The Ellen Greenberg Case: When Forensic Science Says Murder but the City Says Suicide

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A first grade teacher, 20 stab wounds, 10 of them in the back of her neck.

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The medical examiner called it a homicide, then changed it to suicide.

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Now 14 years later, the city discovered 20 more bruises and three more stab wounds that were never documented.

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And yet, they're still calling it a suicide.

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How do you stab yourself 20 times, mostly in the back of your neck and head, after you're already dying?

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That's the question Ellen Greenberg's parents have been asking since 2011.

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And the answer might expose one of the most disturbing cover-ups in modern forensic history.

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[Music]

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So let me ask you something, it's a weird question.

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But if you were going to stab yourself, how many times do you think you could stab yourself before your body said,

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"Nope." Not like theoretically, but like actually physically.

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Before your body just shuts that all down, decides, "No, we can't function anymore.

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We're talking about severing nerves and causing seizures, making you lose your vision, dropping your blood pressure, and shutting your whole body down."

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You're probably thinking, "One, right? Maybe two of adrenaline kicked in."

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Well, Ellen Greenberg was found with 23 stab wounds.

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23, ten of them in her back and neck.

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And Philadelphia officials looked at that and said, "Yep, suicide.

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She definitely did this to herself.

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Her parents have been fighting for 14 years to prove that's impossible.

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And I think the evidence is on their side."

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January 26, 2011, Ellen Greenberg was the first great teacher in Philadelphia.

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She was 27 years old, engaged to a guy named Sam Goldberg.

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That evening, there was a snowstorm. Sam came home around 6.30 pm and said he couldn't get into the apartment because the door was latched from the inside.

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So he broke it down.

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When he got inside, he found Ellen on the kitchen floor with a 10-inch knife sticking out of her chest.

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He called 911, and according to the reports, told the operator that Ellen had either stabbed herself or fallen on a knife.

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That phrase alone should make you pause.

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His fiancee is dead on the floor with a knife sticking out of her chest, and your immediate thought isn't someone hurt her.

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It's not what happened, but she stabbed herself.

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The police showed up and treated it like a suicide from the very start.

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They were so convinced she killed herself that they didn't even call the crime scene units.

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They just released the scene.

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That decision would haunt this case for over a decade.

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The next day, Dr. Marlon Osborne performed the autopsy, and what he found was disturbing.

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Ellen had 20 stab wounds all over her body.

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Some were in her chest, some were in her stomach, but 10 of them were in her back and the side of her neck.

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The back of her neck.

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How do you stab yourself in the back of your own neck with a 10-inch knife, by the way?

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She also had 11 bruises and different stages of healing on her arm's legs and torso.

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Dr. Osborne initially ruled Ellen's death the homicide.

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Makes sense, right?

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It looked like a violent attack, but then something weird happened.

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A few weeks later, after a meeting with the Philadelphia Police Department, Dr. Osborne changed

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the manner of death to suicide with no explanation to Ellen's parents.

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They found out from the news.

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For over 13 years, that ruling stood.

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Suicide.

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Case closed.

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Except Ellen's parents, Joshua and Sandy Greenberg refused to let it go.

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They hired their own experts.

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They filed lawsuits and they demanded answers.

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Here's where it gets really interesting.

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In February 2025, Dr. Marlin Osborne, the pathologist who did the original autopsy, filed a sworn

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statement saying he no longer believed Ellen's death was a suicide.

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He said that after reviewing additional information, it was in his professional opinion that Ellen's

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manner of death should be something other than suicide.

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Do you hear what I'm saying?

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The guy who originally called it a homicide then changed it to suicide after talking to

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the police department is now saying that he was right the first time.

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He's basically admitting the suicide ruling was wrong, but because he no longer works for

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the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's office, his opinions don't legally change anything.

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The Greenbergs kept fighting.

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They sued the city.

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And in early 2025, they reached a settlement that forced the Medical Examiner's office to

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reopen the case and conduct a new review.

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That review was just completed this month.

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If you're listening to this podcast in October 2025, it was done by the current medical

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examiner, Dr. Lindsey Simon.

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And guess what she concluded?

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Suicide.

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Again, during her review, Dr. Simon discovered 20 more bruises on Ellen's body and three

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more stab wounds that were never documented in the original autopsy, raising the total

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number of bruises to 31 and stab wounds to 23.

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31 bruises, 23 stab wounds, and she still ruled it a suicide.

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Dr. Simon's report said that Ellen was capable of inflicting these injuries herself even though

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the pattern was admittedly unusual.

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She pointed out that there was no evidence of Sam Goldberg's DNA on the knife.

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There were no defensive wounds, no signs of a struggle, and Ellen had been dealing with

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anxiety, which the report used to suggest that she was suicidal.

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But here's the thing.

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The absence of evidence for murder doesn't automatically mean suicide, especially when

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the physical evidence seems to defy the laws of human biology.

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You can say unknown calls or inconclusive something along those lines.

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The Greenbergs hired some of the best forensic experts in the country.

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Dr. Siril Wecht, a legendary forensic pathologist, Dr. Wayne Ross, a neuro pathologist, and a

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private investigator named Thomas Brennan.

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These experts did something the city never did.

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They used 3D computer modeling to recreate each of Ellen's injuries and see what would

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happen to her body as she sustained them.

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According to their analysis, the wounds would have caused unconsciousness, nerve damage,

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severe pain, loss of coordination, loss of vision, seizures, weakness, massive blood loss,

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drop in heart rate and blood pressure, brain damage, respiratory failure, irregular heart

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beat, and loss of spinal fluid.

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In other words, after the first few stabs, Ellen would have been physically unable to keep

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going.

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Their conclusion, she could not have self-inflicted all the wounds.

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It's biomechanically impossible.

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And let's talk about the spinal wound.

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One of the stab wounds was an Ellen's spinal column.

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Dr. Simon's report tried to dismiss this by claiming it was an artifact.

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A mistake made during the autopsy.

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With the Greenbergs attorney said that explanation was rejected by every credible expert who looked

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at it, including the city's own neuro pathologist.

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If that spinal wound was real and inflicted before death, there's no way Ellen did it to

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herself.

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And if it was inflicted after death, well, that's even worse because it means someone else

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was there.

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The official ruling says there were no defensive wounds, which they claim supports the suicide

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theory.

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But defensive wounds and restraint injuries are two different things.

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Defensive wounds happen when you're actively fighting someone off.

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Restraint injuries happen when someone is holding you down.

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The experts hired by the Greenbergs looked at those 31 bruises and said that they were

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consistent with someone being restrained, not self-inflicted injury.

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Ellen had bruises on her wrists, her arms, her neck, her hips, and her legs.

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That's a pattern you'd expect to see if someone was being held or grabbed.

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There's also the issue of hemorrhaging.

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Some of Ellen's wounds showed a lack of hemorrhage, which means her heart wasn't beating

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when they were inflicted.

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If your heart stops, you stop bleeding.

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So if some of these wounds were made after Ellen's heart stopped, that means they were

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post-mortem, and you can't stab yourself after you're dead.

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Let's go back to that apartment.

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Sam Goldberg said the door was latched from the inside, which supposedly proved Ellen

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was alone.

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But the building manager later said that the latch being engaged does not prove Ellen

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locked it.

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They were also inconsistencies in Sam's story.

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Phone records appeared to contradict claims from two of Sam's relatives who said they

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were on the phone with him when he broke the door down.

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The police footage showed Sam alone in the elevator right before he called 911, which

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contradicted earlier claims that a security guard helped him to force the door open.

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And according to the Greenberg's attorney, there was missing surveillance footage from

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the hallway that was never reviewed.

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None of this proves Sam was involved, and I'm not suggesting that he was, but it raises

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serious questions about what actually happened that night and whether the initial investigation

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was thorough enough.

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Here's the problem.

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As I see it, the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's office is part of the city of Philadelphia.

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The Greenbergs were suing the city for a cover-up and emotional distress.

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So the city was defending itself in court while also being responsible for reviewing the

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very case, it's being sued over.

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That is a massive conflict of interest.

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The Greenberg's attorney, Joseph Pardraza Jr. called a new report a deeply flawed attempt

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to justify a predetermined conclusion.

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He said it was an embarrassment to the city, and honestly it's hard to argue with that.

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If there was any real doubt about how Ellen died, the proper classification should be undetermined,

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not suicide.

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Undetermined means we don't know for sure.

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It doesn't require proof of homicide, but it would reopen the investigation and allow

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law enforcement to look at the case with fresh eyes.

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Instead, the city doubled down.

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The October 2025 ruling means Ellen's death certificate will remain suicide.

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Her parents are now pursuing other legal avenues.

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There's a Hulu docuseries called Death in Apartment 603 that came out recently, shining

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more light on the case.

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The public pressure is building, but the official record hasn't changed.

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So what do I think?

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I think I've been pretty clear throughout this podcast, based on everything I've read,

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the biomechanical evidence, the expert testimony, the contradictions in the scene, and the fact

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that the original pathologist himself no longer believes it was suicide.

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I think this case deserves a real investigation, not a review designed to defend the original

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ruling, but an actual objective investigation into what happened to Ellen Greenberg.

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Because right now, the evidence suggests that a 27-year-old teacher was killed in her apartment,

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and the people responsible for finding out who did it, decided it was easier to blame her.

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Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, binge-able True Crime Stories.

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My name is Joe, I'm the host, and yes, this episode had a completely different vibe than usual.

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If you've been listening for any length of time, you know that I don't usually weigh in

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with my opinion.

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Very often.

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I do sometimes, and it's usually not controversial.

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But this one, man, this story does something to me.

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I don't know why.

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It's one of those things where you can see the answer right there in front of you, and

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you think they should see that answer as well, but they've got their eyes closed.

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They don't want to see what's right in front of them.

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And that's so frustrating to me that I couldn't keep it like a usual normal episode where

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I just tell you the facts of the case and keep it to that.

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At the time that I'm recording this, the information has just recently come out that they

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decided to continue to rule it a suicide, and it was one of those, for me, one of those

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WTF moments where you're stunned in desilence.

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And I decided to do what I normally do, which is sit down and research and talk about it

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here.

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Hey, if you're a new listener to the podcast, welcome.

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Kind of a strange episode for you this to be your first one, but I appreciate the fact

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that you're here.

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Make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're listening right now.

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There's a blog there at 10minuteMurder.com.

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[Music]