The city of Philadelphia has once again ruled the death of 27-year-old schoolteacher Ellen Greenberg as a suicide, a significant setback in her family’s lengthy quest for answers.

In a 32-page review dated October 10, Philadelphia Chief Medical Examiner Lindsay Simon reaffirmed the city’s contentious ruling regarding Greenberg’s 2011 death. 

According to the decision obtained by People, Simon asserts that Greenberg could have self-inflicted the 20 stab wounds, 10 of which were to the back of her head and neck.

The medical examiner further notes the absence of evidence indicating domestic abuse in Greenberg’s relationship with her fiancé, television producer Sam Goldberg, and highlights that his DNA was not present on the kitchen knife used in the fatal attack.

On January 26 2011, Greenberg was found dead on the kitchen floor inside the two-bedroom apartment she shared with Goldberg in Philadelphia.

Greenberg had sustained 20 stab wounds, including 10 to the back of the neck and head, and her body exhibited bruises in various stages of healing.

A 10-inch kitchen knife was sticking out of her chest. 

Despite the state of her wounds, the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office ruled her death a suicide. 

It’s a ruling Greenberg’s parents Sandee and Josh Greenberg have never believed.

For the past 14 years, they have thrown everything into legal battles and hiring investigators, experts and pathologists who have uncovered damning evidence that points to something more nefarious: that someone moved her body, that one of the knife wounds was inflicted post-mortem, and that the discovery of her body had not taken place the way her fiancé described.

In February, Philadelphia authorities finally agreed to reopen the investigation into her cause of death after the pathologist who carried out her autopsy walked back his controversial ruling, saying he now believes she did not die by suicide.  

That reexamination has now concluded and in a bombshell revelation, the city is standing by the ruling of suicide. 

‘With all of this information considered, it is the opinion of the undersigned that the manner of Ellen Greenberg’s death is best classified as ‘suicide,” Simon wrote in the ruling, according to People. 

‘All opinions stated in this report are expressed with a reasonable degree of medical certainty.’

Simon wrote that the medical examiner’s office had been asked to conduct ‘an independent and unbiased review of all available materials relating to the death of Ellen Greenberg’ and had reviewed extensive records in the case. 

The medical examiner’s review comes after the city committed in February to reexamine Greenberg’s death following a U-turn from pathologist Dr Marlon Osbourne, from the city’s medical examiner’s office.

On the day Greenberg died, responding police officers instantly treated her death as a suicide, because Goldberg said the door had been locked from the inside and no one else was inside the apartment. 

The home was not treated as a crime scene and no CSI team was called.

The next day, Osbourne conducted Greenberg’s autopsy. Finding her numerous, horrific injuries, he ruled her death a homicide caused by ‘multiple stab wounds by an unknown person’.

But by then, the scene had been released and professionally cleaned by a cleanup firm. Goldberg’s relatives had also visited the home and taken possession of several electronic devices.

Days later, a closed-door meeting was held between the medical examiner’s office and law enforcement and Osbourne, suddenly and without explanation, then changed his ruling to suicide.

In a bombshell moment this January, Osbourne changed his mind, admitting in a sworn statement that he no longer believes Greenberg killed herself and that her manner of death should be designated ‘as something other than suicide’.

Three days later, just before the city of Philadelphia was set to face a civil trial brought by Greenberg’s parents, a settlement was reached in two lawsuits.

A key part of the settlement included a commitment that the medical examiner’s office would carry out an ‘expeditious’ reinvestigation of the 27-year-old’s death.

While this appeared to be a turning point, several months went by with no response from the city.

After several months, the Greenbergs’ attorney Joe Podraza filed a motion to force the city to keep its promise.

A tense hearing was held September 3, where Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Linda Carpenter scolded the city for dragging its feet, saying expedited should mean a week to 10 days and that the delay shows they ‘obviously just don’t care’.

The hearing concluded with the city agreeing to a deadline of October 14 to give its final answer as to whether Greenberg’s death ruling will remain as a suicide or will be designated something else.

As well as Osbourne’s spectacular U-turn, numerous experts have long contradicted the suicide ruling.

Not only were half of the stab wounds inflicted to the back of Greenberg’s body, several were also catastrophic: one three-inch wound near the base of her skull caused a stroke, one severed the spinal column membrane, one sliced her aorta.

Prominent pathologist Wayne Ross, hired by Sandee and Josh to review her death, also found bruises, a scratch and what looked like finger marks on Greenberg’s neck indicating she could have been strangled.

The other bruising on her body – in various stages of healing – also indicated she had suffered ‘a repeated beating’ prior to her death, Ross concluded.

And he found that one of the stab wounds to her head ‘severed the cranial nerves and brain’ and would have caused her to lose consciousness – therefore making it impossible for her to cause the final stab wound to her chest.

Separately, Dr Lyndsey Emery, a pathologist in the medical examiner’s office, also examined Greenberg’s spinal column in 2019 and testified in a deposition that she found no hemorrhage.

One possible conclusion from this is that this stab wound was inflicted post-mortem. And due to the knife being found in Greenberg’s chest, that could not have been the final stab wound.

To some, the scene itself also looked staged, with the position of dried blood on Greenberg’s face indicating she had been moved to where she was found propped up against the kitchen cabinets.

Questions have also been raised over whether or not the apartment door was locked on the inside, meaning that Goldberg had to break the door down to get inside. 

The official account that Goldberg was accompanied by a security guard when he entered the apartment has now also been refuted by surveillance footage and the guard’s sworn testimony.

For his part, Goldberg, now a married father-of-two living in New York, has not joined Sandee and Josh in fighting the suicide ruling.

He has spoken out publicly about his fiancée’s death only once over the years – in a written statement to CNN in late 2024 where he blasted the ‘lies, distortions and falsehoods’ about him and insisted Greenberg died by suicide.

In the months leading up to her death, Greenberg had been struggling with anxiety and had been prescribed Klonopin and Ambien. 

Her psychiatrist insisted she was not suicidal and she had not disclosed any domestic abuse.

Greenberg told her friends and family that she was stressed with work but she had recently asked her parents if she could move back home with them.  

Sandee told the Daily Mail earlier this year she now believes her daughter was being abused in the lead-up to her death. ‘I knew she was struggling with something. But I didn’t know what,’ she said.

To Sandee and Josh, there’s no doubt in their minds that their daughter was murdered and they want to see her killer brought to justice.