Criminology - The Death of Ellen Greenberg

Episode Date: May 25, 2019

In this episode, we are discussing the strange and frustrating death of Ellen Greenberg in Philadelphia, PA. In January 2011, this vibrant 27-year-old teacher and bride-to-be was found dead in her apartment with over 20 stab wounds and a knife lodged in her chest. Her cause of death has changed multiple times but for years now has been ruled a suicide. This is something that her parents are fighting to have changed. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the details of this strange death and cause of death ruling. We are lucky to be joined by some excellent guests for this episode including famed forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht who shares his thoughts on this case. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. I'd like to welcome everyone to episode 62 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Morph, how are you this week? I'm doing good. I'm excited. I'm pumped up. Nice weather. Got some stuff done that I wanted to do this weekend. And I'm ready to go. How about you? Yeah, I'm doing good. You and I were kind of talking before we started.

recording, CrimeCon is a couple of weeks away. And that's great. We've been looking forward to it. We've been talking about it. But what it does for all of the shows is you've got to figure out, you know, how to get X number of episodes ahead because you're going to be gone. And it creates a lot of pressure, right? Let's put it that way. And then you've got the travel time coming back and forth, it just sort of disrupts what your, your schedule normally is. Yeah, then, then on top of that, you know, for me, it's been very busy. My, my 18-year-old graduated this past weekend. So that, that was pretty cool.

I teared up a couple of times. I know you're, you're a long ways from that, but. And then she's having surgery. By the time this comes out, she'll already have had it to have her tonsils removed. So, I don't know, it just seems like it got a lot of stuff. going on. It always happens right on top of everything else that's going on. Right, right, exactly. So more, if we have some new Patreon supporters, so let's give our shoutouts. We had Dave Reagan, Laura Erickson, Adonna Manning, Angela Webb, Alexandra Barry, Sarah Jane, Serenity Warley, and Becky Schmidt.

So, you know, some great support. We appreciate that. You and I say it all. all the time, but we couldn't do it without our Patreon supporters. Yeah, that support is amazing. And every week, I'm just blown away that that many people care to help out the show. They can't thank you enough. And if you'd like to help support us through Patreon, you can do so by visiting patreon.com slash criminology. So, Morph, I think we've had a run of some pretty interesting cases.

And we're going to keep that streak alive with this episode as well. And we're talking about the strange and frustrating case of Ellen Greenberg. Ellen was a young teacher. She was a bride to be who was found dead in her Man O'Young Pennsylvania apartment. Ellen was found to have sustained over 20 stab wounds to her body, including 10 to the back of the neck. When she was discovered, she still had a knife. lodged in her chest.

Now, police initially ruled her death a suicide at the scene before a medical examiner determined that no, her death was a homicide. And you might be thinking to yourself, good call, right, on that medical examiner's part by changing the cause of death to a homicide. Who in the world sustains 20 stab wounds? and it turns out to be a suicide. But in a strange turn of events, that same ME later changed Ellen Greenberg's manner of death back to suicide.

And that's really where this story begins to get frustrated for Ellen's family. As to them, this seems like a clear-cut case of murder. And I say to them, morph, but I think to a lot of. of people, right? Not just to Ellen's family. Yeah, you're right. There's a lot of people that feel that this should be a murder case. And at the end of this episode, the listeners will decide where they stand and what they think, what kind of cases should be to them. Legendary in the world of true crime, pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht and forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee also believe that Ellen's case should be changed from a suicide ruling. Many other experts agree as well,

as does well-known retired police investigator Tom Brennan, who has joined the Greenberg family in trying to get to the truth in this case. And we're very lucky to have firsthand insights of Ellen's parents, Joshua and Sandra Greenberg, Dr. Sarah Weck, and Tom Brennan. They all joined us for this episode to help tell Ellen's story,

and you'll hear from them throughout the episode. But I think this case comes down to that question. Did this young, vibrant woman who many say, you know, was very happy. She was about to marry the love of her life, take her own life, or was she brutally murdered? And that's what we're going to explore in this episode, right? There are a number of possibilities. And like you said, Morph, I think this is one of those rare episodes, maybe not rare.

I think it happens sometimes where the listeners are going to take. in all the information and then at the very end of it they're going to have to make up their mind as to what they believe happened. Joshua Greenberg and Sandra Sandy Rubin met on a blind date in New York City in 1978. They later married. Josh was a periodontist and had a practice in Manhattan. At the time, the couple lived in northern New Jersey. On June 23rd, 1983, Sandy gave birth to the couple's only child, a daughter named Ellen Ray Greenberg. By 1994, when Ellen was in middle school, the family moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. That's where Sandy was originally from.

Joshua set up his practice in nearby Camp Hill. After graduating from high school, Ellen attended Penn State University, where she worked as a lionizer, introducing football. players and their parents to the campus. Ellen even helped out on the football field. And I'm sure Morp, as you very well know, Penn State football is huge. And, you know, especially back in the 90s, right, that was the, the Joe Paw era. At Penn State, there's nothing bigger than football. And really at a lot of schools, right?

Ohio State is close to me. Football is king. Penn State. I think you're not that far from Penn State, right? No, I'm not too far. Football's King. Ellen graduated from Penn State with a degree in communications and she accepted a position as a speech pathologist soon after. But Ellen wasn't happy with her job and she decided to change career paths. She enrolled in night classes at Temple University to earn her teaching credentials. Once she finished at Temple, Ellen got a job teaching first grade at the Juniata Park Academy.

This is a K-8 elementary school in the Juniata section of Philadelphia. Ellen loved her job and she loved her students. Everyone said that in this teaching job, Ellen had finally found her true. calling. And really, if you look at it, all seem to be going very well with Ellen, everything around her, everything in her life. She did try another career and she didn't like it and she was very unhappy. It was, I forget what they call it now. Speech pathology is what I would call it. And she was not happy with the whole thing. And she, we talked about it, she and I. And I said, look, it takes more guts to leave and guts to be

stay there and be miserable. And she left. She moved to Philadelphia. She stopped from Washington, D.C. to Philadelphia. She started over. She got her teaching certificate. She got a reading certificate.

She ended up student teaching and she ended up getting a job in a school in Philadelphia, which is called Sandy. Juniata Park Academy. But it really, really worked out well for her. We hope for the students and the parents involved in the school because it was a wonderful

experience for her? Ellen was a people person. She was very engaging. She had a contagious laugh. She loved to bring people together. She loved children. She loved her family. She loved life. In 2010, Ellen became engaged to television producer Samuel Hankin Goldberg, the son of Richard and Mindy Hankin Goldberg of Gladwin, Pennsylvania. Sam's father, Richard, is currently a luxury realtor in the area. Sam and Ellen lived together in a sixth floor apartment at Venislav's apartments, located at 4601 Flat Rock Road in Maniunk, a trendy Philadelphia neighborhood on the banks of the Skookle River. A former resident at Venice Lofs lived three floors down from Sam and Ellen, and she would run into Ellen from time to time. The two women first met in April 2009 when the

friend was moving in. The friend Mara was carrying a teacher's book, and Ellen started a conversation with her. They became fast friends. Mara told W. H.Y.Y. A public media organization in Philadelphia, quote, the moments I ran into her were great moments. I always looked forward to bumping into her. She had a voice that was very raspy for a female, which is funny because her personality was so sweet and she was so bubbly. Mara moved out a year later, but in that year, she said Ellen never mentioned having a boyfriend or a fiancé. To others, Sam and Ellen, appeared to be very happy together. Their relationship appeared to be extremely solid.

Ellen gave no inclination to her parents or friends that the relationship was troubled in any way. On January 26th, 2011, a Northeaster covered the Philadelphia area with snow and the schools closed early. Ellen made sure all of her students made it home safely before leaving for the day. She stopped and she got some gas and then returned to the Venice Lofs apartment she shared with Sam. At 4.45 p.m. Ellen and Sam were in their apartment when Sam left to use the gym in the complex. Sam returned to the apartment about a half hour later, only to find himself locked out.

The swing bar lock was engaged from the inside, so he tried knocking on the door, but Ellen didn't answer. At that point, he began texting her phone. He sent her several increasingly frantic text over the next 22 minutes, according to the medical examiner's investigation report. Those texts read as follows. 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. Highly frustrated by the lack of a response from Ellen. Sam went to the lobby and spoke with a security guard named Phil Hanton. pressing him to help break the bar lock on the apartment door. But Phil said it was against complex policy. Sam went back to the apartment and was able to force open the door himself. Once Sam got into the apartment, he found Ellen on the kitchen floor with a 10-inch serrated steak knife jammed several inches into her chest.

He called 911 at 6.30 p.m. and was instructed to begin CPR. but at the time that the 911 operator gave Sam the instructions about starting CPR, this person didn't know that Ellen had a knife in her chest. As soon as Sam mentioned that fact, he was instructed to stop. Police arrived pretty quickly and determined that Ellen was dead. As they looked around, they found no evidence. of an intruder, no evidence that Ellen had tried to flee the apartment. They didn't find any signs of a struggle, no signs of forced entry, nothing like that.

Ellen was sitting on the floor with her legs splayed in front of her and her head, neck, and shoulders propped up against corner cabinets. Her head was hanging down and she had a nearly pristine white towel in her left hand. Dried and coagulated blood ran horizontally from her nose to her ear. Ellen did not have any defensive wounds to her hands or arms. No blood was found beyond the kitchen. On the kitchen counter above Ellen's body sat a wicker basket of oranges and a strainer of blueberries. There was a sliced orange in front of the basket and two clean knives lay in the sink. The knife that was embedded in Ellen's chest was later tested for DNA and only revealed Ellen's DNA to be on it.

The apartment had a small balcony, but the snow on it was undisturbed. Everything that happened pretty much happened right where she was, according to homicide sergeant Tim Cooney. The rest of the apartment was pretty unremarkable. Neighbors told police they heard Sam banging on the door, but no other noises coming from the apartment. Venice Lofts had security cameras in the main entrance, but none in the hallway leading to the apartment. The cameras did not pick up anything out of the ordinary. The apartment complex also had a tenant key card system that would make it nearly impossible for an intruder to force his way in.

Police on the scene took it upon themselves to pronounce Ellen's death a suicide. This is something typically not done by detectives as part of their job. Their job is to investigate crimes, not really. on the manner of death, no suicide note was found at the scene, but the apartment door had been locked from the inside until Sam broke it. Sam Goldberg was interviewed by authorities and was cooperative. Meanwhile, Ellen's parents, Joshua and Sandy Greenberg, they were having a normal night at home when the phone rang. Sandy answered it and on the other end was Richard Goldberg. Sam's father who said, something terrible has happened to Ellen.

The world as the Greenbergs knew it had ended and a new nightmare began, their only daughter was dead. All they wanted to do was rush from their Harrisburg, Pennsylvania home to their daughter's Philadelphia apartment. But the heavy nor'easter snow had buried their cars and they couldn't leave. Our landline rang. It was a call from Sam Goldberg's father, Richard Goldberg. And he said, something terrible has happened to Ellie.

And my next line was, where's the ambulance? And he said, there is no ambulance. And with that, I practically lost my voice. But I was screaming for my husband to pick up, you know, the other phone. Our whole world just went. black. And the thing is, is we are snowed in because everything was canceled. I hadn't heard the snow plows come in. I'm thinking, we can't even get out of our driveway to get in our car to drive to Philadelphia. Yeah, we're in Harrisburg. We're not in Philadelphia. We're in Harrisburg. And we get

the news at 6 o'clock or 6.30, I don't know exact time, in the evening. So there's nothing we can do except sit here in our house and look at the walls and wonder and ponder what's going on. We're kept in the dark. We had no idea. What happened to her, how she was found, the situation, nothing. The next day at 9 a.m., an autopsy was performed on Ellen's body by assistant medical examiner Marlon Osborne at the city morgue in Universal City. Osborne labeled Ellen's wounds with letters, beginning with A and ending with T. He noted there were eight wounds to her chest, and they ranged from punctures two centimeters deep to the four-inch final plunge of the embedded knife. There were ten wounds on the back of her neck that ranged from nicks to two that were about three inches deep. Ellen had a two-inch stab wound to her stomach and a two-and-a-half-inch

long cut across her scalp. She also had fresh and older bruises on her right arm, abdomen, and right leg. When Osborne was finished, he determined manner of death was homicide, not suicide, as police ruled the night before. The Greenbergs were preparing for Ellen's funeral. When friends told them about the new death ruling after seeing it on the local news, at Ellen's funeral service at the Beth El Temple in Harrisburg, Joshua eulogized his daughter, then shared the news about the new ruling. He told the mourners at the funeral, you may have heard that Ellen killed herself, but her death has just been ruled a homicide. Staff at Juniata Park Academy had the unfortunate task of explaining to students about the death of their first grade teacher. The director of counseling for the Philadelphia

school district said at the time, it was best to keep it simple and easy for the young students to understand. Sometimes the more simple the conversation, the easier it is for them to understand. Children that young usually ask basic questions like, is his or her family okay? Very, very tough, morph, when you think about it, first graders, you know, having to talk to first graders about the fact that their beloved teacher is never coming back. And you have to figure out the right way to break that news to them. And so they understand it, but not to be too graphic. Well, yeah, and I think it's right, trying to get them to understand.

I don't know as a first grader that they would all understand, right, the magnitude, exactly what has happened. They would be sad that their teacher's not coming back, but I don't think all first graders would grasp exactly what's going on. In a statement released after Ellen's death, the school district said, quote, Ellen Ray Greenberg made a significant positive impact in the life of students, colleagues, and the entire school family. She will be greatly missed. A fellow teacher wrote in an online memorial page,

We are in shock and heartbroken. She was extremely dedicated to her students and an excellent teacher. She will be greatly missed. Still another teacher wrote to Joshua and Sandy Greenberg, Please know that Ellen truly touched the lives of children she worked with daily. With Ellen's death now ruled a homicide, it became the concern of the Philadelphia Homicide Unit. Investigators reviewed Sam's key fob records and security videos to see if everything matched what he had told them, and they said it did. Police also said that the security videos didn't show any signs of unauthorized access of entrances by anyone around the time of Ellen's time.

death. On June 29, 2011, a police spokesperson said authorities were leaning towards suicide. In Ellen's case, this was despite the ruling by Osborne. They were also looking into mental issues that Ellen might have had about a month before her death. Ellen was suffering from some anxiety and her demeanor had changed. Normally, Ellen was very outgoing, upbeat. She was a bubbly person. But at this point, she became somewhat unsettled. She was very anxious.

Her parents noticed it. They asked her what was wrong. But she said that she was stressed about her job. One of Ellen's best friends, Debbie Schwab also noticed this change in Ellen. Debbie's been quoted as saying, she kept saying it was because of school. She was very vague about everything. If I asked her anything, there would be a long silence.

She didn't want to talk about it. But this whole notion that Ellen's job as a first grade teacher was causing her anxiety is something that Ellen's parents and other teachers seem to disagree with. Even when Ellen left the job and we thought there were problems with, with her in the job, the teacher that took over her position, could not get over how well Ellen had organized the classroom, had organized the teacher's plan book, had organized all the notes on the students.

And the teacher was amazed that anyone ever said that Ellen had a problem with the job. She, and she loved the job. It was great, and she took an extra, even the day she passed, which was a snow day, I believe she called every parent to make sure the children got home, safe and sound. A co-worker said that while Ellen had some tough kids in her class,

she seemed no more stressed than the other teachers. The Greenbergs urged Ellen to see a psychiatrist named Ellen Berman of Marion, Pennsylvania. Ellen had three appointments with Berman with the last one on January 19, 2011. Berman said that while Ellen felt overwhelmed at work, she did not have any suicidal thoughts. Berman asked Ellen about possible abuse at the hands of Sam Goldberg. but Ellen denied that there was any and had only good things to say about Sam.

Berman diagnosed Ellen with severe anxiety and prescribed clonopin, an anti-anxiety drug, an Ambien, a sleeping aid. Both drugs list suicidal thoughts and behavior as possible side effects when taking each medication. She was suffering from anxiety and she wanted to leave the job and come home.

Which going... You couldn't really understand because she was six- successful in her career. I thought her home was her happy place. And she, you know what, we couldn't figure out what the anxiety was stemming from. Neither one of us is a psychiatrist, a psychologist. So we really couldn't pinpoint what was going on. Even though this was not a quote unquote happy time, it was a stressful time and she was anxious. There was no depression. There was no repression. And again, we had no understanding what the heck was going on. Since I felt I didn't know what to do and Sandy agreed with me, we arranged for her to see a counselor, a psychiatrist who could talk

to her and discuss what was going on. As a conscientious, I would say, parent who's got a daughter who's got a good job and you don't really understand what's going on, I wanted her to have professional help. So I made a deal. If she saw a psychiatrist who we chose for her, we didn't choose it for her. We chose the best we could find Ellen Berman. Then, and if they worked it out that she should come home, she could come home. But, you know, maybe, you know, hindsight's 2020. And I was, I was very concerned about her. And I was also concerned about the job because it was such a plumb, such a, you know, a good job for her that she really enjoyed. So whatever was going on and I didn't know how to handle it, I wanted somebody professional to handle it.

To prove or dispute the cause of death ruling, detectives recommended hiring an outside neuropathologist to review a part of Ellen's spinal cord to find out if it was damaged by any of the wounds to the back of her neck. The thinking was if the spinal cord was damaged, it would have immobilized her. and she would have been unable to inflict the subsequent stab wounds on herself, including the final wound to her chest. The neuropathologist who performed the exam told police that Ellen's spinal cord sheath was hit, but the cord was not severed. Therefore, Ellen most likely went numb and would have been able to stab herself several more times after that. Armed with this new information, the detectives believe this reinforced the initial suicide ruling.

Additionally, the scene itself pointed to suicide. The apartment door was locked. There were no signs of an intruder, and Ellen didn't have any defensive wounds to her body. Pressured by police, the medical examiner changed the manner of death back to suicide on March 7, 2011. Ellen's parents found out about the change in manner of death through the media, not police. But Joshua and Sandy Greenberg were adamant. Their daughter did not take her own life. And the sudden about face regarding Ellen's cause of death troubled them.

First of all, it's the police that are making the decision, not the medical examiner. And the medical examiner ruled it a homicide. The way we understood it, the medical examiner at the time, who was on the case, Marlon Osborne actually said, and so did, or maybe the medical examiner chief, which was Bolino, said, what could I do? The police said no one else was in the apartment. It had to be a suicide. He never, in other words, he did not do his job.

He did not come up with why could cause a manner of death. And that's what the job of the medical examiner is, not to look at the surroundings and the scene and all that, unless, you know, but to say how. What is the cause, the matter of death? Did she die from poisoning? Did she die from, what, hit on the head? Did she die because she fell? No, she didn't, you know, he doesn't say she died because she was alone in the apartment.

And also, we've come to learn that the police never did a proper death investigation, which is very upsetting to me. At the time of her death, most people that knew Ellen thought she was happy and loved her job. She had a good relationship with her parents and was getting married that August. The Greenberg's later told Oxygen.com that Ellen was too squeamish to pierce her ears for a second time, let alone stick a knife in her back ten times, and that she chickened out of getting her ears pierced because she didn't like the pain. In the suburbs of D.C. A woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer.

For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. A few months after their daughter's death, Joshua and Sandy decided to find out on their own what really happened to Ellen once and for all. They purchased the autopsy report, photos of her body at the scene and from the autopsy, and the medical examiner's investigation report from the scene. A friend of the Greenbergs referred them to renowned Pittsburgh forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht. Wecht has appeared on numerous television shows, provided his expertise on a ton of high-profile cases, such as the

JFK assassination, and the Waco Branch-Divdivion fire. Wecht, more if you'd have to say, is a legend in his field. The Greenberg sent the case materials to Dr. Weck for a review. To his disadvantage, he didn't have access to police files, but from the information he did have, Dr. Wecht had specific concerns about the number and location of Ellen's stab wounds, particularly the wounds to the back of Ellen's neck. In his January 2012 report, Dr. Weck wrote,

Suicidal stab wounds can rarely be multiple. Stab wounds to the back are unlikely to be suicide. He also pointed out that when a knife is involved in a suicide, it's typically used to slit the wrist or throat, not to stab oneself. Furthermore, suicide victims usually do not stab themselves through clothing, as Ellen had been stabbed. Dr. Weck labeled the report, strongly suspicious of homicide.

As we mentioned earlier, we were lucky enough to be joined for this episode by Dr. Cyril Wecht himself, and he took us through his findings firsthand, and we think you'll hear just how qualified and accomplished Dr. Wecht is in this segment. Thank you for inviting me to discuss this very interesting case. I am a forensic pathologist and a medical consultant. I've been practicing in these fields since 1962. after it completed my five years of training in pathology and also acquiring a law degree. I was an assistant district attorney, medical legal advisor to the district attorney of Allegheny County for a couple of years, and then chief forensic pathologist in the Allegheny County Coroner's Office for four years,

and then I served 20 years as coroner of Allegheny County two separate 10-year periods. And during all of that time and to the present, I have been doing autopsies for coroners in adjacent southwestern Pennsylvania counties, also private autopsies for families who have questions, and also autopsies requested by attorneys. For example, tomorrow I have a body being flown to me from Florida for a second autopsy in which the family is concerned about what happened with the police, the gunshot wound of the head, and so on. And then, of course, I follow through and testify in cases that are not resolved. And my consultations are in the civil and criminal fields, plaintiff and defense attorneys in civil and prosecution and defense attorneys in criminal. And then I teach at faculty appointments at Duques, University, University of Pittsburgh,

and Carly University, and do a fair amount of writing. I've got eight books out which contain cases that I've been involved in from JFK all the way through RFK and Mary Joe Kepekne and Elvis Presley and you name it through OJ Simpson and John Blay Ramsey and so on. And I'm active in some national organizations, including Kappa, Committee Against Political Assassinations, which continues to pursue the JFK case seeking to get that case reopened. So that's a brief sketch of my background. Since I started to do autopsies in my first year of residency as a pathologist at the University of the A. Hospital in Pittsburgh, to the present time, I would estimate I have done myself about 20,000 autopsies.

I have reviewed, supervised, signed off on about 40,000 others. Certainly the tragic death of this young 27-year-old woman, Ellen Greenberg, is very, very fascinating, extremely problematic. I have reviewed all the records that were sent to me by the attorney, more recently, again, by members of the family. one of the attorneys is a former attorney general of the state of Pennsylvania, a very distinguished gentleman. I have also, by the way, reviewed reports submitted by other experts too, one of whom is from the internationally renowned criminalist, Dr. Henry Lee, who happens to be a close personal friend and colleague of mine. and there's another report by another criminalist. And it's interesting to note, although these reports were generated separately independently. I never discussed the case with Dr. Lee or Mr. Yeoman, the name of the other criminalist.

And another forensic pathologist, too, by the way, I forgot to mention Wayne Ross, who's an experienced forensic pathologist in the central part of the person. of Pennsylvania. I've not discussed the case, so these opinions expressed by these other three experts as well as by myself all flowed freely and independently from our own respective interviews, and each one of us, in varying words, doubts very much. The official ruling of the office of the medical examiner of the city of Philadelphia that this was a suicide. You look of course, for the nature of the wounds, whatever they might be, gunshot, drugs, hanging, or in this case, stabbing.

You want to review the background information about that individual. You want to get an idea of the overall scenario, what I call the narrative summary, who was the individual, who were the people close to the seeded. Had there been any expressions of suicidal ideation, had there been any problems, conflicts, whether they might have been domestic, drug-related, or significant psychiatric problems, financial problems, you want to get all of that information, as well as the physical circumstances surrounding the death, where it occurred, what was found, what was done, and so on.

In this particular case, so your audience will understand, we're talking about a 27-year-old woman. She was a teacher, an educated individual, and she was found in her apartment, and she had 25 stab wounds of her body, 25 in different parts of the body. The stab wounds were on the back of the head, the back of the neck. They were on the chest and the abdomen, 25 wounds in all. The final wound, evidently, with a knife still embedded in her, was present within about four inches of her body. The blade of the knife was five inches. So to contemplate the idea of somebody inflicting those wounds on herself, the multiplicity, the severity is truly, almost incomprehensible.

It approaches a point at which you say something might not be physically possible. So looking at the autopsy report from the M.E. office going through it, and they did a good job. I have no problems or questions about the autopsy itself, starting with wound A of the chest, and they go through from A to T. One of them produced damage to the upper cervical cord, which raises a question in and of itself, since the neural neural. The neurological supply from the brain comes down through the spinal cord, and the upper spinal cord is what controls functions of the arms. And that raises a question of whether she would have been able to have any movement, assuming that she had inflicted that particular wound. The directionality of the wounds varies greatly.

some of them raised questions about how one would have had to have contorted herself in order to have inflicted these wounds. There was no suicidal note, no suicidal ideation had been expressed by her. It's a very, very disturbing case. Another interesting thing is that she had some clothes on and she stabbed herself through the clothes. that's done, but more often if somebody's going to stab themselves, they will pull back, you know, that particular garment in order to make sure that the knife goes in properly and more deeply. So these are all things that were important for me to contemplate in my review and analysis of this case. You don't just stab yourself 25 times in 25 seconds.

You get to insert a knife, pull out a knife, stab yourself again. We asked Dr. Weck, in all of his years of experience, in all of the cases of suicide that he's investigated, how many times has he come across someone that had stabbed themselves in the back of the head and neck? Offhand, I don't remember anybody stabbing themselves 25 times. I've had cases of people stabbing themselves many times. I don't recall 25 times. And I don't recall any case in which somebody stabbed themselves in the back of the neck at the base of the skull going into the spinal canal and then stabbing themselves in the chest and in the abdomen.

and the wound in the chest, as they say, was the last one because that is where the knife was found. So you can't say, well, she stabbed herself and the chest and abdomen remained alive while she was still bleeding out and then decided to finish herself by stabbing herself in the back of the neck. And she has sustained significant damage to the lungs and to the heart. It was bleeding into both chest cavities into the paracartic. sac surrounding the heart. So these were significant injuries. Think of the pain too. You know, you cut yourself accidentally in one way or another, you know, the nerve endings at the skin and so on. They're very sensitive and they produce tremendous pain. To continue with this kind of a self-inflicted

onslaught is truly unfathomable. I always hesitate to, you know, I always hesitate to, say that I've never seen something. It has been now 57 years since I've been doing this. I can't remember every single case, but I do not remember a case of suicidal stabbing involving that's many wounds in that anatomical variation, and most specifically in the back of the head going into the spinal column at the back of the neck. We asked Dr. Weck if it was common for officials to not change a cause of death. After hearing the experts like himself and Dr. Henry Lee concluded that the cause of death should be changed. Oh yes, oh yes. This is not at all rare.

Just because I, and in this case three other top-notch experts submitted reports, you think they're going to roll over. No, no, no. You've got egos involved here. You've got formal documentation. You know, you're talking about something that would be quite formidable, not to mention the moral and ethical courage that would be required to step back. You know, it's not as if, well, I miss this or that of some minor consequence or so on.

Here you're talking about, did you miss a homicide by calling it a suicide? They have adamantly, quite obstinately, refused to alter this. So, you know, this is not the first time. There have been other times. But the idea that in people is complimentary, but it's unrealistic, and never allow it to go to my head. I'm not a egotistical fool. That's just because I write a report that is different,

from the official version, they're going to back off. Oh, they back off, and it's happened many times, and some forensic pathologists have had the professional ethical courage and decency to recognize their errors or the fallacy of their decisions. In this case, they have refused to budge. Do I believe that something's going to happen now with the authorities? No. If they've got opinions from two forensic pathologists, from two criminalists, all people with

the top-level credentials, experience, respected, people who have testified in many, many courts right here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, as well as throughout the country and involving Henry Lee and me, countries elsewhere in the world, apparently doesn't mean a damn thing to them, and they're going to stick by it. As Dr. Wecht wrapped up, we wanted to know if he had any doubts in his mind as to whether or not Ellen Greenberg's death was the result of a homicide. I always express my opinions with reasonable medical certainty, reasonable forensic scientific certainty. I abhor people expressing opinions with absolute certainty. That's not what's required in the courtroom.

and that's not what should be done. So it's not a matter of equivocating or hesitating, but I'm using the language that I would use in a court of law, as I have done thousands of times in 30-plus states and 30 counties in Pennsylvania. It is my opinion, expressed with a reasonable degree of medical certainty, expressed with a reasonable degree of forensic scientific probability, that Ellen Greenberg's death was due to multiple stab wounds and the manner of death was homicide.

So, Morf, that was a pretty lengthy chunk of audio to get through, but the insights provided by Dr. Weck, they're just so invaluable. And, I mean, really, any chance that you can have someone like him on to talk about a case, you have to make that happen. I mean, people like him, experts like him, I can sit and listen to forever. I mean, if you think about the cases that this man has been involved with, they are some of the most famous cases in the history of true crime. Yeah, we're talking the best of the best. So the Greenbergs took Dr. Wex report to private civil rights attorney, Larry. Krasner. Krasner had a reputation for taking on the police. In February 2012, Krasner drafted a

retainer agreement for the Greenbergs, and in it he wrote, quote, substantial questions in Ellen's death remain unanswered. In addition to retaining Larry Krasner, Joshua and Sandy Greenberg also retained the services of Walter Cohen. Cohen was a former Pennsylvania Attorney General. Walter Cohen continues to represent the Greenbergs to this day. Cohen and the Greenbergs filed a public records request to obtain the police case file. It was turned down. But Cohen continued pressing police.

And then finally, police allowed Joshua and Sandy to view the file but would not allow them to make copies or take pictures. The problem that Joshua and Sandy had was that they had no idea what they were looking for in this huge police file. As mentioned earlier, Joshua and Sandy Greenberg also asked Dr. Henry C. Lee of the Henry C. Lee Institute for Forensic Science to take a look at the case. For more than 40 years, Leah's worked with law enforcement and helping to solve. more than 6,000 cases. And like Dr. Wecht, he has appeared on a variety of television programs.

In regards to this case, Lee said, it's not only the type of wounds, but the bloodstain patterns that were consistent with a homicide scene. They show Ellen was standing when she received her initial injuries, causing blood to drop on the sink, cabinet, and floor. Additionally, two separate bloodstains on the cabinet, show a wiping pattern from right to left, and then downward. Ellen was found sitting on the floor with her head down. So the Greenbergs now had the findings of a couple of legends in their field, right? Dr. Henry Lee and Dr. Cyril Wecht, the findings of these two men were supporting their own suspicions that their daughter did not take her own life.

but the Greenbergs decided to acquire even more expert help. They hired a man by the name of Wayne Ross, a Pennsylvania neuropathologist, to conduct a review of the case. Ross agreed with Weckden Lee, but he went even further saying that the wounds to the back of Ellen's head and neck could have made her lose consciousness, therefore preventing her from stabbing herself in the chest.

Ross also determined there was evidence of manual strangulation and multiple bruises of varying degrees from fresh to old, which he said showed a pattern of repeated beating. The Greenbergs weren't finished yet. They next recruited Tom Braynan, a retired state police trooper and former chief of the Dolphin County detectives. He has worked over 800 cases and is working on Ellen's case on a proboscis. bone obasis. He's also a member of the elite Vidox Society, a well-known and esteemed crime-solving club established in 1990, consisting of some of the greatest legal and investigative minds around. Brennan studied the photos of the scene at the apartment and the medical examiner's documents. In his career, he has seen many stabbing victims without defensive wounds like Ellen.

Tom Brennan was quoted as saying, it's referred to as a blitz attack, where the victim is attacked that quickly and they're unable to defend themselves. Brennan was also suspicious of the dried and coagulated blood on Ellen's face. As we stated earlier, the blood ran horizontally from her ear to her nose, but her body was found upright with the head down. And gravity dictates if you are sitting straight up and bleeding from either your ear or your nose, it's going to run down your face. towards your chin, not side to side from nose to ear or vice versa. Police speculated that Ellen stabbed herself while standing and then slid down and wound up seated on the floor.

But her body was never moved. So I think more if there is some contradiction here, right? The police are saying that Ellen's body was never moved, but they're not really explaining then how the movement of the blood occurred. And then you have the experts saying, well, the body had to have been moved. That's the only thing that explains the fact that the movement of the blood went from ear to nose or nose to ear. Nothing else makes sense. During his own investigation, Tom Brennan discovered that the police were only at the scene of Ellen's death for an hour. Basically, they walked in, looked around, and then called it a suicide. The scene itself was left unsecured for hours,

with the property owner and Phil Hanton, the security guard, to watch over it. Left at the scene where Ellen's laptop and cell phone, by the time authorities and the medical examiner returned to the apartment the next day, the security of the scene had been compromised. Tom Brennan completed his analysis of the case and determined it was a homicide. He detailed for us some of the most troubling things that he found while examining Ellen's case. On the 26th, there was never a basic death investigation done by the police. They walked in, looked around, said suicide and left. They didn't even put security on the apartment.

The property manager and the security man for the property had to remain with the victim for several hours until the victim could be... removed by the medical examiner's office. And while prior to the police re-entering the apartment, a prominent attorney uncle by the name of James Schwartzman removes the fiancé's laptop, which was never analyzed by the police before it was returned to him, the victim's laptop, work laptop,

the victim's personal laptop, which had no personal security to it, her cell phone, her engagement ring, and her credit cards. Now, when the prominent attorney uncle came to the funeral on the fiancé's uncle and family, and the fiance's family, when they came to the funeral on the 28th, did they bring those items to return them to the family? No. The police had to contact the uncle attorney to get to take possession of the items. Now that adversely impacts the chain of custody of those items completely. So if there's any evidence to be had from any of those items, the chain of custody is broken and no court will recognize it.

Now, did you ever hear of police walking away from a scene and leaving a body? when I started taking a look at the crime scene photographs, the first thing that caught my eye was the dried and coagulated blood on the victim's face. You have a victim that is propped up against the kitchen cabinets in a corner. There is blood, dried and coagulated blood, running horizontally across from her nose to her ear. How is that possible when she's propped up? when she's sitting up. Number one, blood does not dry and coagulate in a short amount of time, which indicates that the body was in a different position than when it was found.

The body had been moved. That's basic. That's basic death investigation. Was anything taken in evidence by the police? Not that I know of because we haven't been able to get access to those reports. I have said this on several different occasions. This case is like a litter box with not enough litter in it. No matter how they scratch around, it's always going to stink.

I spoke with Guy DeAndria, a former assistant district attorney in Philadelphia. Okay. Guy was kind enough when we asked him while he was in the DA's office. office to take a look at this case. He found the case in a closet, covered up with Christmas decorations, and in a closet away from all other homo—the location of all other homicide cases. And this case was not even assigned a homicide number. And he said to me, he said, Tom, I know you haven't had the opportunity to hear the nine-wise. tape, but he said it, he said, like you, I've heard hundreds.

And he said, this is the weirdest 911 call you'll ever hear. I told him we were going to file a FOIA request, that's Freedom of Information Act request, to get all of the police files, the 911 call, the security camera tapes from the apartment apartment building, the district attorney's file, and the Attorney General's file. So we're anxiously waiting for that to happen so we can get a look at everything that they have. Now, they claim this, they still claim this is a suicide. So they have no reason at all to object to turning over those files and the 911 tape and the security. the security videos.

They said this is a suicide, which is not a crime, and the case is closed. So they should have no objection whatsoever to giving up those items. Guy D'Andria, who Tom Brennan just referenced, told the Philadelphia Inquirer, quote, The Blood Path defies gravity. You don't need to be a pathologist to have an appreciation for that. either she moved herself or someone moved her. DeAndria also noticed something in the autopsy. A single line in the report said,

note, neuropathologist Dr. Lucy Wark examined the spinal cord and concluded there is no defect of the spinal cord. Wark is a renowned Philadelphia neuropathologist who retired from Children's Hospital in Philly in 2000. 15. DeAndreya could not find a copy of this report, so he requested one from police and the medical examiner's office. But he was told it couldn't be found or it didn't exist. An invoice for the work that she did for this report, it couldn't be found either. DeAndria then emailed Dr. Rourke.

She wrote back to him saying, without a report or bill for my services, I would conclude, that I did not see the specimen in question, although there is a remote possibility that it was shown to me. However, I have no recollection of such a case. It was around the same time that Tom Brennan made a shocking discovery. The medical examiner's office still had a piece of Ellen's spinal cord in storage. He contacted Wayne Ross to examine the specimen, and Ross concluded in a January 2017 report that one of the stab wounds penetrated Ellen's cranial cavity and severed the cranial nerves to the brain. Ross told Brennan that as a result of that wound, Ellen would have experienced severe pain and impaired or loss of consciousness. There is also the question of the locked door. And I think

this is a very big part of why the police ruled Ellen's death of suicide. To them, it proved Ellen was alone when she died. But Brennan and DeAndria both noted that there are many videos on the internet showing various ways of manipulating swing bar locks from the outside. The big newspaper in Philly is the Philadelphia Inquirer. They often do investigative news stories. They got involved and started their own exhaustive dive into Ellen's death. They asked two independent experts to review the photos and reports that the Greenberg's provided to inquire a reporter, Stephanie Farr. One of the experts was Gregory MacDonald, Dean of the School of Health Sciences at the Philadelphia

College of Osteopathic Medicine and Chief Deputy Coroner from Montgomery County. The other was Robert D. Keppel. We mentioned him in our two-part episode on the Green River Killer. He was one of the investigators on that case, and he also investigated Ted Bundy. McDonald paid special attention to Ellen's wounds. He was surprised by the number of shallow stab wounds to her body. He said of those wounds, those tend not to occur in homicides. They will stab you, not hesitate significantly.

The other issue is it wouldn't have been impossible for her to inflict them upon herself. It's unlikely. It's unusual, but it's not impossible. Keppel was also troubled by four of Ellen's stab wounds. they were several inches deep. Keppel said to the wounds, quote, the depth, number, and required force of those wounds, as well as the gash on Ellen's scalp,

could be indicative of a homicide. And he echoed Dr. Wecht by saying, most people, if they inflict the wounds themselves, they pull their clothes up. They don't go through the clothing. Keppel was amazed that the knife remained lodged in Ellen's chest, something that, according to him, he's never seen in a suicide. He went on to say, in this particular case, there's so many different wounds.

It almost looks like somebody else did their thing with her. Armed with the new reports from all the experts in Tom Brennan's investigation, the Greenbergs called for another investigation in their daughter's death. Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office conducted zone investigation. after Krasner referred to them in 2018. He became the district attorney after winning the election and wanted to avert the appearance of a conflict of interest. The Attorney General's Office came back with the same conclusion as police

and the medical examiner's office. Ellen Greenberg committed suicide. The Attorney General's Office provided the following statement. Following the initial 2011 investigation carried out by the Philadelphia Police Department, our office received this case in 2018 on a conflict referral from the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office. We conducted our own thorough investigation to determine a manner of death, interviewing the chief medical examiner of Philadelphia and the medical examiner who performed the autopsy, meeting with the family's representatives and reviewing information they provided to our attorneys, among other states. Among the additional evidence we reviewed were web searches for methods of committing suicide, quick death, and depression, which were done on Ms. Greenberg's personal computer in the weeks

before her death. We also reviewed text messages between Ms. Greenberg and her mother shortly before her death, showing the decedent in serious mental distress. Our office has concluded that this evidence supports suicide as the manner of death, accordingly. We have communicated our findings to the family through its representatives and have closed this investigation. These text messages refer to in the Attorney General's statement hardly seem to support the suicide ruling. Here are some of the text messages that Ellen sent to her mother between January 8th and January 25th, 2011. Ellen texted this on January 8th.

I'm starting this medication. I know you don't understand, but I can't keep living with feeling this way. On January 17th, Ellen texted, Clonopin helped, thank God. Sandy replied, So happy for you. To which Ellen replied, Me too,

OMG. Just the day before Ellen's death, Sandy sent this text to her on January 25th. You need to see a professional. To which Ellen replied with, okay, I'm trying, just scared a bit of everything. As for the search history mentioned in the statement, there is no evidence to support Ellen being the actual person who performed the search.

Joshua Greenberg told the Philadelphia Inquirer, the fact that Ellen's computer Googled painless suicide and she stabbed to death, and I have experts that say it's suspicious of homicide, what am I supposed to say? I'm disgusted and disappointed and feel punched in the stomach, but this is not over. And if you notice, we have not mentioned in this episode at all, not one thing about suspects. Because at this point, Ellen's parents and their team, they just want to have the cause of death changed. And then I think once they're able to get that accomplished, then they can turn their focus towards suspects. But having that cause of death change is no guarantee. And what's frustrating is that

despite the opinions of so many experts, legends, like we mentioned, Cyril Wecht, Henry Lee, that has not been enough to make that happen. Joshua and Sandy Greenberg refused to give up on finding out the truth behind their daughter's death. They've taken their story to the media and social media, and there's a Facebook page called Justice for Ellen. They're hoping one day the truth will be revealed. He'll never give up until they have answers and are currently exploring other criminal and civil options. In 2012, the Ellen Ray Greenberg Garden was built in her honor on the grounds of Juniata Park Academy. According to the school, the garden is a testament to the strength, beauty, and resilience of our students and community members. Sam Goldberg went on

to marry a woman named Carolyn Schnee on January 11, 2014. The couple have one daughter, Lola, and they live in New York City. Sam is a senior producer for a magazine, as well as a segment producer for a TV network. At the time of this recording, Ellen Greenberg's death remains classified as a suicide. And barring any type of major shift, that classification may never be changed. So more if that's the case of the death of Ellen Greenberg, we talked about it in the very beginning. This was going to be one of those cases where once we were done talking about the story, I think people would be left to make up their own minds, right? About what happened. Given the information that we have and the information that we gave to them, it's very tough to think.

especially for Ellen's parents, right? To think that given all the facts that have been laid out, she took her own life. I mean, there are some strange things about this case, right? The locked door. Nobody really being picked up on video. The searches on the computer. Some of that stuff is very odd, given the fact that she later died. I go back to searching on Google about painless ways to end your life.

If that's what she wanted to do, she went about it in the worst way possible. Because my thought is her death had to be extremely painful. So again, everybody may have, you know, different opinions on this case. I think for me, and more if you can give yours here in a minute, but I think for me, There is something more to the story. I don't know what it is. And I can't say 100%, and I don't know how anybody can, whether Ellen did this to herself or somebody else did this to her.

I just find it very unlikely, I guess is the right word, that Ellen would have or could have done this to herself in the way that it's been presented. And as you mentioned, if she was the one that conducted those computer searches looking for painless death results, painless suicide results, then this doesn't seem the way to go about it. Because, as you said, it just seems like it would be very painful. And for me personally, it's hard for me to not be swayed by these expert opinions of people like Dr. Weck and Dr. Lee and the others that have made long distinguished careers out of their expertise. It's hard for me to go against their findings. But for some reason, the police and the city of Philadelphia has done just that in this case.

And my heart goes out to Ellen Greenberg's parents because not only have they lost their daughter, but they've had to deal with all of this as well. Yeah, I think you hit it, you know, on the head. when you have the type of experts that we're talking about here and that we have actually talked to weighing in on this and saying, nope, no way, there's no way it could have happened this way. That's pretty compelling. Thanks once again to Joshua and Sandra Greenberg, Dr. Cyril Weck and Tom Brennan for joining us in this episode. Of course, we'll load all of those interviews with today's guests in their entirety onto our Patreon feed for Patreon supporters. Thanks also goes out to Debbie Buck at truecrime diva.com for writing and research assistance in this episode. If you like the show, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating. That goes a long way towards helping other people find the show, as does telling your friends. A lot of people have been doing that.

It makes a world of difference. And if you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at CriminologyPod. we're also on Facebook to search for Criminology Podcast. You can also find our podcast discussion group, Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans. If you're in a social media conversation and someone asked for a podcast recommendation, please tell them about criminology

because it really helps us out. All right, Morf, that is it for another episode of Criminology. We'll be back next Saturday night within all new episode. So we'll talk to you then. Take care, everyone. Thank you.