Family challenges suicide ruling in death of teen hit by NJ Transit train

A medical examiner's ruling that Tiffany Valiante committed suicide when a NJ Transit train struck her last year never made sense to her family.

Valiante, 18, had graduated from Oakcrest High School in Mays Landing, N.J., and was awarded a volleyball scholarship that fall to Mercy College, just north of New York City. She spoke jovially about it at her cousin's high school graduation party, where relatives said they last saw her before she walked across the street, to her home.

So why, Valiante's family asks, would she then leave home, ditch her cellphone, walk four miles to the train tracks, take off her jeans shorts and white sneakers along the way, and do it all in the dark - which she deeply feared?

This week, in a step to answer those questions, the family filed a lawsuit to subpoena the investigative files on the case from NJ Transit, the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office, and the state's Southern Regional Medical Examiner's Office.

Paul R. D'Amato, the family's attorney, said none of the three agencies would provide the files without a subpoena. He said he wants to review the documents to determine whether investigators missed clues or overlooked other possibilities, such as foul play.

"We hope to get an explanation of what happened," D'Amato said, "because we're not going to let this certificate of death be the final word for Tiffany Valiante's life."

The Prosecutor's Office and NJ Transit officials declined to comment Tuesday, one day after the suit was filed in Superior Court in Atlantic County. The state Attorney General's Office, which oversees the regional medical examiner's office, did not return a request for comment.

The suit does not seek financial damages. D'Amato said a friend referred the family to him and that he was handling the case free. He called it one of the most perplexing cases he has seen in his 42 years as a personal injury lawyer.

A toxicology test, he said, showed no signs of alcohol or drugs in Valiante's system. Her sisters, Krystal Summerville and Jessica Vallauri, said Tuesday that she showed no signs of depression.

"We don't know what happened to her," said Summerville, 30, of Egg Harbor Township. "We just know she wouldn't do this to herself."

NJ Transit officials told the Atlantic City Press last year that Tiffany Valiante walked onto the tracks in Galloway Township and ignored the train engineer's horn before she was struck around 11:15 p.m. on July 12, a Sunday.

The train was headed from Philadelphia to Atlantic City, officials said. No passengers were injured.

At her cousin's graduation party earlier that evening, Valiante had sat around the pool with relatives, talked about college, taken selfies with her phone, and played volleyball. Nothing seemed amiss.

Around 9 p.m., Valiante left the party. Her family said they don't know why, but that she had invited friends to the party and planned to return.

Around 9:30 p.m., Valiante's parents came home and discovered she was missing. Friends and family called her cellphone - which was later found in the grass near the front driveway of her home - and drove around looking for her. She always had her phone, her family said.

They learned of her death later that night after her uncle saw flashing lights of police vehicles near the tracks and an officer told him a pedestrian had been struck.

A few days later, D'Amato said, Valiante's mother, Dianne, discovered her daughter's sneakers and headband on the side of the road, about three miles from where she died. D'Amato said Tiffany Valiante was barefoot and in her underwear when the train struck her, and that the shorts she had worn that night were never found.

No evidence exists to suggest sexual assault, at least thus far, D'Amato said.

"We're looking at every possibility," he said.

Valiante's sisters said they hope the medical examiner's office will eventually change the manner of death from suicide to undetermined.

Valiante played softball and volleyball in high school, but was most passionate about volleyball, her family said. At her graduation, she drew Nike's "Swoosh" symbol on the back of her cap and wrote, "Just DID IT."

She planned to obtain a degree in criminal justice and either become a police officer or join the Air Force, her family said.

mboren@phillynews.com

856-779-3829 @borenmc