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‘Unsolved Mysteries’ on Netflix featured these two NJ cases

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On July 31, Netflix released its fourth volume of “Unsolved Mysteries,” a true crime docuseries that takes a look at “real cases of perplexing disappearances, shocking murders and paranormal encounters,” all of which are still unsolved.

Volume 4 takes viewers on a deep dive into several cases including the infamous serial killer, Jack the Ripper, the eerie legend of the Mothman, and a chilling murder that took place right here in New Jersey.

However, this is not the first time that the Garden State has made an unsettling appearance on the show as a case out of Mays Landing was featured in Volume 3 which was released in October 2022.

Here is a look at two puzzling cases out of New Jersey as told by Netflix’s “Unsolved Mysteries.”

‘Murder, Center Stage’

At 11 p.m. on Sept. 24, 1977, Thomas Kokotajlo started his shift as a campus police officer at Trenton State College, now The College of New Jersey, in Ewing.

As he was patrolling around campus, Kokotajlo noticed a bicycle chained to the railing outside of Kendall Hall, which houses the Main Stage Theater.

As it was still a few days before the semester was scheduled to start, Kokotajlo called the dispatcher, asking if anybody was supposed to be in the building that night. When the dispatcher said no, he went inside to investigate, emphasizing the fact that the theater was locked and that he had to unlock it to enter.

As he entered the main stage, Kokotajlo saw what initially looked like a person sleeping on the stage, causing him to question whether it was a person or a prop. As he walked closer to the body, he saw a large amount of blood and quickly realized that it was a person. The only indication that the person was a female was the fact that there was an earring on the floor, caked in a pool of blood.

“That’s when every Ewing cop that was working that night, everyone came onto that stage,” said Kokotajlo in the Netflix documentary.

The victim was identified by her license as Sigrid Stevenson, 25, a student at Trenton State College who was pursuing music and education for her master’s degree. According to a family friend that was featured in the docuseries episode, Stevenson was a piano prodigy.

At around 1 a.m. that night, Dr. Raafat Ahmad, deputy medical examiner at the time, arrived on the scene. She told Netflix producers that “it was one of the most gruesome murders.”

During the autopsy the following morning, they found lacerations on the back of Stevenson’s head and the front of her face, bruises all over her body, and indicators of sexual assault. She also had markings on her wrist that looked as though she had been handcuffed.

Ahmad determined that the cause of death was a “massive cranial cerebral trauma to the head,” and that Stevenson was likely beaten with a blunt object.

Although she was found at 11:30 that night, Ahmad says that the time of death can be approximated between 7:30 and 10 p.m. that evening.

Stevenson arrived on campus on Sept. 2 after a trip. When she arrived, she had no place to stay as the people she was staying with for the semester were on vacation. Therefore, she decided to stay in Kendall Hall for a few days.

Stevenson was last seen alive at around 11:30 p.m. on Sept. 3, after watching a play in the Black Box Theater which is also located in Kendall Hall. Witnesses reported that after the first act of the play, Stevenson was seemingly in a good mood. After the second act, one cast member reported that Stevenson seemed down, sharing that she had gotten into an argument with a man.

Less than 24 hours after the play, Stevenson was killed.

According to the Netflix docuseries, there were no fingerprints or footprints at the crime scene. There were no smears in the blood and the murder weapon was never found.

Over the years, potential suspects have included campus police officers, a man named Chuck who was a student at the time and a cast member of the play that Stevenson watched prior to the murder, campus maintenance workers, theater employees and more. Detectives have spoken with dozens of people but none of their theories have come to fruition.

However, 47 years later, Kokotajlo, investigators, family, friends and others hope that one day the case will be solved, and Stevenson’s killer will be caught.

To see the full episode about this case, check out episode four of the fourth volume of “Unsolved Mysteries” on Netflix. The episode is entitled, “Murder, Center Stage.”

Per the Netflix episode, if you have information about the murder of Sigrid Stevenson, contact the Mercer County Homicide Task Force at (609) 989-6406.

‘Mystery at Mile Marker 45’

On the evening of July 12, 2015, Tiffany Valiante, 18, of Mays Landing, went with her parents to her cousin’s graduation party right across the street from their house. At around 9:15 p.m., Valiante left the party and her mother, Dianne Valiante, got a call from one of her daughter’s friends saying that she was pulling up to the house and requesting that she walk over.

Dianne and Valiante’s father Stephen walked over to the house to find Valiante’s friend accusing her of using her credit card without permission. Valiante denied it at first, but admitted to it after her friend had left. Dianne walked inside the house to get Stephen and when they walked back outside, Valiante was gone. They immediately started searching for her, soon finding her phone laying in the grass a short distance up the street.

They checked a deer camera that was set up in the yard and saw Valiante walking away at 9:28 p.m., wearing a black T-shirt, white/blue jean shorts, and flat shoes. She had her hair in a bun and was wearing a white headband.

At around 12 a.m., while searching for Valiante, her uncle drove down an NJ Transit access road which was “lit up” with police saying that somebody got hit by a train. Her uncle was able to identify the victim as Valiante, and the following morning it was already in papers that she died by suicide. To this day, her family does not believe that to be the case.

“Tiffany was just always beautiful, always bright, energetic. She got a scholarship to play volleyball … She wanted things in life. We were all so very proud of her,” said Dianne in the Netflix episode. “That night she was found approximately four miles away from our house where she was hit by that train. New Jersey Transit put it out there that my daughter committed suicide. There’s absolutely no way. No way at all. I want to know what happened to my daughter.”

According to Paul D’Amato, the family’s attorney who obtained the records from NJ Transit, Valiante was hit by the train at 11:12 p.m. at mile marker 45. Two engineers, a senior and a student engineer, were on the train. They both told inconsistent versions of what happened.

As told in the Netflix episode, on the night that it happened, both engineers signed a report saying that Valiante dove in front of the train. The student engineer said that he did not see her until he was on top of her.

Six days later, while under oath, the senior engineer said that his back was turned, and he never saw her.

Ten days later, while under oath, the student engineer said that he saw something half a mile away, a quarter mile away, and then the person jumped out of the woods onto the tracks.

Per D’Amato, the NJ Transit Police Department stands by the “inconsistent, contradictory statements of the student engineer.”

The event recorder on the train logged that from the time the student engineer sounded the horn, struck Valiante, and applied the emergency brake, it took 4.1 seconds. The train was traveling 80 mph. Louise Houseman, a retired senior medical examiner with the Atlantic County Medical Examiner’s Office questions whether the student engineer saw what he thought he saw, stating that she believes he was likely in trauma and shock.

Family members, D’Amato, and others believe that NJ Transit did not conduct a proper and thorough investigation of the incident, stating that a full autopsy was never conducted, a rape kit was never performed, and DNA was never tested. The toxicology report came back completely clean, yet the manner of death was still ruled a suicide.

Additionally, the tracks were not properly roped off and treated like a crime scene, and NJ Transit did not do a good job cleaning the tracks, according to interviews in the documentary episode.

New Jersey Transit, the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office and Valiante’s friends denied requests to be interviewed for the docuseries.

When she was hit, Valiante was only wearing a sports bra and underwear. Her shorts, shirt, headband, and shoes were not found at the scene where she was struck by the train.

Three weeks after Valiante’s death, Dianne found her shoes and headband about 1.75 miles away from the location where she was hit. Her shorts are the one item that are still missing to this day, Dianne says in the episode.

Several questions were brought up throughout the docuseries episode with many people believing there is more to this story than the conclusion that Valiante committed suicide.

Why would she walk all of that distance and jump in front of a train?

What sense would it make to walk from her home to where her shoes and headband were, and then walk barefoot another 1.75 miles to where she was hit?

Where are her shorts?

Additionally, as stated in the docuseries episode, there were no markings on her feet that you would expect to see after someone walked barefoot on rough train bed and gravel.

Her family, their attorney, and others that are involved in this case believe that Valiante may have been a victim of foul play.

According to D’Amato, if you look at the deer camera photos, you can see headlights at the same time that Valiante is walking down the driveway. He believes that she entered a vehicle, likely voluntarily, and somebody grabbed her phone and threw it out of the car as they were pulling away.

Based on photos that were taken at the scene, you can see that the point where Valiante’s body made contact with the train, there appears to be a pool of blood on the tracks. This indicates that her body may have been there and was bleeding before she was hit. It was never determined whether that was her blood on the tracks, which are located in a remote location of town.

On top of that, the medical examiner’s report says that Valiante’s arms and legs were “cut” from the torso. According to D’Amato and the Valiante family, this says to them that there is a “viable theory” that she was harmed before her body was placed on the track, and that she may have been laying across it when the train hit her.

“Seeing the location, definitely she was murdered and laid on those tracks, no doubt in my mind,” said her cousin, Robert Valiante Jr. “She was laid on those tracks, that’s how they got rid of her, and somebody is getting away with it.”

Since that night, D’Amato and the Valiante family have set up a hotline in search of anonymous tips about what happened to Valiante. According to Chuck Atkinson, a private investigator who works for D’Amato, they received a call from a convenience store worker who overheard three other employees discussing the case.

The worker was interviewed under oath, sharing that the three employees heard that the case was a homicide. One of them said that he was at the party that Valiante was at that night. He saw her, referenced an argument and then said that Valiante left and was picked up by two females and a male.

When the three individuals were interviewed, they all denied ever saying anything.

“How did Tiffany get from her home to where her body came in contact with the train? Did she walk, did someone pick her up and drive her there? Was her death an accident, or was it foul play? There are people out there as we speak that have knowledge of what happened, and I am begging them to come forward and help this family,” said D’Amato.

Since the episode aired, discussion has been swirling around online about the case. One article by ScreenRant.com, points out some things that Netflix missed, citing various local news outlets that have covered the case as it has unfolded.

Per the Screen Rant article, Netflix failed to mention some important details about a missing potential murder weapon, a K-9 unit that attempted to track Valiante’s journey, and some details about the Valiante family.

Additionally, according to Screen Rant, while the case cannot be re-opened unless new information is presented to the Prosecutor’s Office, D’Amato has been “generating new leads” since the airing of the “Unsolved Mysteries” episode.

To see the full episode about this case, check out the first episode of volume three of “Unsolved Mysteries” on Netflix. The episode is entitled, “Mystery at Mile Marker 45.”

Per the Netflix episode, if you have information about this case, please contact the law offices of Paul D’Amato at 1-609-926-3300 or submit a tip at unsolved.com.  

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