A 20-stab wound suicide in Manayunk? Parents say that’s impossible

Homicide detectives hate to admit it. But there’s an all-but-certain way to get away with murder.

“The best way to get away with homicide is to have it ruled a suicide,” said Thomas Brennan Jr., a veteran Pennsylvania State Police and retired Dauphin County detective who trained with the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit.

What’s worse, it’s almost impossible for victims’ families to legally challenge a manner of death ruling by a medical examiner or coroner in Pennsylvania. Brennan should know. Now a private detective, he’s hammered away for the past decade, trying to change the ruling that the bizarre, bloody death of 27-year-old Ellen Greenberg was a suicide.

The freckle-faced elementary school teacher, who grew up in the Harrisburg area as the daughter of a prominent family, was found slumped on the kitchen floor of the Manayunk apartment she shared with her fiancé in 2011.

Ellen had been stabbed 20 times, mostly in the back of her neck and head and in her chest. She was found with a 10-inch kitchen knife buried in her chest.

Her parents, Joshua and Sandee Greenberg of the Harrisburg area have filed two civil lawsuits, one of which is aimed at convincing a court to overturn the suicide ruling, allowing a full investigation of her death.

If they prevail, it would be the first time a medical examiner’s ruling in such a case was successfully challenged in Pennsylvania, said Joseph Podraza, one of the Greenbergs’ attorneys.

This three-part series is based on evidence the Greenbergs, their detective and their attorneys say they have discovered through their own investigation over the past decade. This includes detailed forensic files and medical findings; 3D stab wound analyses of each of the 20 strikes Ellen suffered; and lengthy depositions of three Philadelphia medical examiner officials, one of whom said Ellen was likely already dead when one of those stab wounds occurred.

The evidence is contained in various exhibits filed as part of the Greenbergs’ lawsuits against Philadelphia officials. However, this evidence hasn’t yet been part of the legal arguments, which center on whether medical examiners’ and coroners’ discretion in ruling manner of death can be challenged under Pennsylvania law.

“The city’s of the belief the coroner can do whatever he or she wants,” Podraza said. “It’s unassailable, according to the city.”

A ruling by Commonwealth Court in that aspect of the case is expected this spring or summer.

No matter the decision, Josh Greenberg, who estimates he’s spent more than a half-million dollars on the investigation and ongoing legal battle, vows to never give up.

“I feel I’m doing the right thing,” he said. “This is what a father does or should do.”

A ruling in the family’s favor could advance Ellen’s death investigation, clearing the way for the evidence the Greenbergs have collected to be presented in court. It also could help set a new legal standard, establishing specific grounds for appealing manner of death rulings in Pennsylvania, Podraza said.

“We believe when the coroner acts arbitrary and capriciously, the court can step in and correct the error and the arbitrary and capricious conduct by the coroner,” the lawyer said.

Philadelphia Assistant City Solicitor Kelly Susan Diffily, who is defending the officials and institutions named in the Greenbergs’ lawsuits, referred PennLive’s questions and request to interview the officials named in the suits to the city’s communications director. That person did not respond to PennLive’s emails seeking comment.

The Commonwealth Court ruling, if and when it comes, would shift the focus of the case back to the snowy, stormy evening of Jan. 26, 2011, when Ellen, who was being medically treated for anxiety, was found stabbed, bloodied and lifeless in the kitchen of her apparently locked unit in the Venice Lofts apartment building.

Or was it locked?

The 911 call

The case began with a panicked 911 call by Ellen’s live-in fiancé, Samuel Goldberg, placed around 6:30 p.m. from inside their apartment.

Here are excerpts of the call:

Goldberg: “I went downstairs to go work out. I came up and the door was latched. My fiancé’s inside. She wasn’t answering so after about a half hour, I decided to break it down. I see her now. She is on the floor — bloody. She’s not responding.”

Asked by the 911 operator what happened, Goldberg responds, “She may have slipped. There is blood on the table, and her face is a little purple.”

The 911 operator asks if Ellen is breathing, instructing Goldberg to look at her chest.

Goldberg: “I don’t think she is. I really don’t think she is. She’s on her back. I don’t see her moving.”

He’s instructed to attempt CPR. As he draws nearer to Ellen, he sounds shocked by what he sees.

Goldberg: “Oh my God. Ellie, please!”

He’s instructed to bare her chest to perform CPR.

Goldberg: “Her shirt won’t come off. It’s a zipper.”

He then glimpses something more.

Goldberg: “Oh my God, she stabbed herself.”

“Where?” the operator asks.

Goldberg: “The knife’s sticking out. There’s a knife sticking out of her heart.”

“She stabbed herself?” the operator asks.

Goldberg: “I guess so. Or she fell on it.”

“Okay, with a knife in her chest, it’s going to be kind of hard for you to do CPR,” the operator says, then adds: “Don’t touch it. Don’t touch anything.”

Asked to check for “signs of life,” Goldberg says: “Her hands are still warm. I don’t know what that means. But there’s blood everywhere… I’m not touching anything. I can’t believe this, though. We’re the only ones here.”

The operator asks about signs of a break-in.

Goldberg responds at various points: “No, no, no, no. No sign of a break in. There will be when you get here because I had to break the latch to get in. I went downstairs to work out. When I came back, the door was latched. It was like locked from the inside. And I’m yelling…”

Was the door locked?

One of the first things that caught Brennan’s eye when he decided to take the case two years after Ellen’s death were police and medical examiner photos from the scene showing the apartment’s internal door latch.

The device is similar to a bar latch found in numerous hotel rooms. When connected, the unlocked door can be opened a crack, but the metal latch bars further entry.

Goldberg told both the 911 operator and responding police that he opened the door by breaking the latch. Brennan said it’s his professional opinion that the limited number of police and medical examiner photographs of the scene show otherwise.

“The state police sent me to lock-picking school. I used to do all of the surreptitious entries,” Brennan said. “The only way you can open that lock is if one or the other piece is completely dismounted from where it’s mounted, okay? That bar isn’t going to open up for you any other way.”

Brennan points to photos showing the latch only partially dislodged. Both sides of the latch are still fastened to the door and the jamb with multiple screws, the photos show.

“Three of those screws are still mounted. There’s one that’s out,” noted Brennan, concluding damage to the latch wasn’t extensive enough for the apartment door to have been broken open.

Two separate crime scene experts hired by the Greenbergs made similar findings after viewing police photos of the door latch.

The Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science at the University of New Haven states in a written report: “Some damage appears to be in the area of this lock in the close-up photograph. There does not appear to be damage to the doorjamb or evidence of a break-in at the dead bolt lock from the other side of the door.” That report is signed by Lee and Elaine M. Pagliaro.

A second report by Det. Scott Eelman of Lititz, a veteran detective employed by the East Lampeter Township Police Department and a court-qualified expert on crime scene analysis and blood spatter, states: “There is damage noted to the door side of the security latch which is still attached to the door. The screws are still present in the screw hole. The doorjamb side of the security latch does not appear to show any damage.”

To be clear, neither Brennan nor the Greenbergs are pointing fingers at anyone. Both civil cases brought by the family against Philadelphia officials refer simply to an “unknown assailant” in what they believe was Ellen’s homicide.

Goldberg and his family have long declined to comment on the case. An August 2022 letter from the Goldberg family attorney, Geoffrey R. Johnson, written in response to a media account of the case says the family has “maintained a respectful silence on the terrible events of that day while law enforcement authorities have done their job and concluded correctly that Ellen’s death was a suicide…”

In his letter, Johnson wrote: “Ellen Greenberg was taking a variety of powerful psychotropic drugs which unfortunately caused suicidal ideation as a side effect.”

The Greenbergs acknowledged Ellen was “struggling with something,” and had seen her psychiatrist on January 12, 17 and 19. Over the course of her treatment for anxiety, Ellen had been prescribed Zoloft first, then switched to a “low dose” of Xanax. After “no success,” she was prescribed Ambien and Klonopin. All this is according to a report compiled by Pennsylvania pathologist Cyril H. Wecht, who was commissioned by the Greenbergs to review Ellen’s case.

Wecht, who had access to Ellen’s psychiatric files, wrote that on Ellen’s Jan. 17 visit, her psychiatrist, Dr. Ellen Berman, noted in her file, “She starts thinking about everything else — not suicidal.” On Jan. 19, Berman noted, “way better.”

PennLive contacted Johnson for additional comment and requests to interview Goldberg and his various family members. Johnson would not discuss the case on the record. But in his August 2022 letter, he wrote that Goldberg was on the phone with his uncle and cousin, James and Kamian Schwartzman, when he broke into the apartment and found Ellen. Johnson also represents the Schwartzmans.

“James and Kamian heard Sam scream hysterically on the phone,” Johnson wrote. “At that time, James and Kamian instructed Sam Goldberg to call 911, which he did immediately.”

When police and detectives arrived, they questioned Sam Goldberg for three hours at the scene and then later that night, at police headquarters, all without an attorney present, Johnson noted in the letter.

“At all times that night, and subsequently, Sam Goldberg has fully cooperated with the police investigation. He has never asserted any privilege and has never refused to speak with the police,” Johnson wrote.

It was Sam’s father, Richard Goldberg, who phoned the Greenbergs that night to “tearfully tell them of Ellen’s death,” Johnson wrote.

Wrong-way blood?

As Brennan sifted through photographs of Ellen’s body taken by the medical examiner’s representative at the scene, he made another observation.

Although the body was slumped in a sitting position, a horizontal line of dried blood could be seen on her face.

Police and medical examiner photos taken at the scene show coagulated blood that runs straight across to her ear, the detective noted. The blood, he said, should have run down her face, based on her position when found.

Similar findings were made by the two independent crime scene and forensic analysts who reviewed the case for the Greenbergs, issuing written reports that are filed as exhibits in their lawsuits.

Eelman states: “Ms. Greenberg was found in the corner of the kitchen area of the apartment between the sink and the stove. Her back was leaning against the corner cabinet, she was slumped downward with her feet and arms extended. Her head was found to be tilted slightly forward and to the right, with her chin resting against her right shoulder…The bloodstains on her face are inconsistent with the position in which she was found. Specifically, the bloodstain flow pattern diagonally across her forehead from the right to the left and terminating in the left eyebrow would move against the law of gravity… It is my opinion that the blood stain evidence in this case is inconsistent with the position in which Ms. Greenberg was found.”

The report signed by Lee and Pagliaro states: “The view of the decedent in Photo #2 shows a female on the kitchen floor with her head and shoulders against the coroner cabinets near the stove and sink…The blood is flowing in different directions on her face. This could mean she moved after receiving the initial bleeding injuries to her head.”

Or it could mean that someone moved her body, Brennan said.

The autopsy would later

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