A beloved Philadelphia teacher was found dead in her kitchen on January 26, 2011, and authorities ruled her death a suicide despite the fact that she suffered 20 stab wounds in different areas of her body.
The family of Ellen Greenberg hired a private detective and obtained the help of forensic scientists including the renowned Dr. Henry Lee to investigate the case.
Greenberg had left her work at Juniata Park Academy early on that fateful day due to a blizzard and went to her Venice Lofts apartment where her fiancé Sam Goldberg also lived.
The man told investigators that he had left Greenberg cutting the fruit in the kitchen and went to the gym for 45 minutes. When he returned, he claimed, the door was locked.
Goldberg said that he attempted to contact the victim repeatedly before he ultimately broke the lock and entered to find Greenberg in a pool of blood.
The woman was slumped over with “some of her upper body/shoulders resting against the lower half of the white kitchen cabinets,” the police report asserted.
She had sustained 10 stab wounds to the back of her neck, one to the back of her scalp, another to the stomach, and eight stab wounds were to her chest. The knife was rammed four inches into her chest when she was found.
With no evidence of a burglary or forced entry and with surveillance footage from the building matching Goldberg’s statements, investigators along with the medical examiner decided to change Ellen’s death from homicide to suicide.
“The number and types of wounds and bloodstain patterns observed are consistent with a homicide scene,” Dr. Lee concluded.
Private detective Tom Brennan also insisted that investigators have to reopen the case: “There are stairs that lead down to the sixth floor. There were entryways at that time that could be accessed, and the individual or individual could avoid being detected with cameras.”
