Sandee Greenberg can’t pinpoint the last time she had a conversation with her late daughter Ellen’s fiancé, Sam Goldberg, but she vividly recalls what she told him.

“You know, Sam,” Sandee, 69, recounted during an exclusive interview from her home in Florida, “we firmly believe this wasn’t a suicide.”

She described the response on the other end of the line as “dead silence.”

Their phone conversations had continued intermittently for two years following the tragic death of Ellen, a first-grade teacher, on January 26, 2011.

However, those discussions came to an abrupt end when Goldberg, now 43, reportedly informed the Greenbergs that he was “moving on with his life” and planning to remarry.

For Sandee and her family, moving on has not been an option.

Speaking to the Daily Mail just days after the city of Philadelphia reaffirmed their controversial finding that Ellen killed herself inside the apartment she shared with Goldberg – stabbing herself 20 times – Sandee and her husband and Josh, 76, are deeply angry and utterly convinced that their daughter was murdered.

And much of their bitterness is directed at Goldberg.

Sandee (left) and Josh (right) spoke to the Daily Mail just days after the city of Philadelphia reaffirmed their controversial finding that Ellen killed herself inside the apartment she shared with Goldberg

They are deeply angry and utterly convinced that their daughter Ellen (pictured) was murdered

Speaking to Goldberg outside his home in Manhattan last week, the Daily Mail asked if he felt he had been ‘screwed over’ by recent coverage of the case.

‘Yeah I have been. It’s awful and it sucks,’ he said.

Today, he has been married to wife Caroline Shnay for 11 years and they have two children.

He said that things have been ‘awful’ because of a narrative that portrays his relationship with Ellen as toxic and his account of the day of her death questionable.

Josh’s response to that is blunt: ‘Baloney. He went on with his life. I guess Ellen maybe wasn’t good enough for him. He comes from a very wealthy family, and she wasn’t good enough for him.

‘We have never pointed a finger or accused anybody. That’s not what we want. We want an unbiased investigation by an unbiased leader,’ said Josh, a retired dentist.

Goldberg told police that he had found the 27-year-old first grade teacher dead after shouldering open the locked door of the Manayunk, Philadelphia apartment they shared.

Ellen had suffered more than 20 stab wounds, including ten to the back of her head and neck. A 10-inch kitchen knife was lodged in her chest.

The manner of death was initially ruled homicide. Three weeks later, the Medical Examiner changed it to suicide.

For many, that remains an inconceivable finding. Certainly, it is one that the Greenbergs vehemently reject.

Sandee said: ‘Changing the manner of death from homicide to suicide stopped us from being able to grieve.’

The phone calls between Ellen’s parents and Goldberg (right) had continued, periodically, for two years after first-grade teacher Ellen’s (left) brutal death on January 26, 2011 

Speaking outside his home in Manhattan last week, Goldberg (pictured in October 2025) told the Daily Mail that he felt ‘screwed over’ by the extensive coverage of Ellen’s case

She had suffered more than 20 stab wounds (illustrated in a diagram), including ten to the back of her head and neck. A 10-inch kitchen knife was lodged in her chest

Sandee said: ‘Changing the manner of death from homicide to suicide stopped us from being able to grieve’

Pictured: Sandee shows the Daily Mail old photographs of her daughter

Instead, they have fought, through the courts and through the media, to have the case re-opened.

They have hired a host of their own experts who support their assertion that Ellen was murdered and launched a petition signed by more than 170,000 people to have her case investigated as a homicide.

In February, they had what seemed a significant breakthrough, when the city agreed to review Ellen’s death as part of a settlement in a case brought by the Greenbergs against city officials.

But, last week, they were dealt a hammer blow when Philadelphia’s Chief Medical Examiner Dr Lindsay Simon – who was not involved with the original investigation – returned her report and reaffirmed: ‘With all of this information considered… the manner of Ellen Greenberg’s death is best classified as “Suicide.”‘

The matter was signed into the court record during a brief, remote, hearing on Tuesday October 14, which was, Sandee said, ‘Over before it began.’

Sandee and Josh are still struggling to process the finding which they described to the Daily Mail as a ‘gut punch.’ And, though they vow to continue fighting, they have yet to sit down with their lawyers to consider just what avenues remain open to them.

But, after so many years, might they finally have reached a point where they have to accept the fight is over? Have friends or loved ones ever counseled them to do so?

Josh said: ‘No – not friends and not people who knew Ellen. The only incident I can think of is one of the friends of Sam’s parents meeting a friend of ours and she said, “What are the Greenbergs doing trying to ruin another family?”

‘And our friend said, “They just want to protect their daughter.”‘

‘We have never pointed a finger or accused anybody. That’s not what we want. We want an unbiased investigation by an unbiased leader,’ said Josh (right, with Ellen, left)

Though they vow to continue fighting, they have yet to sit down with their lawyers to consider just what avenues remain open to them. (Pictured: Sandee, left, and Ellen, right)

Pictured: Sandee shows the Daily Mail memorabilia of Ellen

Sandee and Josh are still struggling to process the finding which they described to the Daily Mail as a ‘gut punch’

Both Sandee and Josh reject the official narrative, now reasserted in Dr Simon’s report, in which Ellen, who had recently started seeing a psychiatrist for anxiety, felt so overwhelmed by the work stress she had shared with friends, that she took her own life in the most brutal fashion.

Josh claimed: ‘Somebody abused my daughter. We have evidence in the form of wounds at different stages of healing.’

Josh is referring to the multiple bruises, in varying stages of recovery, found on Ellen’s arms, legs, neck and torso at autopsy. Several of the experts hired by the Greenbergs described them as evidence of being restrained and of repeated beatings.

Dr Simon, however, concluded that they were, ‘not consistent with those sustained from intentional infliction by another.’

Rather, she stated: ‘The distribution is consistent with incidental contact sustained during activities of daily living, including her work as a first-grade teacher.’

Equally, Dr Simon found no evidence to support the notion that Ellen’s relationship with Goldberg was anything other than ‘wonderful.’

Josh has dismissed Dr Simon’s findings as ‘ridiculous.’

‘Ellen hated pain,’ Josh said. ‘She could never have done that to herself.’

As awful as it is for her parents to consider Ellen’s final moments, they have, according to her father, a horribly clear image of what happened to her that January day.

He alleged: ‘Ellen died of strangulation, a gash on the head and being restrained. And the scene was staged.’

Sandee and Josh reject the official narrative, now reasserted in Dr Simon’s report, in which Ellen, who had recently started seeing a psychiatrist for anxiety, felt so overwhelmed by the work stress she had shared with friends, that she took her own life in the most brutal fashion

Josh claimed: ‘Somebody abused my daughter. We have evidence in the form of wounds at different stages of healing’

‘Ellen hated pain,’ Josh said. ‘She could never have done that to herself’

But, even if the manner of death is changed, do they truly believe that after all these years anyone would be held accountable for Ellen’s death?

Sandee said: ‘In a perfect world yes, but I know this is not a perfect world.’

The truth, Josh admitted, is that he does not really believe their fight can be won. It is a feeling that puts him at odds with his wife who believes very firmly that it can be.

He said: ‘It makes it a tougher fight; it makes it more challenging…but I have a mission. I’m Ellen’s father, still. And that’s what keeps me going.

‘We could have walked away [and] not spent a hell of a lot of money and used it to buy a bigger house or another car or something. We’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. We’re not getting it back. But we don’t want to do that.

‘I know she’s watching and saying, “Daddy way to go!”‘ A smile fleets across Josh’s face at the thought, but his voice cracks.

Ellen visits them, Sandee said, in the tinkle of wind chimes, in butterflies and in pennies that turn up unexpectedly. She saves them in a jar, now brimful.

‘I think she’s proud of us,’ Sandee said. ‘She’s every bit as proud of us as we are of her. She was just robbed of living a wonderful life. We won’t give up.’