322: Ellen Greenberg: Stabbed 20 Times, Ruled Suicide | Hulu’s Death in Apartment 603 Uncovers New Evidence

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Speaker 18 Hey, True Crime Besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serial Asleep.

Speaker 18 Hey, True Crime Besties.

Speaker 18 Now, if you're anything like me and you watch all the documentaries, all the docuseries on Hulu, Netflix, HBO, all of the places, you've probably seen the new docuseries called Death in Apartment 603 on Hulu.

Speaker 18 It just launched today. It is the story of Ellen Greenberg, and this is a case that has stuck with me for years.

Speaker 18 I first covered it years and years ago because there were so many red flags. It just did not add up.
It made no sense.

Speaker 18 And then I covered it again more recently when, and we actually had the opportunity to interview her family during that episode.

Speaker 18 So now with this new docuseries on Hulu and with the case back in the spotlight, I wanted to reshare that episode with you.

Speaker 18 This is in addition to our regular deep dive episode that I also dropped on the feed today.

Speaker 18 Whether it's the first time you're hearing about this case, or maybe you too are revisiting it again based on this new docuseries, I do think it is the perfect time time to listen, to brush back up on it, to give Ellen's case the awareness and the focus and attention that it needs and deserves.

Speaker 18 Because again, there are just so many things that do not make sense in this case. How they ruled this a suicide when she stabbed herself allegedly in the back of the neck.

Speaker 18 multiple times, over 20 times, then how her fruit salad was still there on the counter, how there was weird traffic in and out of the crime scene before it was secure.

Speaker 18 Now, another reason that I wanted to re-release this original episode for you, not only because this case has been thrust back into the spotlight with this new Hulu docuseries, but also because there has been a huge shift in this case.

Speaker 18 Just a few months back in February of 2025, there was a massive reversal here. The former Philadelphia medical examiner changed his opinion.

Speaker 18 He now is saying that Ellen was killed, that this was not a suicide.

Speaker 18 And as you hear this episode or re-familiarize with the case, you'll see that originally it was ruled as a homicide, then it was switched to a suicide.

Speaker 18 Then after spending their life savings, Ellen's parents had just been fighting this, fighting it.

Speaker 18 And so many people out there are outspoken about this too. Nancy Grace, I believe Court TV has been involved.
I mean, so many different people who have followed this case closely for years.

Speaker 18 And then finally, now it has been overturned and it is now switching, saying, Oh no, my opinion is now that she was killed.

Speaker 18 This actual reversal too came right at the time when jury selection began in the family's civil lawsuit against the city that was later settled.

Speaker 18 And, you know, it was settled with this agreement that the current medical examiner would re-examine the case. So it's going to be very interesting to see where this case goes.

Speaker 18 But first, I want to give you all of the details, lay everything out for you, and have you brush back up on this case so that you can tell me what you think.

Speaker 18 There's so many shady things in this that I will be really curious to know what your take is on all of it. There are so many unanswered questions that still remain.

Speaker 18 So, again, I just wanted to take this opportunity to put it back in the spotlight, especially now with this new Hulu series out there. And let's get right into it.
it is the story of Ellen Greenberg.

Speaker 20 Case surrounding the death of a

Speaker 20 Now, Guy D'Andrea, a former assistant district attorney who worked on the case, has doubts about her death. Greenberg's family believe she was murdered.

Speaker 18 Boy, oh boy, do we have a mega crazy case to talk about today, guys? It is one that is extremely controversial. There are a lot of opinions on both sides of this.

Speaker 18 It's one where there's, you know, allegations of conspiracy,

Speaker 18 corruption, cover-ups, all sorts of different things.

Speaker 18 And it's a case I've actually been covering for quite a few years and researching for quite a few years to where I feel like even in all of the information that I have dug up and gathered, I feel like it's pretty clear what the truth really is in this case.

Speaker 18 So I don't understand how there is so much division, yet there is, and you'll understand why as we get into the details.

Speaker 18 Now, Ellen Greenberg was a 27-year-old first grade teacher living in Philadelphia. She was well loved by all of her students, her friends, her family, her colleagues.

Speaker 18 She was really just known for her caring nature and also for her dedication to teaching. Now, Ellen was also engaged to Sam Goldberg.
Their wedding was planned for August 2011.

Speaker 18 So by all accounts, Ellen, at just 27, seemed to have a really bright future ahead, one full of love, marriage, a professional career that was just on the upswing, all sorts of great things happening in her life.

Speaker 18 However, beneath the surface, something darker was brewing, something that would ultimately lead to one of the most perplexing and controversial cases in recent history.

Speaker 18 What's the truth of what happened to Ellen Greenberg? As a reminder, everything in this episode is either sourced from court documents, footage, testimony of family members, or it's my opinion only.

Speaker 18 So as always, please form your own opinions and do your own research.

Speaker 18 We also interviewed Ellen's parents, Joshua and Sandy Greenberg, and we're going to be including key points of that conversation we had with them in this episode so that it can provide deeper insight into their experience throughout this entire ordeal.

Speaker 18 On January 26th, 2011, Ellen started her morning like any other morning. As I said, she was a first grade local school teacher in Philadelphia, so she got ready for work and she headed off to school.

Speaker 18 Now on her way to work, she called her mom. This was at approximately 7 a.m.
and it's something that she routinely did.

Speaker 18 Her mom would be on the way into work for the morning as well, so they would use that period of driving in to just talk, catch up, things like that.

Speaker 19 You know, a hard worker.

Speaker 19 She had a

Speaker 19 vivacious personality.

Speaker 19 She was enthusiastic with her children, with the teaching.

Speaker 19 She did love her career. She put a lot into it, but it came, a lot of it came very naturally to her as a child.
She was, you know, fun-loving, normal. She was athletic.
She was artistic.

Speaker 19 She, you know, loved fashion. She loved sports.

Speaker 19 She loved school. And she just had a knack of bringing, you know, her friends from different parts of her life together.

Speaker 19 and never thought twice about, you know, just because they didn't know each other. She says to me, mom, I can make them be friends.

Speaker 18 Nothing was out of the norm, and it seemed like it was just going to be a standard day, like every other day.

Speaker 18 However, that afternoon, a blizzard hit Philadelphia, and this wasn't just a small blizzard or a tiny little snow day.

Speaker 18 This was like one of those like nor'eastern blizzards, like the massive snowfall to where work is shut down, schools are shut down, everything closes.

Speaker 18 So because of that, Ellen ended up leaving school early. It was a snow day.
And if you've ever lived on the East Coast or if you're familiar, you definitely know how that goes.

Speaker 18 I remember when I was living in New York, it happened at least once a season, usually even more than that.

Speaker 18 But in any event, around 1.30 p.m., Ellen was on her way back to the apartment that she shared with her fiancé Sam.

Speaker 18 The two of them lived in this stunning two-bedroom apartment in a luxury building called the Venice Lofts, and she was heading home for the day. It was nice.
It was going to be a shorter day.

Speaker 18 On the way, she decided to stop for gas, and then after filling up her tank, she headed directly to the apartment. When Ellen arrived home, she entered the apartment.

Speaker 18 She started working on grading papers, homework, things like that. She also made a fruit salad for lunch and just started to unwind from her day.

Speaker 18 Her fiancé Sam was home, but he ended up leaving to go work out in the building gym downstairs. They lived on the sixth floor and the gym of the building was on the first floor.

Speaker 18 So he heads out to the gym at around 4.45 p.m.

Speaker 18 He returned to their apartment about 45 minutes later at 5.30 p.m. However, when he returned, the apartment was locked from the inside.

Speaker 18 It had been locked using the swing bar latch, you know, the kind that pulls over and it has like the barbell that hangs out, and it's just that extra interior lock.

Speaker 18 So he shouted for Ellen, you know, come, unlock the door, let me in. He also texted her nine times.

Speaker 18 Now, these text messages start with just asking her to open the door, but then they start increasingly becoming more panicked, also a little bit aggressive. These messages read, Hello, open the door.

Speaker 18 What are you doing? You better have an excuse. I'm getting pissed.
Hello, in all caps. Then another one that said, you have no idea.

Speaker 18 So she wasn't responding to these text messages. She also wasn't answering his phone calls, and that made him increasingly irritated.
So then he started shouting through the door opening.

Speaker 18 Because if you're familiar with this lock, then you know you can open the door, but there's like a two to three inch little gap where you can kind of see inside, kind of not, but you still can't get through.

Speaker 18 So he opens that and he's shouting, Let me in, let me in, Ellen, where are you? Where are you?

Speaker 18 He also says that he went down to the doorman of the building to see if maybe he could help him access the apartment. However, for whatever reason, the doorman refused.
He said he couldn't.

Speaker 18 I don't know if it was a restriction of the building, maybe a privacy issue. I'm not entirely sure.

Speaker 18 But finally, after there was still no answer, Sam ended up forcing his way through the door, breaking that swing bar lock. And what he found inside was his absolute worst nightmare.

Speaker 18 Ellen, his fiancé, just 27 years old, was lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen, and she had a knife plunged inside her chest.

Speaker 18 It was an absolute nightmarish scene that really seemed to come directly out of a horror movie.

Speaker 18 Now quickly before we move on, I want to talk about the timeline of events and Ellen's movements that day, starting from when she left school to then when she was found dead in her kitchen.

Speaker 18 I feel like it's something we need to go through so that we can understand what could have happened in that window of time and what the events were leading up to her being found dead on her kitchen floor.

Speaker 18 So as I said, she got gas at around 1.30 p.m. At 2.30 p.m., she called a restaurant, which was located about 30 minutes away from her apartment.

Speaker 18 It's unclear if she was calling this restaurant to make a reservation, to order food for pickup, to perhaps cancel an existing reservation.

Speaker 18 It's unclear, but it is possible that she was calling to make a dinner reservation since now she was getting home for the day much earlier than she normally did.

Speaker 18 It's also possible she was trying to order food for pickup later. But regardless, we know that she did make that call.

Speaker 18 At 3.47 p.m., she sends a text message from her phone, and then at 4.45 p.m., there's activity on her computer. A few minutes after that activity on her computer, at 4.50 p.m.

Speaker 18 is when her fiancé Sam went to the gym downstairs of the building.

Speaker 18 Then at 5.26 p.m., Sam leaves the gym, and as I said, their apartment was on the sixth floor and the gym was on the first floor, so that would allow him just a few minutes to get upstairs.

Speaker 18 So if he left at 5.26 p.m., let's say he arrives to the apartment and starts knocking around 5.30 p.m., give or take a few minutes.

Speaker 18 So he tries texting her and gaining access for 22 minutes, putting it somewhere around 5.50 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Speaker 18 He's also seen on camera entering the first floor elevator for the last time at 6.28 p.m. And then a 911 call is placed three minutes later at 6.31 p.m.

Speaker 18 So going off of that timeline, it indicates that he's downstairs talking to the doorman, trying to get him to, you know, come and open the door, gain access to the apartment.

Speaker 18 He goes up the elevator at 6.28, breaks down the door, finds Ellen, and then calls 911 three minutes later.

Speaker 18 However, if we go back to that timeline, there's a window from when the texting stops after 22 minutes, around 5.50 to 6 p.m., and then when he is seen on the elevator at 6.28 p.m.

Speaker 18 So what was going on in that 20 to 30 minute window? Was he trying to get the doorman's attention for 20 or 30 minutes?

Speaker 18 There are some reports that he had tried to get the doorman's attention three different times, going up and down, up and down, maybe going back and forth.

Speaker 18 The only thing that we actually do know about that window of time is that Sam called his cousin Camian Schwartzmann at 6.14 p.m. This was 17 minutes before the 911 call.

Speaker 18 Camian's dad, Sam's uncle, James Schwartzman, also allegedly called Sam at 6.26 p.m. This incoming call was before the 911 call was made, but after Sam had called his cousin earlier.

Speaker 18 Now a little interesting detail. Both Camian and his father James are lawyers.
When Sam called 911, he was instructed to start CPR until he noticed that knife that was plunged in Ellen's chest.

Speaker 18 Then he was instructed to stop.

Speaker 23 4601 Flat Rock Road, please, Harry.

Speaker 23 4601 Flat Rock?

Speaker 23 Yes. Let's call.

Speaker 23 I went downstairs to go work out. I came back up.
The door was latched. Mike's fiancé's inside.

Speaker 23 She wasn't answering. So after about a half hour, I decided to break it down.
I see her now just on the floor with blood.

Speaker 23 She's not responding. Okay, is she breathing?

Speaker 23 Look at her chest. I need you to calm down, and I need you to look at her chest.
It's really good. I don't think she is.
I really don't think she is. Listen to me.
Someone's on the way.

Speaker 23 Look at her chest. Is she flat on her back?

Speaker 23 She's on her back. Do I play her? Look at her chest and tell me if it's going up and down, up and down.

Speaker 23 I don't see her moving. Okay, do you know how to do CPR? I don't.
Okay, I can tell you what to do, okay, until they get there. I want you to keep her face.
Oh, God. Hello.
Yeah, hi, okay.

Speaker 23 Willing to do CPR with me over the phone until they get there?

Speaker 23 I have to, right? Okay, so get her flat on her back, bear her chest, okay? You want to rip her shirt off?

Speaker 23 Shit. Okay, you need to kneel down by her side.
Oh, my God. Allie, please.
Listen, listen. You can't freak out, sir, because you're not going to be able to get it.
Okay, I'm trying not to.

Speaker 23 I'm trying not to. Her shirt won't come off.
It's a zipper. Oh, my God.
She stabbed herself. Where? She fell in a knife.
Oh, no. Her knife's sticking out.
Her what?

Speaker 23 There's a knife sticking out of her heart.

Speaker 23 Oh, she stabbed herself?

Speaker 23 I guess so. I don't know where she's fell on it.
I don't know. Okay, well, don't touch it.

Speaker 23 Okay, so I'll just let her down here now. I mean, what do I do? No, I mean, you can't, if the knife is at her chest, it's going to be kinda hard for you to do CPR at this time.
Oh, no.

Speaker 23 Oh, my goodness. Okay.
Police with shopper.

Speaker 23 Is someone coming here? Yes, they are. You said 4601 Flat Rock, right? Yes.

Speaker 23 Okay, someone's on the way. And the knife is still inside?

Speaker 23 Is there what? The knife is still inside of her? Yes, I didn't take it out. Was it a chest or what area that she had? It's in her chest.

Speaker 23 It looks like it's

Speaker 23 right in her heart.

Speaker 23 Okay, someone's on the way out there. Okay, just get away.
Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
How old is she? She's 27. 27.
And there's no sign of life at all?

Speaker 23 Don't turn to her arm. No, no, please don't be.
What? Bench under her arm and tell me she responds to pain.

Speaker 23 She's...

Speaker 23 Ellie!

Speaker 23 She's not, she's not. Her arm, her hands are still warm.
I don't know if that means, but there's blood everywhere. I mean.
I know, but you can't. And the knife is still inside of her.
How far?

Speaker 23 Can you see how far it went in? It looks pretty deep.

Speaker 23 Okay. It looks three, and it's a long knife.
Don't touch anything. Yeah, don't touch anything.

Speaker 23 I'm not touching anything.

Speaker 23 I can't believe this, though. No wait it was just you there with her

Speaker 23 we yeah we're the only ones here and she ran in the door you said latched it shut no no I I I went downstairs to work out and I when I came back up the door was latched

Speaker 23 like it was you know it wasn't like it was you know it was like locked from the inside and I'm yelling

Speaker 23 and I saw him yelling and broken into

Speaker 23 no no no no no there was no sign of a break-in no no sign of a break-in at all I mean there will be when you get here because I had to break the latch, but

Speaker 23 to get in.

Speaker 23 Okay, 4601 Flat Rock, and this is a house, right? It's an apartment. Five record apartment 603.
Okay, there's a hope. Apartment 603.
Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
All right. Thank you.

Speaker 23 Bye.

Speaker 18 What I do find interesting about this call is that Sam says that she was on her back, that he can't get her shirt off.

Speaker 18 But if that's the case, he didn't notice the knife that was sticking out of her chest.

Speaker 18 Now, in another detail, just referencing the timeline, Kamian arrived at the apartment three minutes after that 911 call was made, at approximately 6.34 p.m.

Speaker 18 So the EMTs arrived pretty much immediately, just five minutes after the 911 call was made, and they discovered that not only did Ellen have this knife in her chest, but she had been stabbed 20 times.

Speaker 18 That wound in her chest was just one of 20 different stab wounds that were discovered on her head, her neck, her back, and her torso.

Speaker 18 One of the stab wounds to the back of her head was actually so deep that it penetrated her brain. There were also 11 bruises on her body, all in various stages of healing.

Speaker 18 They were located on her right arm, her abdomen, and her right leg. There was clearly nothing that the EMTs could do to save Ellen at this point.
So at approximately 6.40 p.m.

Speaker 18 that evening, just a few minutes after arriving, Ellen was pronounced dead.

Speaker 18 The EMS, who pronounced Ellen as dead, made a comment on the scene about needing to get back to the station, knowing that they would need to be interviewed by the homicide team, given this horrific crime scene.

Speaker 18 So as the police began investigating the crime scene, they ended up finding no evidence of an intruder.

Speaker 18 The six-story apartment could only be accessed from the front door and from the exterior balcony, but there was a complete fresh layer of snow outside from that snowstorm, and it was completely undisturbed.

Speaker 18 No footprints, no movement, nothing. Officers also noted that there was nothing to suggest that a robbery had taken place.
There were plenty of valuables still visible all around around the home.

Speaker 18 So the question that immediately arose, of course, was, who could have committed such a heinous, horrific murder?

Speaker 18 But as the investigators began to piece together the scene, the case took a very strange and unexpected turn.

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Speaker 4 The colors are off, and did legal clear that image?

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Speaker 18 So the investigators are going through the scene trying to comb through all pieces of evidence.

Speaker 18 And given the violent nature of the crime, the initial suspicions, of course, naturally turned toward homicide. However, that locked door presented a very very complex and bizarre situation.

Speaker 18 Because how could someone have murdered Ellen, but then locked the door from the inside, leaving absolutely no trace of them leaving, no trace of their escape?

Speaker 18 Now, my initial thought, I'll be honest, when I heard this, was, okay, obviously it was the fiancé, right? He had access to the apartment, she had bruises, were they new, were they old?

Speaker 18 The amount of wounds would indicate a crime of passion and possibly even overkill, right? It must have been someone close to Ellen, surely, right?

Speaker 18 So the police took her fiancé Sam away from the scene in handcuffs and they questioned him some more. However, Ellen's parents told the police they had absolutely no reason to suspect her fiancé.

Speaker 18 And Ellen's psychiatrist, who she had been seeing for anxiety, said that Ellen was happy in the relationship. She had denied that any abuse ever happened in the relationship.

Speaker 18 She was happy, she was in love, they were planning their wedding. I mean, they were just happy.
So as investigators went deeper into the evidence, they were faced with many conflicting signs.

Speaker 18 To start, there were no signs of forced entry or a struggle happening within the apartment.

Speaker 18 However, the brutality of how Ellen died and having that many stab wounds, it surely suggested either a frenzied murder or, what I said earlier, a crime of passion.

Speaker 18 Although the knife wounds, though severe and numerous, they didn't appear to be consistent with a typical homicide pattern.

Speaker 18 There was also that locked door, a detail that really seemed to suggest that nobody else could have entered or left the apartment.

Speaker 18 So with no suggestion that another person had been inside the apartment at the time of her death, police at the scene suspected that the death was actually a suicide, particularly because there was a lack of defensive wounds.

Speaker 18 Also, no sign of an intruder at all ever entering. So despite there being no suicide note left behind and despite the barbaric, horrific 20 stab wounds, the crime was treated as a suicide.

Speaker 18 However, the very next day, the medical examiner reached a different conclusion. This was upon seeing just how many stab stab wounds there truly were.

Speaker 18 In his report, the medical examiner classified the death as a homicide. But then there was allegedly this secret meeting that took place.

Speaker 18 In the meeting, there were members of the ME's office, the police department, also the DA's office, and allegedly in this meeting, they had somehow convinced the medical examiner to change the manner of death to a suicide.

Speaker 18 The Philadelphia Police Department stated, quote, the death of Ellen Greenberg has not been ruled a homicide. Homicide investigators are considering the manner of death as suspicious at this time.

Speaker 18 So nevertheless, the investigation continued.

Speaker 18 But after learning about Ellen seeing her therapist for anxiety and her being on anxiety medication, police said that they were leaning toward the determination of suicide.

Speaker 18 Her psychiatrist had prescribed her colonopin for anxiety, also ambien for sleep, both of which medications do list suicidal ideations as possible side effects.

Speaker 18 However, nobody close to Ellen had heard her express any thoughts of harming herself. Never.
For five weeks, investigators went back and forth on what happened.

Speaker 18 Upon the first review, there were no suspects. Ellen was alone inside the apartment, which had been locked from the inside with that interior swing bar.

Speaker 18 Neighbors didn't hear her reporting any sort of disturbance. There was also no security footage or stolen property to suggest that there had been an intruder.

Speaker 18 And what's more, were those defensive wounds, or lack thereof. And in another piece of evidence, there was no DNA but Ellen's found on the knife.
No DNA from anybody else found on her clothing either.

Speaker 18 So on March 3rd, armed now with more information, the medical examiner changed the death certificate to reflect that Ellen's death was in fact a suicide.

Speaker 18 As you can imagine, Ellen's family was devastated by her death, but they were also deeply skeptical of the suicide ruling. How could their loving, kind-hearted daughter have done this to herself?

Speaker 18 The sheer number of stab wounds alone seemed absolutely implausible as a self-inflicted act. So Ellen's parents, Josh and Sandy Greenberg, began their own investigation.

Speaker 18 They were determined to find the truth behind their daughter's death. They hired private investigators, forensic experts, they even hired a renowned pathologist to review the case.

Speaker 18 The experts that they consulted were all unanimous in their findings. Ellen's wounds were inconsistent with suicide.

Speaker 18 The angle and the depth of the stab wounds, particularly those to the back of her neck, were nearly impossible for somebody to inflict on themselves.

Speaker 18 And remember that EMS who declared Ellen as dead and mentioned how they needed to get back to the station because they knew that the homicide team would need to question them regarding the scene?

Speaker 18 Get this, they were never questioned. Which let that just sink in.
The first responders, the ones who saw the scene and declared Ellen as dead, were never even questioned.

Speaker 18 Ellen's parents also uncovered new disturbing details about this investigation. Crucial evidence like Ellen's computer and cell phone had not been thoroughly analyzed.

Speaker 18 Blood spatter patterns which could have provided vital clues were also just overlooked.

Speaker 18 The locked door, once considered a definitive proof of suicide, was also re-examined, and it revealed that it could have been tampered with or it could have even been locked after the fact.

Speaker 18 And perhaps the most glaringly obvious issue of all was that Ellen had shown absolutely no signs of mental duress leading up to her death.

Speaker 18 Yes, Yes, she had been seeking help for anxiety, but nothing indicated that she was suicidal.

Speaker 26 I had asked, like, was there a fight or anything? He said, no, she was just really stressed with work.

Speaker 26 And

Speaker 26 so he left.

Speaker 26 When he came back, he said it was about a half hour later. And

Speaker 26 he,

Speaker 26 you know, went to use his key to open, and he said that the door was latched.

Speaker 26 I actually had written all this down, so I just looked back, you know, through my notes to refresh my memory.

Speaker 26 So it was latched. He

Speaker 26 said that he, you know, called her, called her name, you know, thought maybe she was napping or

Speaker 26 in the shower.

Speaker 26 He said he called her mom then to see if she mentioned anything to her mom and she hadn't heard anything.

Speaker 26 Then he said at that point he went downstairs to the

Speaker 26 to the front door or to the security and asked

Speaker 26 if maintenance was there and they could help him get into the apartment. And they said, you know, maintenance is gone for the day.
And he said, the advice he was given was to use his shoulder.

Speaker 26 You know, if he's going to try to break and open the door, use his shoulder.

Speaker 26 So then he went back up and he said he used his shoulder. He said it took one, maybe two times.
He didn't remember.

Speaker 26 And the force that he used swung open the door and he spun around and was facing the kitchen and saw her.

Speaker 26 And he said her

Speaker 26 you know her back and shoulders were were kind of up against the lower cabinets

Speaker 26 and he said her little fingers were blue. I remember him saying that her little fingers were blue.

Speaker 26 And he said he called 911 immediately and they were going to instruct him to do CPR. So he moved her to the floor and at that time he saw the knife.

Speaker 27 You were questioned by the police at one point?

Speaker 26 Yes, so

Speaker 26 the week of February 7th, I was back in town. I had been in New Orleans for work.
I came back and

Speaker 26 I was asked by the homicide unit to come down to Philadelphia, I believe it was the Wraith Street location,

Speaker 26 so that they could question me, obviously, just as more of a, you know, what information could they get as a friend. And I was

Speaker 26 interviewed by there. It was the strangest feeling to be in there.
So I'm like,

Speaker 26 this is not my life. What am I doing here? I remember just feeling like they were, they didn't care what I was saying.
It was almost like they were checking the box that they had me there.

Speaker 26 And at one point, he even said, are you trying to point fingers here? And I said, no,

Speaker 26 I'm just answering your questions and giving you the information that I know. I'm only giving you fact.

Speaker 26 So, yeah.

Speaker 27 So did you feel like they had already had their mind made up about what happened?

Speaker 26 Yeah. Yeah.
This was like,

Speaker 26 oh, I have to just do this. Let me get this over with.
Like I didn't feel like they were interested in what I had to say.

Speaker 26 And again, not that I wasn't there that day. So I have no information of what happened.

Speaker 26 But

Speaker 26 I knew what he had told me. And I knew who, you know, Ellen was.
And I, you know, knew a little bit about the apartment.

Speaker 26 I knew a little bit about their routines.

Speaker 26 But they had no interest in in hearing from me.

Speaker 27 Yeah, so now records are coming out. Is there any documentation of your conversation with police?

Speaker 28 Nope.

Speaker 27 There's no police report?

Speaker 26 Right. Apparently the, you know, the last that I've heard of the 5,000-page document that lawyers have gone through, there's no report in there of my interview with police.

Speaker 26 And I know for a fact I was there. at homicide headquarters talking to Detective Harris.

Speaker 27 But there's no document. Did you see him write something down?

Speaker 26 Yes, I saw him write something down and I was there. So whether or not he was writing, you know, what he did with that paper, it should have still been documented that I was there.

Speaker 18 Let's also talk about the scene of the crime for a moment because new forensic evidence suggested that the scene may have been staged.

Speaker 18 Blood evidence that was found in the kitchen did not align with the official narrative.

Speaker 18 Now, something that I don't think is talked about enough in this case, and I could totally be wrong, this is just my opinion, and I'm not an expert, but remember how I mentioned when Ellen got home that day and she made that fruit salad, whether it was for lunch or for a snack?

Speaker 18 Well, in the crime scene photos, you can still see remnants of that fruit salad and scattered parts of it on the kitchen counter, right above Ellen's dead body.

Speaker 18 Now, I understand people who are suicidal may not always be thinking rationally, but in all of the cases that I've covered, I have never seen or heard of somebody making a meal before taking their own life and not eating the meal.

Speaker 18 So believing that Ellen committed suicide would also mean that you believe that she made herself lunch in the kitchen, chose not to eat it, and instead chose to grab a knife and stab herself 20 times, stabbing herself in the torso, the back of her head, the neck, her spine.

Speaker 18 Such deep stab wounds too that it penetrated her brain. I mean, it doesn't really align, right?

Speaker 18 I'm not a detective and this is me just theorizing here, guys, but doesn't that scene feel more in line with somebody either catching Ellen by surprise or maybe even perhaps blitz attacking her and say grabbing a knife because it's nearby from maybe cutting a fruit salad and the perpetrator grabbing that as a weapon to murder her in this overkill crime of passion type of way which by the way if you look at the knife that was used and that was plunged into Ellen's chest it certainly aligns with a knife that would be used to cut this fruit salad, the one that she made for herself to eat.

Speaker 18 So was the knife conveniently on the counter for whoever used this, or did Ellen just have a change of heart and instead of eating the snack that she had just cut up, she decided to plunge the knife into herself 20 times?

Speaker 18 Despite the growing body of evidence suggesting that Ellen could not have killed herself, authorities remained firm on their conclusion.

Speaker 18 The case was closed as a suicide, leaving the Greenbergs in a state of just extreme frustration and anger.

Speaker 18 And for over the past decade, Ellen's parents have spearheaded their own investigation, even hiring an attorney to help them file a lawsuit against the medical examiner's office, also that they will change the cause of death to homicide.

Speaker 19 She was afraid of pain and she was afraid of blood. So

Speaker 19 to try to accuse her of committing suicide with a serrated knife, and there were straight-edge wounds that were also found, which means there may have been more than one knife involved, and there may have been more than one person involved in her murder.

Speaker 19 But we haven't had an investigation,

Speaker 29 a legitimate one, so

Speaker 19 the jury's still out on what really happened to Ellen.

Speaker 18 They found two neuropathologists to review the autopsy report, also to examine the brain tissue samples from Ellen that were retained by the doctor who did the autopsy.

Speaker 18 And both of these doctors agree that the evidence shows that suicide is not even a possibility. Fast forward, nearly eight years.

Speaker 18 And on March 15th, 2019, the Philadelphia Inquirer released a front-page investigative report reviewing the suspicious circumstances surrounding Ellen's death.

Speaker 18 A well-known Pittsburgh forensic pathologist also reviewed the case and determined that it was, quote, strongly suspicious of homicide.

Speaker 18 They also stated, quote, I don't know how they wrote this off as a suicide.

Speaker 18 Similarly, a forensic scientist reviewed the case files and concluded, quote, the number and types of wounds and bloodstain patterns observed are consistent with a homicide scene.

Speaker 18 Now, one significant point of contention was the stab wounds that penetrated Ellen's brain.

Speaker 18 One of the doctors who examined the file wrote that the stab wounds to the brain and the spinal cord would have caused such severe pain, also cranial nerve dysfunction, and traumatic brain injuries.

Speaker 18 The original medical report stated that a neuropathologist determined that there was no such wound, though.

Speaker 18 However, later when they were interviewed by the the Philadelphia Inquirer, that same pathologist revealed that she didn't even observe Ellen's body.

Speaker 18 And she confirmed that she has no records, no bills, no invoices, no reports of any examination ever even taking place, which, how does that happen? That's a pretty big detail to miss, right?

Speaker 18 A pretty big discrepancy. As I mentioned, Ellen's parents filed a civil suit against the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office and the pathologist who conducted the autopsy.

Speaker 18 The suit seeks to change the manner of death, citing new information, and the fact that the doctor who did the original autopsy admitted to changing the manner of death at the insistence of the police.

Speaker 18 A new technology called photogrammetry, unavailable at the time of Ellen's death, also created a 3D recreation of Ellen's wounds, demonstrating that not all 20 wounds could have possibly been self-inflicted.

Speaker 18 And the circumstances and the details about Ellen's death were about to get a lot more mysterious.

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Speaker 32 With us again this morning, Sandy and Josh, welcome again. And their investigator, Tom Brennan, is here as well.
Tom, thank you for coming in.

Speaker 32 I know it's 10 years later, but it doesn't get it any easier, does it?

Speaker 33 No, it doesn't.

Speaker 32 The pain ever go away?

Speaker 33 Nope. No.

Speaker 32 So I've listened to this podcast

Speaker 32 about three times.

Speaker 32 They want us to believe,

Speaker 32 the initial police officers who showed up there, that your daughter stabbed herself 20 times.

Speaker 32 It's ridiculous.

Speaker 32 Ridiculous.

Speaker 32 Josh, seriously.

Speaker 32 How could they have come to that decision in that apartment in Maniunk? They walk in, she's been stabbed 20 times, and they call it a suicide.

Speaker 34 This is no way.

Speaker 34 As my wife said, it's ridiculous. It's absurd.
And our journey through this today, over the decade or 10 years we've been involved in this, gets more ridiculous every day.

Speaker 32 Yeah, it seems like the case was botched from the opening day.

Speaker 32 Tom, you've been investigating crimes for years and years.

Speaker 32 Do you agree with that?

Speaker 22 Yes.

Speaker 29 If you look at the timeline timeline from

Speaker 29 the 26th of January through the 28th of January,

Speaker 29 it totally discredits any

Speaker 29 good, basic police work at all.

Speaker 29 What transpired.

Speaker 32 We'll get into how the crime scene was completely deeped clean way too soon.

Speaker 21 The door was locked, right?

Speaker 32 Her door was locked from the inside.

Speaker 33 This is all what we've been told. There was never really an investigation to clearly illustrate any of this.

Speaker 32 What does that...

Speaker 34 She lived on... What floor was this on?

Speaker 21 The sixth floor.

Speaker 32 The sixth floor. So this was the only way in or out of her apartment.
Well, you can go out on the balcony, but you're not going to climb down or climb up.

Speaker 34 And there was a snowstorm that day. That's why she was home at 1 o'clock.

Speaker 34 And that was the only way in or out.

Speaker 32 You were up in Harrisburg at the time? Yes. So I remember that huge snowstorm.
My gosh. It was January of 2011.

Speaker 32 So you weren't able to come down right away?

Speaker 34 No.

Speaker 33 We didn't get word of any of this until late into the evening. There were mounds of snow.
Snow plows hadn't come through.

Speaker 21 Who called you?

Speaker 33 The fiancé's father.

Speaker 22 And

Speaker 33 I didn't know what he meant. I said, you know, where's the ambulance?

Speaker 33 And then he said, there is none.

Speaker 32 Because we won't need one? And then you knew?

Speaker 33 No, I didn't really.

Speaker 21 It was shock.

Speaker 34 This is not what you expect to get a call from. You have a 27-year-old daughter who's engaged to be married and living in Philadelphia with her fiancé.

Speaker 32 Had they been arguing?

Speaker 22 Not that. Not that we know.

Speaker 32 And she had been to see a psychiatrist because she was having some troubles. She was having trouble at school.

Speaker 22 No.

Speaker 21 She had anxiety.

Speaker 32 Anxiety. Where was the anxiety coming from? Do you know?

Speaker 34 I'm going to postulate, I can guess.

Speaker 34 There were various injuries on her body that were indicative of bruises and healing.

Speaker 21 Okay, let's go back to that.

Speaker 32 So there are bruises all over her body, and those bruises were from maybe days, weeks before she was attacked.

Speaker 34 They weren't part of that night.

Speaker 32 We're not part of that night. So now you've got to...

Speaker 32 You've got to figure out what that is all about.

Speaker 34 We are babes in the woods. We had no knowledge.

Speaker 34 If you know anything about this type of problem,

Speaker 34 it's very unlikely that the victim is going to say anything to you.

Speaker 34 And we think she was a victim.

Speaker 34 That's part of what was going on here.

Speaker 32 Now

Speaker 32 why in the world was the fiancé's uncle allowed to go into her apartment and take Ellie's stuff, her computer and stuff like that, after the apartment was deep cleaned.

Speaker 32 So now it's there's no longer a crime scene. You can't get any material

Speaker 21 out of there now.

Speaker 29 This was done by a prominent attorney, Uncle, okay?

Speaker 29 And he's currently supposedly a judge on the state

Speaker 29 attorneys disciplinary board. Now, this individual removed Ellie's cell phone, the fiancé's laptop, Ellie's work laptop, and Ellie's personal laptop.

Speaker 29 So right then and there, that

Speaker 29 negates that chain of evidence.

Speaker 22 Okay?

Speaker 29 That adversely impacts the chain of evidence

Speaker 29 on those devices so that

Speaker 29 anything that's discovered on those devices can be challenged in court.

Speaker 32 Okay, any expert that you've hired since then, everybody that looks at this case says that

Speaker 32 Ellie was murdered.

Speaker 34 Yes. It was a homicide.

Speaker 32 It was a homicide, except for that initial report that day that said it was a suicide. But then it went back to

Speaker 32 a homicide, then back to a suicide.

Speaker 34 I think it went from homicide to suicide to homicide.

Speaker 32 Really? Yeah.

Speaker 21 So

Speaker 32 what do we do now?

Speaker 32 I mean, obviously, it needs to be reinvestigated. So we asked the Attorney General, is there anything you can do yesterday? And he wrote back in a statement, we've looked at all.

Speaker 32 No, we're not going to reopen this case as of now. He needs more evidence, he says.
What is heart?

Speaker 32 It goes into how it's heartbreaking and all that, but he says they don't have legitimate new evidence to bring forward. It has not been brought forward yet, so we're not going to do anything.

Speaker 32 So, what can we do? I know you have a petition. Maybe if we all put enough pressure through this petition, we can get it reopened.

Speaker 34 Well, there are two things happening. Number one, there's a petition on change.org, which has over 110,000 signatures that we had nothing to do with we don't elicit that or whatever number two

Speaker 34 we are going to go to trial and the purpose of our trial is to get the suicide changed to either undecided or homicide which we prefer and have the case reopened and investigated

Speaker 34 now that'd be a non-jury trial It happens to be a bench trial, yes.

Speaker 21 Okay, a bench trial.

Speaker 34 The Philadelphia situation with trials right now is very

Speaker 32 overloaded. You're not giving up.

Speaker 21 No.

Speaker 32 Why is it so important to get that, get at least the determination changed from suicide to she was our daughter?

Speaker 22 I mean, what would you do?

Speaker 32 I would do the same thing you're doing.

Speaker 21 The longer this

Speaker 33 goes on,

Speaker 33 the more we uncover, the more we discover.

Speaker 33 Just because you work for a government agency doesn't give you license to say whatever you want without facts and proving the the facts.

Speaker 32 Do you think

Speaker 32 the linchpin here is what happened when they went into her apartment and took all of her stuff out?

Speaker 34 We don't know the why or the who, so don't ask us the whole thing.

Speaker 32 It should have been you two in her apartment taking her stuff out.

Speaker 33 Well, theoretically, if he no one had permission to touch her things. Theoretically,

Speaker 34 he should have returned it to us the next day at her funeral, which he did not do.

Speaker 29 This statement by the Attorney General's office

Speaker 29 is vile.

Speaker 32 Why do you say it's a lie? It's a lie. Can you put it up again?

Speaker 29 It's a lie.

Speaker 18 In 2020, under growing public pressure and new evidence brought forward by Ellen's family and independent experts, the case was reopened for further investigation.

Speaker 18 The decision came despite receiving a deposition from a medical expert who noted that many of the nearly 20 stab wounds showed no signs of hemorrhage.

Speaker 18 This suggested that Ellen was not even alive when those wounds were inflicted, and that these wounds were inflicted post-mortem.

Speaker 18 Which, for you true crime sleuths, you know that if they're post-mortem, that means that they were done after Ellen was dead, and that Ellen could not have done them.

Speaker 18 Plus, there were several other details that they believe indicated this was a homicide. If Ellen had planned on killing herself, why had she filled up her gas tank after leaving school?

Speaker 18 She certainly wouldn't need a full tank of gas for any reason. Why had she not left a note?

Speaker 18 Why was that half-finished fruit salad she made after getting home from school found on the kitchen counter above her body?

Speaker 18 And moreover, if she was intent on taking her life, why had she chosen to stab herself?

Speaker 18 And why had she done so through her clothing, something that one expert noted as very rare in cases of suicide by stabbing?

Speaker 18 That in the rare occurrence that somebody is going to take their own life and choose stabbing as the method, that very rarely are they clothed, and that they usually do it when they are nude to ensure that it fully penetrates and that it is a fast process.

Speaker 18 Also, how would she inflict those wounds to her back, her head, and her neck?

Speaker 18 How would she have the physical strength to inflict all 20 of these wounds too and continue to inflict them even after the stab wounds that went to her head and her brain, which certainly would have debilitated her, right?

Speaker 18 And taking a step back, and this is just my opinion, but thinking through that, if you're stabbing yourself 20 times in the torso, the back, the head, Certainly, one of those is going to either strike a nerve, be so painful to where you can't continue with this frenzied attack on yourself.

Speaker 18 And they have reports suggesting that she wouldn't have been able to inflict all of these, not to mention the report which said that these even happened post-mortem.

Speaker 18 Not to mention the location of the wounds. Ten to the back of her neck, one in the scalp, eight times in the chest and the abdomen.

Speaker 18 Now, I will say, some people out there who believe that this was in fact a suicide say, you know, stop with all the conspiracy theories.

Speaker 18 The multiple knife wounds are consistent with a suicidal person who is, you know, testing their ability to go through with it.

Speaker 18 There's also no forensic evidence that ties Sam or anybody else to Ellen's death. There's no blood scene on Sam.
There's no bloody clothing.

Speaker 18 It would be very difficult for Sam to murder Ellen, stage the scene, possibly move her body, clean everything up, and not leave any sort of evidence or DNA behind, all in a window of 30 minutes to an hour like we were talking about.

Speaker 18 Also, in a lot of the cases that we cover, when there is a stabbing involved, we know that especially if it's a mass stabbing, there is a lot of blood and that typically the perpetrator's hand will slip on the blood and they will sometimes cut themselves whether it's on the hands on their legs whatever it is when they're going through that up and down motion but there were reportedly no cuts on sam's hands however if you're like me and like a lot of other true crime people out there there's probably still some suspicion that the fiancé might have been involved something might still be creeping around in the back of your mind we know that they were engaged and her psychiatrist and her parents said that they had no reason to suspect that she was unhappy or that there was any sort of domestic violence in the relationship.

Speaker 18 Yet, according to Ellen's father, father, she had told her parents about a month earlier that she wanted to move home. So, could there have been trouble in paradise?

Speaker 19 The only issue that she was having is she was complaining that

Speaker 19 she was overwhelmed by the workload. But that was bullshit.

Speaker 19 That was the excuse. Ellen wants to come home.
And we don't know why. And she said that was the reason.

Speaker 19 But when Ellen passed, the teacher that took over her position said everything was in perfect perfect order with Ellen's teaching and everything, and Grace, everything. So

Speaker 19 there was no problem with her responsibilities to her job.

Speaker 19 Something else was happening.

Speaker 18 And think back to those text messages that Sam had sent Ellen when she wasn't opening the door that night after he returned from the gym. It showed a slew of text messages that appeared angry.

Speaker 18 He had said, Hello, open the door. What are you doing? I'm getting pissed.
Hello, you better have an excuse. What the fuck? Ah, you have no idea.

Speaker 18 Domestic violence author, advocate, and expert Barry Goldstein says that the text message, you better have an excuse, raises an especially concerning red flag.

Speaker 18 He says, quote, what I'm getting from their conversation is he makes the rules, and if she doesn't obey the rules, he will punish her, end quote.

Speaker 18 He also says, that's the tone that I'm getting, and that's really the essence of coercive control.

Speaker 18 Ellen's father told the hosts of a true crime podcast that they do know that she was abused before the attack.

Speaker 18 Further, that she had been ongoingly being abused, but did not know how to tell them, didn't know how to confide in her family or friends about what was going on.

Speaker 18 They also said that she didn't know how to ask the right questions to find out if she was a victim of domestic violence. And that takes us back to those bruises that were found on her body.

Speaker 18 the 11 bruises that were all in various stages of healing. In many domestic violence cases, we often see that abuse will escalate from emotional to verbal to physical to deadly.

Speaker 18 Another interesting detail is on January 23rd, three days before Ellen's death, her family and friends received save the date cards for her wedding.

Speaker 18 I understand things can happen on a whim and somebody may be manically depressed or suffer from anxiety and even if they sent those out that something may change, but three days before, they received those save the date cards.

Speaker 18 So I think that's also a detail just worth mentioning.

Speaker 18 Now I'm going to go into a couple of the theories out there because as I'm sure you can imagine, this case began to attract media attention all over with true crime sleuths, legal experts, everybody questioning the original investigation.

Speaker 18 Could it be that Ellen was the victim of foul play and her death was covered up as a suicide? Or was there something even more sinister at work here?

Speaker 18 But please keep in mind, these are all theories and nothing has been proven. So if she was thinking of taking her own life, would would she have sent out those save the date cards?

Speaker 18 That's question number one. Her dad also said that she expressed wanting to move home, and we know that she recently had started suffering from anxiety, along with those mysterious 11 bruises.

Speaker 18 Could it be that Ellen had a discussion with Sam inside their apartment that afternoon, maybe informing him that she was leaving, and perhaps that she wanted to call off the wedding?

Speaker 18 Could this have angered him? Could the reason that Ellen had no defensive wounds be because she was blitz attacked?

Speaker 18 And could the reason that she had wounds that appeared to have happened post-mortem be because this was, in fact, an overkill murder?

Speaker 18 20 stab wounds and the killer kept going after she was already dead. Something that would have been physically impossible for her to do herself, according to the many experts.

Speaker 18 Could Sam have done this and then left for the gym for 45 minutes to create some sort of alibi or a timeline of sorts to cover his tracks?

Speaker 18 The last activity on Ellen's computer was four minutes before Sam arrived at the gym in their building. Was it Ellen using the computer?

Speaker 18 Or could it have been Sam trying to access her computer to, perhaps, log a note, write a note of some sort, maybe a suicide note?

Speaker 18 Or is it possible that when Ellen locked the door from the inside, it was because she was packing or maybe even going through their computer or doing something else that might anger Sam, sparking him to send this string of overly aggressive text messages until he finally broke down the door?

Speaker 18 When he entered, did he see her going through something or maybe doing something that angered him and then he blitz attacked her?

Speaker 18 That would also explain the lock being broken and those angry messages.

Speaker 18 Sam has never spoken publicly about his fiancée's death and he also has not responded to previous inquiries for interviews from the media.

Speaker 18 As of now, the official cause of Ellen's death remains a suicide, but the questions surrounding her case continue to haunt those who have studied it.

Speaker 18 And there's a whole other element to this case that I want to talk with you guys about.

Speaker 18 Her parents never got her journal back, which I have to ask, if it's a suicide and it's not a murder investigation, why wouldn't they receive it back? The case also saw a jurisdictional shift.

Speaker 18 Initially, it was handled by the Philadelphia Police Department and the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office, but the Greenberg family fought to move the case to the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office, arguing that the local authorities had a conflict of interest and had mishandled the investigation.

Speaker 18 In 2022, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office, which was led by then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro, declined to take over the case, citing a lack of sufficient evidence to overturn the suicide ruling.

Speaker 18 This decision was met with a lot of frustration from the Greenberg family, who continued to push for an independent investigation.

Speaker 18 Now, a controversial aspect of the case involves potential political connections that some people believe may have influenced how this case was handled, and why the then Attorney General Josh Shapiro declined to take over this case.

Speaker 18 First, Sam Goldberg's family connections. Sam Goldberg, Ellen's fiancé, is reportedly related to very very influential figures in Philadelphia's legal and political circles.

Speaker 18 This has led to concerns that these connections might have affected the investigation into Ellen's death.

Speaker 18 Some people also think that the Attorney General Josh's decision to not reopen the case despite the new evidence that was presented by Ellen's family might have more reason behind it.

Speaker 18 Some people speculate that his decision might have been influenced by his ties to Sam's family, though there's no direct evidence to prove that, I want to be clear.

Speaker 18 However, remember his cousin's father, who is a lawyer, and called him five minutes before Sam called 911? There's apparently a connection there.

Speaker 18 Apparently, Attorney General Josh Shapiro and Sam's uncle, James, their kids all go to school together. There's even photos of all of them together.

Speaker 18 So many are raising the question and saying it's interesting that at 6.14, Sam calls his cousin, who's a lawyer.

Speaker 18 A few minutes after that phone call, his cousin's dad, who's a lawyer, calls Sam back, they talk, then the 911 call is made.

Speaker 18 Then, a friend of the lawyer family, and arguably a friend of the fiancée Sam by extension, is the attorney general, who they're begging to reopen the case, to reclassify it.

Speaker 18 He refuses, saying there's a lack of evidence, but he's friends with the fiancée's family. Certainly that is a conflict of interest, right? Also, get this.

Speaker 18 That Uncle James, the lawyer, was allowed into the crime scene to get Sam's suit. But then he apparently left with Ellen's computers, wallet, phone, handbag, and other items.

Speaker 35 In 2018, one of their attorneys became the DA in Philadelphia.

Speaker 35 So to avoid a conflict of interest, he sent the case to the state attorney, a state attorney general, in fact, who at the time was this guy. If he looks familiar, he should.
It's Josh. Shapiro.

Speaker 35 The same Josh Shapiro, who is now Pennsylvania's governor. And Governor Shapiro,

Speaker 35 back then, he too signed off on that suicide finding.

Speaker 19 Suicide!

Speaker 26 He signed off on it! Governor!

Speaker 35 But then came allegations, never proven,

Speaker 35 that Josh Shapiro, now governor, also had a conflict, a relationship with the family of that fiancé, Sam Goldberg.

Speaker 35 Yesterday, our Brian Enton sat down with Ellen Greenberg's parents, Josh and Sandy Greenberg.

Speaker 35 And here's what they said about the winding path that this case has taken and about Josh Shapiro in particular.

Speaker 27 Did it bother you that Shapiro never... It doesn't seem like he took a personal interest in your case.

Speaker 36 But we have no power.

Speaker 26 I still don't have power over him.

Speaker 27 But I wonder why he didn't.

Speaker 37 I don't. Why we didn't?

Speaker 27 No, why he didn't.

Speaker 26 Beats me. I think, okay, I'll answer that.

Speaker 37 I think he tried to keep his hands off off as much as possible. Because I think deep down he knew something, this was a hot potato.

Speaker 37 He might have known other things that we didn't know also.

Speaker 37 Like why this is happening that we don't know.

Speaker 27 Well, we emailed his office and haven't heard anything.

Speaker 26 You're not going to hear anything. But good.
Good. Ask away.

Speaker 27 It just seems like for a politician, that would be something... you could be proud of, helping a case get solved, finding the truth.

Speaker 26 He didn't.

Speaker 37 He went that same, he went what I'm going to call the party line. This is a suicide.

Speaker 37 That was the party line.

Speaker 35 Every piece of this story is,

Speaker 35 I look at it in disbelief. I keep looking for alternative theories, for explanations.

Speaker 35 I try, I really do try to come up with some reasonable explanation as to how the police botched this so badly and how others after that seem to be just fine signing off on what seems comical.

Speaker 35 But Brian,

Speaker 35 I don't understand. What were Ellen Greenberg's parents?

Speaker 35 Like, what was the response they had when you talked to them about the fact that Sam Goldberg's judge uncle and judge or a lawyer cousin were able to get into that apartment and leave with her laptop and her cell phone?

Speaker 27 I mean, they're shocked now when they think about it. Ashley, at the time, you can imagine their daughter was dead.
They were still trying to understand what happened.

Speaker 27 It didn't sit right with them that it was being called a suicide. They were grieving.

Speaker 27 So they were trying to process all of it. They thought it was a lockdown crime scene.
They didn't know that people could just go in there.

Speaker 27 This is what they said about it.

Speaker 28 Upsetting thing to me is

Speaker 28 the unauthorized uncle

Speaker 28 came to the building, got permission to get a suit for Sam

Speaker 28 with his son,

Speaker 28 and they came for the suit, but somehow they left with Ellen's two computers, Ellen's wallet, card keys, handbag,

Speaker 28 cell phone, you know, critical electronics that they had no business taking. They never had permission.

Speaker 37 I'm suspicious of that.

Speaker 27 So the police didn't immediately take those things?

Speaker 28 No, they waited till Saturday.

Speaker 37 Three or four days.

Speaker 3 Why?

Speaker 37 We don't know.

Speaker 28 That's a good question.

Speaker 26 Ask the Philadelphia Police Department. We never had any phone calls ever telling us what was going on.

Speaker 18 I also want to mention another bizarre story about her spine sample, because the coroner apparently walked a few blocks through the snow with the sample in a jar so that they could show it to the neuropathologist.

Speaker 18 And this coroner said in that civil suit deposition that he would not have changed his ruling from homicide to suicide if he had known that the fiancée Sam broke down the door himself.

Speaker 18 However, at the time, the police had told him that the doorman was involved in this. And I find that very interesting because there were a lot of conflicting reports on this.

Speaker 18 Remember how Sam said he went down to the doorman trying to get him to come up to help him get into the apartment, but the doorman refused?

Speaker 18 Well, apparently, there's reports out there where they said that the doorman was with him, almost like he could verify that it was locked, he could vouch for him.

Speaker 18 But now, the coroner said in that deposition, had I known that the doorman wasn't with him and that Sam broke the door down himself, I definitely would not have changed the ruling from homicide to suicide.

Speaker 18 So in short, some people believe that these political connections might have played a role in the case not being thoroughly investigated. However, this all remains a matter of speculation.

Speaker 18 In July of this year, the state Supreme Court agreed to hear the family's appeal regarding the death certificate and the wrongful death and the ruling.

Speaker 18 So we will see what comes from that and if there is any movement.

Speaker 38 Tonight, we're learning a legal back and forth over the death investigation of Ellen Greenberg. Will now go to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Speaker 38 The 28-year-old teacher was found dead inside her Manniunk apartment with 20 stab wounds in 2011. Her death was ruled a suicide, but her parents believe she was murdered.

Speaker 38 Her family is hoping the state's highest court will help bring answers and shed light on how and why she died.

Speaker 39 It's been a long haul. Let's start with that.

Speaker 40 We're very appreciative.

Speaker 40 We don't know how to

Speaker 40 express our gratitude for this.

Speaker 36 Ellen Greenberg's parents have been fighting to have her death ruled a homicide or undecided. Her body was found with 20 stab wounds more than 13 years ago.

Speaker 36 The Philadelphia Medical Examiner has ruled her death a suicide.

Speaker 40 Over 20 stab wounds, 10 in the back, 10 in the front, that she had. And it was homicide.

Speaker 36 No doubt about it.

Speaker 36 Last September, a lower court wrote: While this court is acutely aware of the deeply flawed investigation of the victim's death by the City of Philadelphia Police Department detectives, the City of Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, and the Medical Examiner's Office, we have no choice under the law but to reverse and remand to the trial court for the entry of judgment in favor of the medical examiner's office.

Speaker 40 It's just a journey that's continuously uphill, and every step forward, they excuse me, trip us, so we go back two steps. There's been no cooperation, no information, no

Speaker 40 conferences or communication or anything with the authorities. It's always she committed suicide, we can prove it, and they can't prove it, and I can prove they can't prove it.

Speaker 36 Greenberg's family filed an appeal that has now made its way to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the family hoping the court will now open up a path to further investigate how the 27-year-old teacher died.

Speaker 40 I would like to have an unbiased investigation led by

Speaker 40 an unbiased team with an unbiased leader. And I would like to, so I can get the truth.

Speaker 36 A family's long search for answers taking one step forward.

Speaker 18 The Greenbergs have filed multiple lawsuits, pushing the case to be reopened and investigated as a homicide.

Speaker 18 Their determination has kept the case in the public eye, ensuring that Ellen's story is not forgotten. However, the mystery continues, because who, if anyone, was responsible for Ellen's death?

Speaker 18 Was it a botched investigation? Was it something far more nefarious and sinister?

Speaker 18 And most chillingly, I mean, could a killer still be out there having successfully evaded justice and never got caught?

Speaker 19 Like hindsight is 2020 when we hired experts and we've read the autopsy and you find out the amount of bruising in various stages of healing, the contusions, the dry

Speaker 19 blood that went from her nose to her ear, which meant she had all been moved.

Speaker 19 And the amount of abuse that her body is a murderer and an abuser in Philadelphia somewhere today. We failed that we've accomplished something yet to almost 13, almost 14 years.

Speaker 19 No one has ever gotten as far as we have with a case like this, fighting the criminal justice system, the medical examiner, and all the other things involved in this case.

Speaker 19 It's painful for us. I mean, it was a crushing blow to lose her, but what we're doing is we're doing for Ellen.

Speaker 18 Homicide detectives hate to admit it, but there is a way to get away with murder. Make it look like a suicide.

Speaker 18 And what's worse is it's almost impossible for victims' families to legally challenge a manner of death ruling by a medical examiner or a coroner.

Speaker 19 Three ex-boyfriends came to pay their respects at the funeral, which I think was pretty amazing considering, you know, she had moved on with her life.

Speaker 19 A lot of her friends didn't know each other necessarily before Ellen passed but as a result of her passing she brought a lot of people together.

Speaker 18 Do you think that Ellen took her own life or do you think that she was murdered? Thank you guys so much for tuning in to another episode and for hearing Ellen's story.

Speaker 18 Let's continue to hope that she does get the justice she deserves and that the truth comes to light, but I am curious to know what you guys think.

Speaker 18 Now, really quickly before you go, this is actually one of two cases that dropped in today's feed. So there is a all-new deep dive also in the feed if you've missed it.

Speaker 18 You can just exit out of this episode. You'll see it right there.
We are diving into everything that we have learned about the singer David and Celeste Hernandez.

Speaker 18 And for those of you who are unfamiliar with that case, she is the teen girl whose body was found decomposed inside his Tesla trunk. And there is a lot of information.

Speaker 18 We have uncovered all sorts of things. So I am breaking down, you know, item by item, bombshell by bombshell, and we're going over all of it.
So again, that episode is already in the feed.

Speaker 18 We dropped two episodes today. So go and check that one out.

Speaker 18 Also, just another reminder about those tour tickets, get them at anniealise.com on the events page and come hear one of these episodes live with me in person.

Speaker 18 I'll be back on the mic with you Thursday for this week's headline highlights. And then of course, next Monday with an all-new episode, a deep dive into a case.

Speaker 18 Guys, I don't know. We have just got so much to talk about this week.
So, I will be back with you very soon. But I want to know what you think about this case.
All right, guys, thanks again.

Speaker 18 And until the next one, please stay safe.

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