Ellen Greenberg: Cops reopen 'SUICIDE' case of found dead with 20 stab wounds, including to the BACK OF HER HEAD
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA: The curious case of Ellen Greenberg, a 27-year-old teacher from Philadelphia, was found dead in her apartment with 20 stab wounds on January 26, 2011, by her fiance Sam Goldberg. What was considered a homicide was changed to suicide by a medical examiner. Investigators now have reasons to believe that it was staged to look like a suicide.
Ellen's parents Dr Josh Greenberg and Sandee Greenberg requested the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office to re-review the case in 2019. After Pennsylvania Attorney General got kicked off this case in July, Chester District Attorney dived in to solve the case. According to the victim's family, there is a lot of evidence that eliminates suicide as the cause of death. Forensic pathologist Dr Cyril Wecht told Fox News Digital as he claimed suicide is highly unlikely. He said, "In all my years of experience, and all of the homicides that I've done, and suicides, I've never seen anything like this." According to a civil lawsuit from Greenberg’s family, Dr Marlon Osbourne, a former pathologist at the Medical Examiner’s Office in Philadelphia, initially ruled the suicide as the cause of death.
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Joe Podraza, the Philadelphia lawyer representing her parents, told Fox, "The manner of death cannot be suicide. The neuropathologist…testified that the wound in the sample that remains from Ellen’s spine is a post-mortem wound, or one that was administered after she was dead and had no pulse. If you consider that was not the last wound, because the knife was found in her chest, you’d have to then agree that Ellen, while she was dead, somehow proceeded to stab herself in the back of the head, pull the knife out and then stab herself in the chest. All without a pulse."
Ellen Greenberg's death to be reinvestigated
Greenberg’s parents, Dr Josh Greenberg and Sandee Greenberg, also argued that the evidence collected over the years does not support suicide. While talking to Fox, Dr Greenberg says, "We have never accused anyone of murdering our daughter. We have asked the cause and matter to be changed to undecided or homicide. We would like an impartial investigation with an impartial prosecutor." After years of active struggle of finding the answers to their daughter's death, The Chester County District Attorney’s Office is finally conducting an outside investigation.
The case was unlike any other. Facts like Greenberg was holding a knife stabbed in her chest with her left hand even though she was right-handed, and an autopsy revealing the injuries from two different knives but the only weapon recovered made this case interesting. Tom Brennan, a former trooper and private investigator that the family hired almost a decade ago, told Fox that Greenberg suffered a 6.5 cm wound to the back of her head after her heart stopped beating, once again ruling out suicide. The parents also argued that Greenberg had defense wounds on her body that weren't initially acknowledged by investigators. Brennan also claimed Medical Examiner Osbourne missed the trauma on Ellen which could prove strangulation.
Dr Gary Collins, a supervisor of Osbourne, pointed out "serious and dangerous flaws" in Osbourne’s autopsy work, which also included missing the obvious signs of strangulation. Collins wrote in the department records, "Dr Osbourne, these major discrepancies show an obvious lack of care for your work." Another specialist, Dr Wayne Ross, wrote in the records, "The constellation of scene findings are inconsistent with suicide. Scene findings compatible with being staged." A final verdict regarding this case is yet to be determined.