MAYS LANDING, N.J., Aug. 19, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cruel Summer: The Violent Death of Tiffany Valiante, the new, true-crime investigative podcast series from Street Smart Audio and Wavland, for the first time methodically challenges and deconstructs the ruling that the vivacious, multi-talented New Jersey teenager took her life – by stepping in front of a passenger train - in July 2015 just weeks before starting an immensely promising college career. The weekly, eight-part series, years in production by two prominent, veteran New York area journalists, premieres Thursday, August 20, 2026 and will be available on Apple and Spotify.
In her four-year investigation, journalist Marie McGovern was given unprecedented access to case files, received complete cooperation from the Valiante family, and, using groundbreaking digital forensics technology, uncovered tens of thousands of previously unexamined texts, photos, and voice notes from Tiffany’s cell phone.
New Jersey Transit Police Department (NJTPD), which led the death investigation, concluded within just a few weeks of her passing, after her body had already been cremated, that Tiffany died by suicide after her shoeless, partially-clothed body was hit by a speeding NJT commuter train on tracks less than five miles from her Mays Landing home. However, her parents, Stephen and Dianne Valiante and attorney, Paul D’Amato, have always maintained she would not and did not take her own life.
McGovern was the first and to this date only person to unlock the many secrets hidden in Tiffany’s omnipresent cell phone. What she found raised the possibility that Tiffany could have been a hate-crime target because of her sexuality.
In building a detailed profile and timeline of Tiffany’s life, the series reveals new information about Tiffany’s relationships, future plans and frame of mind in the days and weeks before her death.
Throughout the series, listeners will also hear from witnesses and forensic experts who cast fresh doubts on the original determination of suicide; labeled an abject rush to judgement by her family’s legal team. Those revelations have already directly aided the Valiante family and its attorney in filing new lawsuits seeking to reopen the controversial case – the subject of global media attention including a 2022 Netflix Unsolved Mysteries episode - long considered “closed” by unyielding state officials.
“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,” says 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.”
Cruel Summer: The Violent Death of Tiffany Valiante is the first exhaustive look at the life, relationships and tragic end of a striking, athletic young woman who was about to embark on an exciting new chapter in her life.
The eight-part series is written by Martin Dunn, Street Smart Audio. It was edited and produced by Jason Hoch, Wavland. For more information, updates, and supplementary material on the case files, visit the official production page at https://cruelsummerpod.com
Contacts:
Marie McGovern / marie@streetsmartvideo.com
Martin Dunn / martin@streetsmartvideo.com
Paul R. D’Amato / paul@damatolawfirm.com / 609-926-3300
Steph Rosenfeld / steph@idadvisors.com / 215-514-4101
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ed7b59ab-f93a-42d3-9b9e-1ff41fbdcca5
