A 2011 case involving the death of a school teacher has recently resurfaced, raising more
questions than answers despite the considerable time that has passed.
On January 26, 2011, Sam Goldberg, a 28-year-old TV producer, returned to his apartment after finishing a workout at the building’s gym, only to find the door secured from the inside with the swing bar lock. After repeatedly calling out to his fiancée, 27-year-old school teacher Ellen Greenberg, and getting no response, Sam forced his way into the apartment and discovered her lifeless on the kitchen floor. He immediately called 911 to report the incident, and about two minutes into the call, he noticed a knife protruding from her chest, telling the operator, “She must have fallen on it.”
That is the story as Mr. Goldberg recounts it.
Yet when firefighters and EMTs arrived, responding to the call as a cardiac arrest and unresponsive code blue, they quickly determined it was a crime scene. After pronouncing Ellen dead, they refrained from touching anything further, preserving the area for investigation. EMTs, however, noted several concerning details about the body—her cold, pale skin, blue fingertips, and coagulated blood suggesting that she had been dead for nearly an hour before their arrival. Responding EMT’s also found it odd that Goldberg hadn’t immediately noticed the knife in her chest, as it was strikingly obvious.
A police investigation later revealed that Greenberg had suffered 20 stab wounds to her chest, abdomen, head, and neck, with half of those wounds located on her back. Despite the severity of her injuries, police, medical examiners, and the district attorney ruled the case a suicide, which is reflected on Greenberg’s death certificate as the official cause.
In 2014, prosecutor Guy D’Andrea of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office was brought in to review the case. As he sifted through a plethora of files buried in storage, he found it difficult to believe that the case had ever been ruled a suicide rather than a homicide.
D’Andrea continued to uncover contradictory evidence, including a note in the medical examiner’s autopsy stating there was no damage to Greenberg’s spinal cord, despite the presence of stab wounds in that exact area. D’Andrea contacted the medical examiner in the report, Dr. Lucy Rorke-Adams, who stated she had no recollection of working on the case. The significance of this is crucial: if the information in the autopsy report was fabricated and Greenberg had indeed had her spinal cord punctured, she would have been physically unable to continue stabbing herself.
With this new information, D’Andrea discussed the possibility of changing the cause of death from suicide to homicide – or at least to undetermined – with the medical examiner, who agreed. However, after D’Andrea stepped down as the prosecutor to pursue private practice, the medical examiner and the state attorney ultimately did not follow through with the agreed-upon change.
Since the beginning of the case, several inconsistencies and developments have emerged that have raised even more questions, including:
● On the night of Ellen’s death, her fiancé was seen leaving the gym wearing shorts.
However, the EMTs who first arrived on the scene recall him wearing sweatpants.
○ Is it possible he changed clothes?
○ Did he tamper with anything else?
● According to the Greenberg’s’ lawyer Joe Podraza, the apartment door lock had been
tampered with – and a Fox News article points out that the lock did not show the signs of
a door having been kicked in.
● Podraza also alleges that Ellen’s body had been moved and the knife found at the scene
had never been fingerprinted.
● According to another Fox News Article and court documents, the crime scene was
cleaned up before detectives arrived with a search warrant.
● Ellen had numerous bruises all over her body that were noted in the autopsy, but never
looked into.
○ Some experts who reviewed the photos of the bruising noted that the patterns
were consistent with signs of repeated beating.
● Despite 20 stab wounds and the large amounts of blood throughout the kitchen, Ellen
was found holding a ‘pristine’ white towel.
● Court judges did not receive any records of the police interviews conducted with building
security or Sam Goldberg.
● According to former prosecutor Guy D’Andrea, information was added to the case that
was not initially there when he reviewed it in 2014. Specifically, Ellen’s phone and
computer records including a Google search for ‘painless’ ways to commit suicide.
● One medical examiner believes that one of the 20 stab wounds was inflicted post
mortem.
Greenberg’s parents, Sandee and Dr. Joshua Greenberg, firmly believe that Ellen was murdered and have been persistently fighting for more than a decade to challenge the medical examiner’s conclusion that her death was a suicide. Until recently, they received very little response to their efforts, but their persistence paid off with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court finally agreeing to review the case.
The review is anticipated to occur at the beginning of 2025. While the hearing may take more than a year to unfold, the investigation is now with the Chester County District Attorney’s office due to numerous conflicts-of-interest in Philadelphia, where the case initially took place. Over the next year, the Greenbergs may finally get some answers.
As for Sam Goldberg, he has since remarried and now resides in New York with his wife and children. Although the media has reached out regarding the resurfacing story, he has chosen not to comment.
And a final note, for the record: After previous conflicts-of-interest within the Philadelphia DA’s Office, the case was at one point removed to the Pennsylvania State Attorney General’s Office. Following a two-year review, the State AG affirmed the ruling of suicide – but then changed his mind and sent the case back to the Philadelphia DA’s Office for further review. The AG at the time? Josh Shapiro, current Pennsylvania Governor and formerly a frontrunner for Kamala Harris’s pick for Vice President.
A frontrunner many were surprised was not picked.
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