MAYS LANDING, NJ — A new true-crime podcast series is set to revisit the 2015 death of Tiffany Valiante, a Mays Landing teenager whose death was ruled a suicide by New Jersey Transit Police.
"Cruel Summer: The Violent Death of Tiffany Valiante" premiered Aug. 20, according to a news release.
The weekly, eight-part series comes from Street Smart Audio and Wavland. According to the announcement, the podcast "methodically challenges and deconstructs the ruling" that Valiante died by suicide after being struck by a passenger train in July 2015, weeks before she was to begin college.
The release says journalist Marie McGovern spent four years investigating the case. According to the release, McGovern had access to case files, the cooperation of the Valiante family, and used digital forensics technology to examine material from Tiffany Valiante's cellphone, including texts, photos and voice notes.
New Jersey Transit Police Department led the original death investigation. The agency concluded within weeks of Valiante's death that she died by suicide after her body was hit by a commuter train on tracks less than five miles from her Mays Landing home.
But her parents, Stephen and Dianne Valiante, and attorney Paul D'Amato have maintained that she did not take her own life.
McGovern's review of the phone raised the possibility that Tiffany Valiante could have been a hate-crime target because of her sexuality. The series includes information about her relationships, plans and state of mind in the days and weeks before her death.
READ MORE: Teen's South Jersey Train Death Was Hate Crime, Not Suicide: New Lawsuit
The podcast will also include witnesses and forensic experts who, according to the announcement, cast doubt on the original ruling. Those findings have already aided the Valiante family and D'Amato in filing new lawsuits seeking to reopen the case, which was also featured in a 2022 Netflix "Unsolved Mysteries" episode.
"This was a young woman with everything to live for, who gave no indication that she was suicidal. The deeper I looked into Tiffany's world, the more I was convinced that she did not take her own life," said McGovern.
"Studying more than 150,000 pieces of information from Tiffany's cell phone, gave me a completely new insight into Tiffany's life in Mays Landing in the summer of 2015. And a decade later, digital forensic tools have helped unearth previously-deleted information that has shed a new light on Tiffany's friends and enemies," she said.
The series was written by Martin Dunn of Street Smart Audio and edited and produced by Jason Hoch of Wavland. More information and case materials are posted at the production website, cruelsummerpod.com.
Previous Reporting
Reward Doubled In South Jersey Teen's 'Suspicious' Death
Netflix's 'Unsolved Mysteries' To Feature South Jersey Teen's Death
Could South Jersey Woman Have Been Kidnapped Before She Died?
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