said this gentleman and his wife are
35:52
Speaker 10: available to be interviewed. The conclusion of the report was,
35:57
Speaker 10: you cannot conclude as a matter of law, well this
36:00
Speaker 10: was suicide. You must reopen the investigations. And do you
36:04
Speaker 10: know what the response was zero to this date, not
36:09
Speaker 10: a letter, not an email, nothing from these agencies. It
36:14
Speaker 10: is a travesty of government. And having spent two years
36:18
Speaker 10: as a status emblement, I've seen where government can work
36:21
Speaker 10: and where government has failed. And I'm telling you this
36:24
Speaker 10: is one of the biggest travesties I've seen in my
36:28
Speaker 10: almost forty nine years as a trial.
36:31
Speaker 2: You know, Diane, how is it that you learned that
36:36
Speaker 2: your daughter's death had been ruled a suicide.
36:40
Speaker 4: Well, my husband read the newspaper in the morning and
36:46
Speaker 4: hid it from me, so I didn't see it. And
36:50
Speaker 4: he was on the phone with the Atlantic City Press
36:55
Speaker 4: screaming at them at the top of the monks. How
36:59
Speaker 4: could you put it out to tell you that our
37:00
Speaker 4: daughter committed suicide? People were tweeting and on Facebook from
37:08
Speaker 4: four point thirty am. Now you need to know we
37:11
Speaker 4: didn't find out Tiffany was hit by that train till
37:14
Speaker 4: two thirty in the morning, so to see all this
37:20
Speaker 4: out there already, and you know, and then Nancy Snyder
37:25
Speaker 4: from New Jersey Transit put it on on the computer
37:30
Speaker 4: that my daughter stood in front of those front of
37:33
Speaker 4: that train on the tracks and did not move.
37:39
Speaker 5: What right?
37:40
Speaker 4: She ruined my daughter's reputation. She made accusations that were
37:47
Speaker 4: not true without an investigation.
38:03
Speaker 2: Prime Stories with Nancy Grace justin RLTT. You mentioned conflicting
38:09
Speaker 2: reports from the engineers on the train. What do you
38:12
Speaker 2: mean by that?
38:13
Speaker 5: No, this is something that Paul Demotto has long been
38:16
Speaker 5: bothered by. There were inconsistent statements by the two engineers there,
38:20
Speaker 5: or rather the one engineer and the one student engineer.
38:24
Speaker 5: In a twenty nineteen civil suit that the Motto filed
38:29
Speaker 5: on behalf of the family. You know, the engineers were
38:33
Speaker 5: questioned three separate times and provided a different version of
38:36
Speaker 5: events each time. I reviewed transcripts of these interviews, so
38:41
Speaker 5: I'm familiar with the way the story has changed. In one,
38:45
Speaker 5: the engineers said that Tiffany had run out from the
38:48
Speaker 5: woods and across the tracks, and another he said that
38:52
Speaker 5: he didn't see Tiffany until the train was right on
38:54
Speaker 5: top of her. About a week later, he claimed that
38:57
Speaker 5: he first saw her from about a half a mile away,
38:59
Speaker 5: crouched outside the tracks, and then stood up and dove
39:02
Speaker 5: in front of the train. This the trainee engineer also
39:06
Speaker 5: gave conflicting accounts of what happened that night. They were
39:10
Speaker 5: talking about uh that that they blew the horn and
39:15
Speaker 5: rang the bell uh as they put the emergency brakes on.
39:21
Speaker 5: But then under oath the engineer said that he actually
39:24
Speaker 5: had his back to the cab while he was chatting
39:27
Speaker 5: with the conductor standing nearby, and the trained black box
39:31
Speaker 5: says that showed that neither of them ever actually rang
39:34
Speaker 5: the bell. I also tried to get in touch with
39:37
Speaker 5: the two engineers, and they didn't respond to my requests either.
39:43
Speaker 5: But you know, there are certainly enough questions being raised
39:46
Speaker 5: here that a you know, another look seems like the
39:52
Speaker 5: right thing to do. And it's it's surprising that it's
39:55
Speaker 5: never been reopened.
39:58
Speaker 2: So let me understand. The black box shows they never
40:01
Speaker 2: blew the horn and they never hit the brakes.
40:04
Speaker 5: Not the brakes, it's the black box showed that they
40:08
Speaker 5: never rang the bell. This was one of the points
40:12
Speaker 5: that they made to investigators. And while the bell is
40:17
Speaker 5: not the necessarily the crucial aspect here, it's definitely, you know,
40:22
Speaker 5: one inconsistency that could be an indicator of other things
40:28
Speaker 5: that that you know, might come out as well with
40:30
Speaker 5: it with a deeper look.
40:31
Speaker 1: I hardly know which way to go.
40:34
Speaker 2: But to doctor Angie, none of this is fitting together, none.
40:40
Speaker 9: Of it, I agree with you, Nancy. And when none
40:42
Speaker 9: of it's sitting together, that means they have come to
40:45
Speaker 9: the wrong conclusion.
40:46
Speaker 2: How can parents move forward with their lives. I mean,
40:50
Speaker 2: they're never going to have closure, but how can they
40:52
Speaker 2: even move forward when this is left unresolved and there's
40:56
Speaker 2: an injustice on top of the grieving?
40:59
Speaker 9: Well, you know, Nancy, one of the things that I
41:01
Speaker 9: wanted to point out when you were first asking the
41:03
Speaker 9: parents about what it was like when they first brought
41:05
Speaker 9: their baby home and whatnot. Nancy, that shows such an
41:09
Speaker 9: attachment to this child. It sounds like she grew up
41:12
Speaker 9: in such a loving home where she was wanted. That's
41:15
Speaker 9: part of the reason she was so successful in her
41:17
Speaker 9: in her short life. This is not a child. This
41:21
Speaker 9: is not a woman who committed suicide to Diane.
41:25
Speaker 2: This is Tiffany's mother. Diane, how do you keep going
41:34
Speaker 2: not only grieving your daughter, missing her every single day,
41:39
Speaker 2: walking by her room, wondering what could have been as
41:42
Speaker 2: each milestone passes, But the injustice of this so called investigation.
41:48
Speaker 4: Well, it kills me every day. I just know that
41:55
Speaker 4: she wants justice for herself, and I just feel that
41:59
Speaker 4: we need to be her and on top of that,
42:04
Speaker 4: not only to be there for Tiffany, but I don't
42:07
Speaker 4: want this to happen to another family. I don't want
42:10
Speaker 4: them to go through seven and a half years of
42:14
Speaker 4: hell like we have.
42:18
Speaker 2: Steven, what is your response.
42:21
Speaker 5: Her voice to make sure everything's done for her? But
42:25
Speaker 5: she's not here.
42:26
Speaker 2: After Tiffany passed away, you had always promised her that
42:30
Speaker 2: you would build a volleyball court. Is it true you
42:35
Speaker 2: built a professional grade volleyball court after she passed away?
42:42
Speaker 2: And when you look out at the volleyball court, what
42:45
Speaker 2: goes through your mind?
42:46
Speaker 5: But they said they come.
42:48
Speaker 2: Yet, Guys, if you want your voice to be heard,
42:53
Speaker 2: the new Jersey Attorney General is Matthew Plattkin, p L
42:59
Speaker 2: eight K I N and you can reach him at
43:03
Speaker 2: six six nine two nine two four nine two five
43:08
Speaker 2: repeat six six nine two nine two four nine two five.
43:16
Speaker 2: The New Jersey transit number is nine seven three two
43:20
Speaker 2: seven five five five five five repeat nine seven three
43:25
Speaker 2: two seven five five five five five or email at
43:30
Speaker 2: Matthew Platkin at State dot n J dot us. If
43:37
Speaker 2: you have any information that could help in this investigation
43:42
Speaker 2: into the death of Tiffany Valiente, this beautiful teen girl,
43:48
Speaker 2: please call six zero nine nine two six three three
43:52
Speaker 2: hundred repeat six zero nine nine two six three three hundred.
44:00
Speaker 2: We wait as just as un false. Good Bye friend,