Agony for Ellen Greenberg’s parents as Philadelphia rules her death by 20 stab wounds ‘WAS a suicide’ in staggering ruling

The stabbing death of 27-year-old schoolteacher Ellen Greenberg has been ruled as a suicide by the city of Philadelphia once again – marking a huge blow to her family’s 14-year fight for answers. 

Greenberg was found dead on January 26, 2011, inside the sixth-floor apartment she shared with her fiancé Sam Goldberg in the safe neighborhood of Manayunk, Philadelphia. 

She had been stabbed 20 times, including 10 times to the back of the neck and head, and her body was covered in bruises in various stages of healing. A 10-inch kitchen knife was sticking out of her chest. 

Despite the extent and nature of her wounds, the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office ruled her death a suicide.

It’s a ruling Greenberg’s parents Sandee and Josh have never believed. 

For the past 14 years, they have thrown everything into legal battles and hiring investigators, experts and pathologists who have cast doubts on the official account from the city.

Multiple independent experts have uncovered damning evidence they say contradicts the suicide ruling: including evidence that someone moved her body, that one of the knife wounds appears to have been inflicted post-mortem, and that the discovery of her body did not take place the way officials said. 

And, in February, the pathologist who carried out Greenberg’s autopsy made a spectacular U-turn, admitting he now believes he was wrong and that Greenberg did not kill herself.

Now, in a bombshell 32-page review, obtained by the Daily Mail, Philadelphia’s Chief Medical Examiner Lindsay Simon announced she is standing by the city’s controversial ruling.

In the decision, Simon claims Greenberg could have inflicted the 20 stab wounds on herself and says there were no signs of a struggle or defensive wounds at the scene. 

‘While the distribution of injuries is admittedly unusual, the fact remains that Ellen would be capable of inflicting these injuries herself,’ Simon wrote, saying that many of the wounds could be classed as hesitation wounds and that there is no evidence she was ‘incapacitated’ when they were inflicted. 

The medical examiner also pointed to a lack of evidence of domestic abuse in Greenberg’s relationship with her TV producer fiancé.

Neither his nor anyone else’s DNA – other than Greenberg’s – was found on the kitchen knife used to inflict the fatal wounds, Simon wrote.

Greenberg was also suffering from anxiety at the time of her death and had recently changed medication which was helping with her insomnia – meaning she had ‘an increase in energy to act on her anxious thoughts’, the review found. 

‘With all of this information considered, it is the opinion of the undersigned that the manner of Ellen Greenberg’s death is best classified as ‘suicide,” Simon wrote. 

‘All opinions stated in this report are expressed with a reasonable degree of medical certainty.’

In a statement to the Daily Mail, Joe Podraza, the attorney for Greenberg’s parents, slammed the medical examiner’s conclusion as ‘tripe, an embarrassment to the City, and an insult to Ellen and her family’.

Podraza branded the city’s ‘so-called ‘independent review” into Greenberg’s death ‘a deeply flawed attempt to justify a predetermined conclusion’. 

‘It includes false claims – like the assertion that a stab wound in Ellen’s spinal column was made during autopsy, a theory rejected by every credible expert, including the City’s own neuropathologist,’ he said. 

‘By ignoring key evidence that contradicts suicide – the extensive 3D photogrammetry, a recreation which proves Ellen could not self-inflict all of the wounds, unexplained bruises, missing surveillance footage, an intact lock, accounts of a toxic relationship, etc. – Simon builds a flimsy case on distorted portrayals of Ellen’s mental health, propped up by cynical distortions of Ellen’s managed anxiety, a condition widely experienced daily by over 40 million Americans. Shame on you Simon.’

Podraza added: ‘Ellen’s family just wanted the truth. It is clear the truth will not come from Philadelphia’s law enforcement machinery. Though Ellen’s city turned its back on her, we will continue through other avenues to get justice for her murder, by any means necessary.’

There had been three potential outcomes from the reexamination: officials would declare the schoolteacher died by homicide, her manner of death would be ruled undetermined, or officials would stand by their ruling and continue to rule her death as a suicide.

A homicide ruling – or even an undetermined ruling – would have led to a full criminal investigation into Greenberg’s death and into finding a potential killer.

With the city standing by its suicide ruling, it’s unclear what Josh and Sandee’s next steps could be.

‘So long as that death certificate says suicide, it’s an obstacle for an investigation to proceed, because it’s the state literally saying no crime has occurred,’ Podraza said in an interview with the Daily Mail days before the review was released.

‘The perfect murder is to have the manner of death declared a suicide. That’s the truth.’

On January 26, 2011, a huge nor’easter was sweeping Philadelphia, covering the city in snow and ice, shuttering schools and businesses, and sending residents hunkering down inside the safety and warmth of their homes.

That afternoon, Greenberg returned to the couple’s apartment.

Goldberg told police he then went to the gym in the apartment building at around 4.45pm and returned around 30 minutes later to find the door locked from the inside. Surveillance footage captured him heading to and from the gym and in the lobby of the building around those times.

He sent a series of increasingly irate texts to Greenberg: ‘Hello,’ ‘open the door,’ ‘what r u doin,’ ‘i’m getting pissed,’ ‘hello,’ ‘you better have an excuse,’ ‘what the f***’ ‘ahhh’ and ‘u have no idea.’

During that time, he also spoke to his uncle and cousin James and Kamian Schwartzman, both powerful attorneys, on the phone.

After around an hour, Goldberg said he broke down the door to get inside and found his fiancée in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor.

He placed a 911 call at around 6.30pm.  

Around two minutes into the call, Goldberg mentioned there was a knife sticking out of Greenberg’s chest.

‘She stabbed herself,’ Goldberg said.

Moments later, he said: ‘She fell on a knife.’

Emergency responders pronounced Greenberg dead on the scene.

Responding police officers instantly treated her death as a suicide, because Goldberg said the door had been locked from the inside and no one else was inside the apartment. 

The home was not treated as a crime scene and no CSI team was called.

The next day, Dr Marlon Osbourne – of the city’s medical examiner’s office – conducted Greenberg’s autopsy. Finding her numerous, horrific injuries, he ruled her death a homicide caused by ‘multiple stab wounds by an unknown person’.

But by then, the scene had been released and professionally cleaned by a cleanup firm. Goldberg’s relatives had also visited the home and taken possession of several electronic devices.

Days later, a closed-door meeting was held between the medical examiner’s office and law enforcement and Osbourne, suddenly and without explanation, then changed his ruling to suicide.

In a bombshell moment this January, Osbourne changed his mind, admitting in a sworn statement that he no longer believes Greenberg killed herself and that her manner of death should be designated ‘as something other than suicide’.

Three days later, just before the city of Philadelphia was set to face a civil trial brought by Greenberg’s parents, a settlement was reached in two lawsuits.

A key part of the settlement included a commitment that the medical examiner’s office would carry out an ‘expeditious’ reinvestigation of the 27-year-old’s death.

While this appeared to be a turning point, several months went by with no response from the city.

After several months, Podraza filed a motion to force the city to keep its promise.

A tense hearing was held September 3, where Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Linda Carpenter scolded the city for dragging its feet, saying expedited should mean a week to 10 days and that the delay shows they ‘obviously just don’t care’.

The hearing concluded with the city agreeing to a deadline of October 14 to give its final answer as to whether Greenberg’s death ruling will remain as a suicide or will be designated something else.

The reexamination appeared to signal a major step forward in the Greenbergs’ fight for justice. 

However, there were concerns that the city was effectively marking its own homework, with the reexamination being carried out by the very same authorities the Greenberg parents believe botched and covered-up their daughter’s case from the get-go. 

Days before the city released its review, Podraza told the Daily Mail:  ‘I’m not confident in anything in this case. We’ve been involved for six years and it has had so many twists and turns and surprises that I’m not taking anything for granted.’

Now, that reexamination has concluded and the city is doubling down on its ruling of suicide. 

As well as Osbourne’s spectacular U-turn, numerous experts have long contradicted the suicide ruling.

Not only were half of the stab wounds inflicted to the back of Greenberg’s body, several were also catastrophic: one three-inch wound near the base of her skull caused a stroke, one severed the spinal column membrane, one sliced her aorta.

Prominent pathologist Wayne Ross, hired by Sandee and Josh to review her death, also found bruises, a scratch and what looked like finger marks on Greenberg’s neck indicating she could have been strangled.

The other bruising on her body – in various stages of healing – also indicated she had suffered ‘a repeated beating’ prior to her death, Ross concluded.

And he found that one of the stab wounds to her head ‘severed the cranial nerves and brain’ and would have caused her to lose consciousness – therefore making it impossible for her to cause the final stab wound to her chest.

Separately, Dr Lyndsey Emery, a pathologist in the medical examiner’s office, also examined Greenberg’s spinal column in 2019 and testified in a deposition that she found no hemorrhage.

One possible conclusion from this is that this stab wound was inflicted post-mortem. And due to the knife being found in Greenberg’s chest, that could not have been the final stab wound.

To some, the scene itself also looked staged, with the position of dried blood on Greenberg’s face indicating she had been moved to where she was found propped up against the kitchen cabinets.

Questions have also been raised over whether or not the apartment door was locked on the inside, meaning that Goldberg had to break the door down to get inside. 

The official account that Goldberg was accompanied by a security guard when he entered the apartment has now also been refuted by surveillance footage and the guard’s sworn testimony.

For his part, Goldberg, now a married father-of-two living in New York, has not joined Sandee and Josh in fighting the suicide ruling.

He has spoken out publicly about his fiancée’s death only once over the years – in a written statement to CNN in late 2024 where he blasted the ‘lies, distortions and falsehoods’ about him and insisted Greenberg died by suicide.

In the months leading up to her death, Greenberg had been struggling with anxiety and had been prescribed Klonopin and Ambien. 

Her psychiatrist insisted she was not suicidal and she had not disclosed any domestic abuse.

Greenberg told her friends and family that she was stressed with work but she had recently asked her parents if she could move back home with them.  

Sandee told the Daily Mail earlier this year she now believes her daughter was being abused in the lead-up to her death. ‘I knew she was struggling with something. But I didn’t know what,’ she said.

To Sandee and Josh, there’s no doubt in their minds that their daughter was murdered and they want to see her killer brought to justice.