In 2011, schoolteacher Ellen Greenberg was found dead on the kitchen flooring of her Philadelphia residence with some 20 knife wounds and quite a few bruises. A city health worker dominated her demise a suicide – a finding rejected by the 27-year-old’s dad and mom, who had been satisfied she’d been murdered.
Their fourteen-year quest for the reality prompted a number of lawsuits, quite a few headlines, a web based petition with 167,000 signatures and a brand new Hulu documentary sequence, “Death in Apartment 603.” Earlier this yr the pathologist who carried out her post-mortem reversed his findings, saying he now not believed Greenberg killed herself.
But on Monday the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office, after reviewing the proof within the case, issued a report reaffirming its earlier finding. In a 32-page doc, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Lindsay Simon concluded, “the manner of Ellen Greenberg’s death is best classified as ‘suicide.’”
In her report, Simon wrote that on the time of her demise on January 26, 2011, Greenberg was affected by anxiousness over her work as a schoolteacher – particularly, over grades she was giving her college students. “She had an increase in energy to act on her anxious thoughts,” Simon wrote.
At least one of the numerous knife wounds on Greenberg’s physique was to the again of her neck. While Simon discovered that the sample of wounds was “admittedly unusual,” she added that “the fact remains that Ellen would be capable of inflicting these injuries herself.” Simon described many of Greenberg’s accidents as in step with “hesitation wounds” – tentative, self-inflicted accidents that can precede a deadly wound.
Greenberg’s physique was discovered by her live-in fiancé Sam Goldberg, who referred to as 911 and later discovered himself a topic of scrutiny over her demise. The health worker decided that he and Greenberg weren’t in an abusive relationship and that Goldberg’s DNA was not detected on the knife used to inflict Greenberg’s accidents.
“His self-reported timeline of events is corroborated by phone logs, text messages, surveillance footage, keycard swipes and police interviews,” Simon wrote. She added that authorities discovered no defensive wounds on Greenberg’s physique and no indicators of a wrestle within the residence.
Simon said she reached her conclusion after reviewing the post-mortem, police paperwork, pictures and testimony from specialists – together with these employed by the Greenbergs – plus the Hulu docuseries.
But an lawyer for Greenberg’s dad and mom, who had filed two lawsuits in opposition to the city of Philadelphia, scoffed on the health worker’s new report, calling it “a deeply flawed attempt to justify a predetermined conclusion.”
“By ignoring key evidence that contradicts suicide — the extensive 3D photogrammetry proving Ellen could not self-inflict all of the wounds, unexplained bruises, missing surveillance footage, an intact lock, accounts of a toxic relationship, etc. — Simon builds a flimsy case on distorted portrayals of Ellen’s mental health, propped up by cynical distortions of Ellen’s managed anxiety, a condition widely experienced daily by over 40 million Americans,” mentioned William Trask in an announcement.
“This report is an embarrassment to the City and an insult to Ellen and her family,” added Trask, who represents Josh and Sandee Greenberg. “Ellen’s family just wanted the truth. It is clear the truth will not come from Philadelphia’s law enforcement machinery. Though Ellen’s city turned its back on her, we will continue through other avenues to get justice for her murder, by any means necessary.”
NCS has reached out to the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office for remark.
The health worker’s workplace had agreed in February of this yr to re-examine the Greenberg case as half of a settlement in a swimsuit by Josh and Sandee Greenberg in opposition to numerous city officers. The Greenbergs had been additionally to obtain a financial fee as half of the settlement, though Philadelphia city officers didn’t admit legal responsibility.
The Greenbergs had filed a separate lawsuit in opposition to Dr. Marlon Osbourne, the pathologist who carried out the 2011 post-mortem and initially categorised their daughter’s demise as a murder earlier than altering his ruling to suicide.
That swimsuit was additionally settled in February after Osbourne re-examined proof within the case and signed a doc stating, “it is my professional opinion Ellen’s manner of death should be designated as something other than suicide.”