Ellen Rae Greenberg (June 23, 1983 – January 26, 2011) was an American woman who died after sustaining 20 stab wounds. Her death was officially ruled a suicide. Her family and several medical experts disputed this conclusion, and thought homicide was more likely. The circumstances surrounding the manner of death have prompted significant political activity, legal action, and global media coverage.
Greenberg's family filed a civil lawsuit against the city of Philadelphia, claiming intentional infliction of emotional distress. The case was settled in February 2025 during early stages of the trial, with a $650,000 payment to the family and an agreement to conduct an expeditious medical re-examination of Greenberg's manner of death. In October 2025, Philadelphia's top pathologist issued a report reaffirming the original ruling that Greenberg's manner of death was suicide.
In December 2025, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania opened a federal investigation into Greenberg's death, probing potential criminal corruption and civil rights violations regarding whether Philadelphia municipal agencies properly handled or actively covered up the 2011 death investigation. In January 2026, federal grand jury subpoenas were issued to the Philadelphia Police Department and other local agencies involved in the case, and the investigation expanded in the spring of 2026 to include interviews by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents and federal prosecutors of witnesses and key individuals associated with the forensic reviews.
Background Ellen Rae Greenberg was born on June 23, 1983, in New York City to Josh and Sandee (née Rubin) Greenberg, and was an only child. The family moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, when she was 11 years old, and she later attended Susquehanna Township High School in Harrisburg, graduating in 2001."Stabbed Pa. teacher Ellen Greenberg 'wanted that happy ending.' It never arrived". PennLive. January 21, 2025. She earned a bachelor's degree in communications from Penn State University in 2005, and subsequently her teaching credentials from Temple University and Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, earning a master's degree.
At the time of her death, she was a first-grade teacher at Juniata Park Academy in the Juniata neighborhood of Philadelphia, and had taught at the school for four years."Pa. Supreme Court to hear wrongful death case of Philadelphia teacher Ellen Greenberg ," NBC Philadelphia, July 31, 2024. She lived in the Manayunk neighborhood of Philadelphia, where she shared an apartment at the Venice Lofts apartment complex with her fiancé, Samuel Goldberg.
She had met her fiancé, Samuel Goldberg, on a blind date. He was an associate director and television producer for NBC Sports at the time. He had proposed to her in June 2010, approximately three years into their relationship."Where Is Ellen Greenberg's Fiancé Now? Inside Sam Goldberg's Life 14 Years After He Found Her Stabbed Body in Their Locked Apartment," AOL, September 29, 2025. Their wedding was planned for August 13, 2011, and she had mailed out "Save the Date" cards to guests four days before her death./ "What Ellen Greenberg's final days were like: 'She wasn't right. But not suicide'," Penn Live, February 17, 2025.
Incident On January 26, 2011, a blizzard hit Philadelphia, prompting Greenberg to leave work and return to her apartment. She arrived back at her Manayunk apartment at approximately 1:30 p.m."Review of Philadelphia MEO case 11-0420 (Ellen Greenberg)". Chief Medical Examiner Lindsay Simon / WPVI. October 13, 2025.
According to the investigation report, her fiancé, Samuel Goldberg, returned from a gym in their building to find their apartment door secured from the inside with a swing-bar latch./ "Ellen Greenberg death: The city of Philadelphia reaffirms its finding that her death was a suicide," CNN, October 13, 2025. After unsuccessfully trying to reach Greenberg, Goldberg broke through the locked latch mechanism to gain entry into their apartment. "A civil suit reveals new details in the case of Ellen Greenberg," The Philadelphia Inquirer. March 2022. Upon entering, he discovered Greenberg's dead body on the kitchen floor, with a knife embedded in her chest."A civil suit reveals new details in the case of Ellen Greenberg". The Philadelphia Inquirer via Lamb McErlane PC."Ellen Greenberg case update". CNN. February 3, 2025. Goldberg called 911 at 6:33 p.m., stating to the dispatcher that Greenberg had "stabbed herself" and "fell on a knife".
At approximately 6:40 p.m., Greenberg was pronounced dead. Her death was the result of 20 stab wounds. They included 10 stab wounds to the back of her head/right neck (ranging from nicks to two that were about deep; among them a gash on her scalp), and 8 to her central front torso (ranging from .2 centimeters to the wound of the knife embedded in her chest, and including a wound to her stomach)."Chester County DA will not pursue criminal investigation into Ellen Greenberg's death ," Philly Voice, November 8, 2024."Mystery Deepens," Philadelphia Inquirer, March 27, 2022. A subsequent 2025 report by the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office said that many of the stab wounds "would best be categorized as hesitation wounds. No defensive injuries were identified on her body.""Suicide Ruling Held In Ellen Greenberg's Manayunk Death," Patch, October 14, 2025.
Greenberg also had 11 bruises in various stages of resolution, including a large dark bruise on her upper right arm just below her shoulder, three bruises on her right forearm including a vivid round one near her wrist, one bruise on her abdomen, three bruises above her right knee, and three bruises on her right thigh, a city medical examiner noted."She had 20 knife wounds and at least 11 bruises. Authorities said she killed herself," CNN, December 7, 2024. The 2025 report noted 20 more bruises, as well as three more stab wounds that were superficial."Philadelphia court closes review of Ellen Greenberg case, but family vows to continue fight" 6ABC.com.October 15, 2025.
Initial investigations
Police and Medical Examiner investigations Greenberg was officially pronounced dead at 6:40 p.m. by responding emergency personnel."Review of Philadelphia MEO case 11-0420 (Ellen Greenberg)". Chief Medical Examiner Lindsay Simon / WPVI. October 13, 2025. The apartment crime scene was initially treated as a suicide by police investigators. However, on January 27, following an autopsy, the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office initially ruled the manner of death as a homicide. The next day, the Philadelphia Police Department disputed that conclusion, publicly stating: "the death of Ellen Greenberg has not been ruled a homicide ... Homicide investigators are considering the manner of death as suspicious at this time." Following subsequent discussions with law enforcement, the medical examiner's office reversed its conclusion, saying two weeks later that the death was a suicide."Philadelphia medical examiner reaffirms Ellen Greenberg's stabbing death was a suicide," 6abc, October 14, 2025.
The apartment was professionally cleaned and sanitized on January 27, after police gave permission to do so. James Schwartzman, Samuel Goldberg's uncle, who was an attorney and the Chairman of the Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board, also entered the apartment that day to retrieve work and personal laptops, cell phones, and credit cards belonging to both Goldberg and Greenberg. Police investigators returned to the scene on January 28 after securing a search warrant, at which point they requested and retrieved the electronic items taken by Schwartzman.
Attorney General investigation In April 2018, the office of Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro assumed control of the case due to a conflict of interest within the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office. In May 2019, a spokesperson for the Attorney General's office stated that internet searches recovered from Ellen's personal computer pointed toward Greenberg's death being a suicide, and that the state's independent investigation had been closed.
Legal representation for the Greenberg family disputed the validity of the computer evidence, stating that it was undisputed that Samuel Goldberg's uncle, James Schwartzman, had taken possession of Ellen's iPhone and two computers, thus breaking the chain of custody, before he handed them over to police. The Philadelphia Police Department had also previously submitted Ellen Greenberg's electronic devices to the Philadelphia Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory (RCFL) for a forensic examination, and an internal police document later summarized the findings: "Keyword Searches were done on every computer searching for Suicide Information and the examination did not reveal anything remarkable."
During the year in which the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office maintained jurisdiction over the case, the Greenberg family's legal team submitted to it a substantial volume of data exceeding 10 gigabytes of newly developed evidence. The submission included forensic files and medical evaluations, digital three-dimensional anatomical reconstructions detailing and analyzing each of the 20 stab wounds inflicted upon her body. It also included extensive deposition transcripts of three officials from the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office, one of whom testified that Ellen was likely already dead before a final stab wound was delivered.
Case deemed inactive In August 2022, the Attorney General's Office sent the investigation to the Chester County, Pennsylvania District Attorney's Office to avoid the "appearance of a conflict of interest," leading to a review of previous findings, new interviews, and an independent expert consultation. In November 2024, the Chester County District Attorney's Office concluded that the available evidence did not meet the burden of proof for criminal charges, resulting in the case being deemed inactive.
Attorneys for Greenberg's parents criticized the outcome of the investigation, alleged a failure to address evidence that suggesting homicide, questioned the qualifications of the expert consulted, and disputed the investigation's conclusions.
Private investigations On March 15, 2019, The Philadelphia Inquirer published a front-page investigative report reviewing the what was described as suspicious circumstances surrounding Greenberg's death. Pittsburgh forensic pathologist Cyril H. Wecht determined the case was "strongly suspicious of homicide", and said publicly how he did not "know how they wrote this off as a suicide".
Similarly, forensic scientist Henry Lee reviewed the case files and concluded: "the number and types of wounds and bloodstain patterns observed are consistent with a homicide scene".
One significant point of contention in the investigation involved the physical impact of the stab wounds that allegedly penetrated Greenberg's brain and spinal cord."City of Philadelphia Office of the Medical Examiner Court Filing". Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. September 13, 2023. Wayne K. Ross, a forensic pathologist and neuropathologist investigator hired by the Greenberg family, concluded that a specific wound penetrated the cranial cavity and severed cranial nerves, and wrote that the wounds to the brain and spinal cord would have induced immediate traumatic brain injury signs, severe pain, and cranial nerve dysfunction.