What Happened to Ellen?: An American Miscarriage of Justice

Summary

HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED IN THE UNITED STATES?

Beautiful, accomplished, and beloved, Ellen Greenberg was a vivacious and affectionate teacher of young children she adored. Always upbeat, she deeply loved her family and friends, and especially her fiancée, Sam Goldberg, with whom she was planning a wedding. In fact, they’d just sent out the save-the-date announcements when, on January 26, 2011, Ellen was found in the kitchen of the luxury apartment she shared with Sam, a knife still plunged in her chest. She’d been brutally stabbed more than twenty times, at least one of the wounds having been assessed as occurring post-mortem. The autopsy by the Philadelphia medical examiner recorded homicide as the cause of death. Following a secretive meeting, attended by members of the Philadelphia Police Department and Attorney General’s Office, the cause of death was changed to “suicide.” How could that possibly be? Could this petite, twenty-seven-year-old woman have so forcibly murdered herself, hitting parts of her body no one could reach with such Herculean force, again and again and again? Top forensics investigators who have painstakingly studied this case take huge exception to the suicide finding. They say it’s impossible. Period. So why can’t Ellen Greenberg’s still grieving parents get the Philadelphia justice system to simply reopen the case, despite a groundswell of public pressure and thirteen years of legal battles and appeals? Why is it that even the Philadelphia Supreme Court called the handling of the case questionable and even riddled with mistakes but stopped short of ordering a new investigation?