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On January 26th, 2011, Ellen Greenberg left work because Philadelphia was getting hit with a blizzard. She got back to her apartment where she lived with her fiancé Sam Goldberg and she was later pronounced dead that evening. She had 20 stab wounds, and her death was ruled a homicide, but the manner of death was reversed and officially ruled a suicide in February of 2011.
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Recap of part 3: BioMX Corp used a 3D computer analysis to analyze the trajectory and depth of all 20 wounds and the report concluded, “Eleven posterior head and neck wounds sustained by Ellen Greenberg are not biomechanically consistent with self-infliction.” It says that they are “consistent with focalized stabbing by an assailant.”
The Greenbergs feel they have more than enough evidence to prove this was a homicide, but after numerous attempts, they can’t get her manner of death to be ruled as a homicide or at the very least, undetermined.
As EMS was leaving, the lieutenant made a comment to the concierge saying, you have a murderer upstairs. They already believed, just by looking at Ellen’s body, that this was homicide, yet the police decided it was a suicide. The EMS fireman that pronounced her dead told his lieutenant that they better get back to the station because the homicide unit would need to interview them, but they were never interviewed. The first people on the scene that pronounced her dead, were never interviewed. They would have the most information. Tom Brennan has been involved in over 800 homicide investigations and he said they should have absolutely been interviewed. What did they see? Who was there? Was anything moved? Did anyone say anything while you were there? There’s so much information they could hold.
The concierge and the property manager said that a police officer dressed in SWAT type clothing with the police insignia on the back showed them a photo of Ellen as she lay dead, that he took on his cellphone. The concierge was so distraught, he had to go into therapy. Wouldn’t this be against protocol? There were no official photos of the crime scene that the police took. The only photos from the scene were actually taken by the medical examiner’s investigator. So, they couldn’t bother to take official photos from the scene, but this officer can take some on his cell phone and show it to people that aren’t officials?
There was minimal blood in the kitchen, no blood anywhere else. I’m talking, SURPRISINGLY little blood. I looked at the photos and it’s a lot of small blood droplets in a trail, a few smudges or smears on the white cabinets near the floor and a little pool of blood near the stove. Does the lack of blood mean she was dead, and her heart had already stopped pumping, meaning she couldn’t have stabbed herself 20 times? She had a white towel in her right hand with a little blood on it. Her glasses were on the floor near her hand. Sliced oranges and blueberries on the counter in a strainer and two clean knives in the sink, so it looked like she was preparing a fruit snack.
For the people that do believe this was a suicide, you’d have to also believe that she spontaneously became enraged enough to violently stab herself in the middle of making a snack. Does that make any sense? Ellen was holding a stark white bathroom towel in her hand, it was not a kitchen towel and it had almost no blood on it. How is that possible? Could that mean the scene was staged? It’s not like she didn’t have kitchen towels either, you can actually see kitchen towels, hanging on the handle of the stove in the kitchen crime scene photos. Her engagement ring was in her bedroom. People take rings off all the time, but could this mean more? Did they split up? Was she planning on leaving him? Is that why she asked her parents if she could move back home with them? Or, did she just have it off because she was slicing fruit and had her hands were in water?
The knife block was overturned on the counter, was someone in a hurry? Two clean knives from the block were in the sink. Did they fall in the sink due to the block slamming down? How hard do you need to pull a knife to knock over the whole block with such a force that it would cause knives to fly out?
Wounds: 2.5 inch gash on back of scalp, 2 neck wounds were 2.7 and 3.1 inches deep, one chest wound is 3.9 inches deep, one in abdomen 2.5 inches deep, the rest were shallow. There was damage to the aortic arch, which is the artery that feeds blood from the heart, to the rest of the body, injuries to upper left lobe of lung, liver, and spinal cord. There were 11 bruises on her upper right arm, right forearm, right knee, right lower abdomen and right thigh. The bruises on the thigh were round and in a vertical row. It looked like she had been hit with an object. Is it possible that she could have inflicted all of these wounds herself? According to her google searches, she looked up quick and painless deaths and I assure you, this wasn’t either of those.
Here are some of the internet searches:
12/18 Suicide methods and suffocation
1/3 Fantasy death and model death
1/6 Prozac side effects
1/9 Sertraline, depression, and weight gain. On the same day, there was a search for a girl that was electrocuted to death trying to twitter in the bath and twitter bath death. To be honest, I thought this was a dirty search, it was literally talking about the Twitter app.
1/10 quick suicide, euthanasia a dangerous weapon and painless suicide
The wounds are associated with injuries to the aortic arch, the upper lobe of the left lung, liver and the cervical spinal cord at the c2 and c3 level dorsally. According to the medical examiner’s autopsy report, it was concluded that the injury to the spinal cord would not have incapacitated her, and she could have inflicted the wounds to her body, but it also states that they did an analysis of the laptop and there was no additional information provided. Meaning they couldn’t find anything on her laptop that pointed to suicide, but as we just discussed, there were google searches for it, so again, now I can’t believe that they’re telling me the truth about her spinal cord injury when you can’t even give the proper information about her laptop.
Gavin Fish obtained a copy of a written reprimand of Marlon Osbourne, who was the medical examiner. The letter is dated 8/31/2012. Marlon was on medical leave from January 28th 2012 to August 27th, 2012 due to a non-work-related injury. Prior to his leave, he was told that he needed to make sure all of his outstanding cases had the autopsy reports completed and he assured his team that everything was done. To ensure that all the paperwork was completed, he was removed from the autopsy rotation, so he had time to get everything finalized. While he was on leave, his team found 17 cases that either had incomplete autopsy reports or inaccurate information in them. He did not complete the reports for his outstanding cases, and he didn’t make arrangements with his team to make sure they could complete them either.
In an attempt to complete the pending cases that he left, they discovered more errors and discrepancies, some of which “were very severe and could have grave consequences for the family.” It goes on to say that in the early part of 2012, they had to provide coaching sessions to Marlon Osbourne and during these sessions, Gary Collins highlighted the importance of proper and adequate documentation of examination findings. “Following review of one of your multiple gunshot wounds homicide cases, it was noticed that you listed the clothing, but made no mention of the presence of bullet holes or the presence or absence of soot or gunpowder. The main reason we examine the clothing is to look for the presence of bullet holes and gunfire residue, which should be documented in our reports.” Gary Collins goes on to list several cases that had “even more serious and dangerous flaws.” He says they had numerous discussions and coaching sessions about his work prior to his leave.
While he was off on leave, Dr. Gulino unpended and amended 13 cases and signed an additional 27 cases, for a total of 40 of his cases that needed to be finalized.
He was told that he would need to make significant improvements once he returned, and they would be paying closer attention to his reports.
The knife that was embedded in Ellen’s chest was tested for DNA and ONLY her dna was on it. If someone else’s DNA was on it, someone that didn’t live in that apartment, that could point us to an outside party, but the knife could have been wiped down, maybe someone wore a glove, or maybe they were holding on to that bathroom towel....it could be a various amount of things, or it could just mean that Ellen was the only one that had her hands on that knife. Even if Sam’s DNA was on the knife, it’s not that weird, he lived there, so it could mean nothing.
I HIGHLY suggest watching Gavin Fish on YouTube. He has several videos on this case, including a reenactment. His wife is the same height and weight as Ellen, and they show the exact spots the knife went in and the angle she would need to hold the knife. They used a paint stick, rather than a knife, but they colored in the area that would depict the knife blade and the handle. It proves how difficult this would be and she had a very tough time reaching the handle, meaning Ellen’s hand should of most likely slipped on the blade and been cut.
According to the evaluation, the knife switched positions many times. So, she attacked herself and changed positions? For most of her chest wounds, the sharp end of the knife was pointed towards her right arm. For most of the wounds on the back of her neck, the sharp end pointed towards the floor. So, she’s pausing during the pain to turn the knife?
In most suicides, victims will lift up their clothing to stab themselves, they don’t go through their clothing. She was stabbed through her T-shirt and zip-up hoodie. If you stab yourself, the knife is typically pulled out and up, but that’s not what happened here. The castoff on the cabinets is at a downward angle, meaning she pulled the knife out at a downward angle and stretched her arms and the knife outward, pointing away from her body before stabbing again and again. She would have been standing when the attack began due to the drops of blood by the kitchen sink and counter with additional vertical drops on the counter and floor.
As an investigator, what would prompt them to look at all of this damage on her body and think, gee, this must be a suicide? They processed the entire scene in an hour and they only spent three days on the case before disputing the ruling and working it as a suicide again. They never did any luminol testing in the apartment.
The neighbors didn’t hear anything, except when Sam was yelling and trying to get into the apartment. The only cameras were located at the front entrance and lobby. Cameras and key fob entries were checked and there were no unauthorized entrances around the time of her death.
On January 27th, the building manager, Melissa, received a call from Sam’s uncle James, the attorney and he wanted to go back into the apartment to get some things for the funeral. Melissa was smart about this, and she called the investigators to tell them about the request and because they believed this was a suicide, they told her it was fine if he went in the apartment to get things. They said she could let anyone in, and this is when she asked if they could have the apartment cleaned and the police provided her the number of a cleaning service to contact. James Schwartzman was allowed inside the apartment and while he was in there, he grabbed some funeral clothes for Sam, and he also took Ellen’s cellphone and computers....why? It was later this very day that the medical examiner changed Ellen’s manner of death to homicide. Two days after her death is when they got the search warrant, but the entire apartment had already been cleaned up through the service the police suggested, and James took evidence out of there. Originally, the medical examiner had been told that the doorman was with Sam when the door was broken down and that's why they allowed her death to be ruled as a suicide before completing the autopsy. It was based on Sam’s story. When they found out that this was a lie, her death was ruled a homicide, but of course, it was later changed back to suicide.
Sam was handcuffed when he left the apartment and he was walked out of the building. As he was lead out, he looked at the concierge and kept saying, tell them I didn’t do this. He was only being taken in for questioning at this point and according to the way the scene was worked, the police believed this was a suicide, so I guess I’m confused about this behavior. He was brought into district headquarters for questioning, but Tom Brennan said he wasn’t able to access these reports yet, so we don’t know what happened. He may have been represented by independent counsel, but there’s no way to be sure. He was not drug tested and a DNA test was not performed. We do know that he asked for an attorney right away. Even though the police were so sure this was a suicide, it looks like someone was suspicious of something if they handcuffed him at the scene and brought him to district headquarters to be questioned, yet the police didn’t take any crime scene photos.
According to the property manager, the family members were brought into a room or a lobby at the apartment complex. When Sam’s uncle arrived, the one who was an attorney, he made several attempts to get upstairs to Sam, but the police told him that Sam didn’t need an attorney yet.
SUICIDE: There was a lack of defensive wounds and no signs that someone broke into the apartment. There were no reports of blood on Sam’s clothing, but I question two things about this. He said he went to the gym downstairs. Is it possible that they have a shower in this gym, or did he change clothes? I looked up photos of the fitness center and I couldn’t find anything that says whether it has a shower or not. The second thing I wonder is if the police even thoroughly checked him for blood. They worked this as a suicide from the start and they didn’t do any luminol testing in the apartment, so why would I believe that they checked him for blood?
The neuropathologist report was supposedly completed, and it was supposed to prove that Ellen’s spinal cord had not been damaged. Many people say that the blow to the spinal cord would have paralyzed her and made it so she couldn’t have plunged the knife into her heart. This report was one of the reasons the investigators said they could close the case knowing it was a suicide, but the report doesn’t exist, and we know this because it has literally never been produced. Some people believe that a damaged spinal cord could mean that Ellen’s hands would have gone numb and perhaps she couldn’t feel the pain any longer and that could explain why she was able to continue with all the stab wounds. Ok, that could make sense, however, it doesn’t just make your torso and your head numb, everything goes numb. That would mean your hands are numb. How do you grip a knife with numb hands? How do your hands not slip down and get cut on the knife?
Other reasons that point to suicide are the fact that only Ellen’s DNA was found on the knife. She did just start a new medication and googled suicide and she had multiple shallow stab wounds which could mean she was hesitating.
HOMICIDE: The wounds are in awkward fucking places. They are on the back of her neck and head, through her clothing and the knife was left in her chest. I think the whole swing bar door lock thing actually points more to homicide. If Ellen wanted to lock Sam out, why wouldn’t she lock the actual door lock? Why would she just push the swing lock, knowing that someone can open the door slightly and look inside?
Why would she decide to stab herself in the middle of making herself a snack? During the autopsy, it was noted that there wasn’t any food in her stomach. Have you ever washed fruit and not eaten a piece? That makes it sound to me like she was surprised by this attack. It happened so fast, that she didn’t get to finish slicing her fruit or even eat a piece.
There were no cuts on her hands, which the police took as lack of defensive wounds, but I take that as more proof of homicide. If you’re stabbed in the back and immediately knocked out or injured so severely that you can’t move your hands, that explains the lack of wounds. You can’t convince me that she could stab herself in the back of the neck and head with such force, that she wouldn’t lose control of the knife and slice her hands.
Sam ALLEGEDLY called Kamian before calling the police and Kamian arrived first to the scene. I also want to mention here that I’m in no way saying that Sam did this, I’m just saying things aren’t adding up. It could still be another person that committed this act. Could Ellen have had a stalker? Someone saw Sam leave and surprised her? It’s possible.
The dried and coagulated blood went from Ellen’s nose to her ear, but she was found sitting up against the cabinets, so that means she was lying flat on her back at some point and she had to have been moved. On the 911 call, Sam told the operator that she was on her back and that matches the blood evidence. Does that mean he moved her before the officials arrived? He was told multiple times not to touch her once he said a knife was in her chest and he confirmed that he was not going to touch her.
***********INSERT 911 CALL HERE
My observations from the call:
Sam was looking close enough to notice that Ellen’s face was purple, but he didn’t notice a knife in her chest?
The operator instructed Sam to look at her chest and that’s where the knife was.
The operator asked if she was flat on her back and he said, she’s on her back.
The operator tells him again to look at her chest to see if it’s going up and down. He confirms her chest isn’t moving.
He asks if he has to do CPR
He says her shirt won’t come and it has a zipper. A closed zipper is located at the top of a shirt. That means he would literally be reaching over the top of the knife to pull down on the zipper....but he still didn’t see the knife? After he tried to get her shirt off is when he announces there’s a knife sticking out of her chest.
He was asked who was there and he said, We’re the only ones here...no mention of the security guard
He was told not to touch her, and he confirmed he wasn’t, but he said she was on her back and EMS found her sitting up against the cabinets.
Sam did keep in contact with Ellen’s family for a while, but he got married, had a kid and changed his name.
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I’ll close on some information from a letter from Attorney Joseph Podraza. Please keep in mind that Ellen Greenberg’s family wants to learn the truth surrounding her death. “As a human being, don’t you believe that they are entitled to some closure and hopefully peace of mind from Ellen’s untimely and unnatural passing?
This is a case that requires a closer examination and more thorough investigation, which can only be accomplished by your amending Ellen’s Death Certificate to reflect a cause of death other than suicide. A conclusion of suicide is simply not supported by the evidence and, in light of the facts and circumstances raised by independent experts, constitutes a capricious exercise of discretion.”
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