Police and medical examiners 'conspired to call Ellen Greenberg's death by 20 stab wounds a suicide to cover up botched murder investigation', her family claim

Parents of a young teacher found with 20 stab wounds claim police and medical examiners conspired to rule her death a suicide to cover up a botched investigation.

Ellen Greenberg, 27, was found dead on the kitchen floor of her apartment in Philadelphia in the middle of a blizzard on January 26, 2011.

She had 10 stab wounds to her neck and the back of the head, and 10 to her stomach, abdomen, and chest with a 10-inch knife still plunged into her heart.

Her fiancé Sam Goldberg told police he broke down the door, which was locked from the inside, found her, and attempted CPR while on the phone with 911.

Assistant Philadelphia Medical Examiner Marlon Osbourne initially ruled her death a homicide, but changed it to suicide after a meeting with police and prosecutors.

Ellen Greenberg was 27 years old when her fiancé Sam Goldberg found her dead in the kitchen of her Philadelphia apartment on January 26, 2011

Greenberg's parents Joshua and Sandee have spent the 13 years since, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, trying to reverse the death certificate change to suicide 

Greenberg's parents Joshua and Sandee have spent the 13 years since, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, trying to reverse it and last week had a major victory in that effort.

They also filed a second lawsuit in October 2022 claiming the coverup amounted to intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The couple claimed police committed major blunders in the first days after Greenberg's death that 'embarrassingly botched their investigation'.

Instead of continuing with the homicide investigation, they instead conspired to cover it up by having her death ruled a suicide, the lawsuit claimed.

New documents filed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas on Thursday were in response to motions by the defendants to dismiss the case.

They accused the defendants of asking the court to 'whitewash their conduct and perpetuate the concealment of their criminal misdeeds without taking responsibility for their abhorrent wrongdoing or the severe harm attributable to their unspeakable criminal actions' by dismissing the case.

The alleged cover up was 'orchestrated' by Sam Gulino, Philadelphia's then-Chief Medical Examiner, and police including Sergeant Tim Cooney and Detective John McNamee.

Then-assistant ME Marlon Osbourne, who performed the autopsy, and pathologist Lyndsey Emery were 'drawn willingly into the conspiracy', the document claimed.

The documents accused them of 'heinous acts' and 'unforgivable misconduct', and claimed the case had cost Greenberg's parents $600,000 and counting.

Greenberg's fiancé Sam Goldberg told police he broke down the door, which was locked from the inside, found her, and attempted CPR while on the phone with 911

Ellen's parents Sandee and Joshua Greenberg tell DailyMail.com they have 'a mountain of evidence' to prove their daughter was murdered 

Their lawyer Joseph Podraza wrote in the filing that the cover up spanned years, and was only discovered during depositions for their other lawsuit in 2021.

'[Her parents] believed Ellen's manner of death was predicated on a misunderstanding by the Medical Examiner's Office or, at worse, a difference of opinion,' he wrote.

The lawsuit explained how police failed to properly secure the crime scene, and did not take Goldberg's clothes or photograph him despite the blood on his hands.

They also delegated interviewing him to non-homicide detectives with the assumption her death was a suicide.

Then on January 27, police let Goldberg's family into the apartment unsupervised to take property, and had a crime scene cleanup crew sanitize it before they arrived.

Osborne did not find the 10 stab wounds in Greenberg's neck and back of her head and realize it was a homicide until later that day, by which time CSU had little to work with.

Soon after Osborne called Greenberg's death a homicide, police 'spread misinformation' in the press to 'perpetuate the myth of Ellen's death as a suicide'.

The documents claimed this was to 'deflect attention away from PPD's grossly substandard work, which they never disclosed'.

Gulino said he and Osborne were then summoned to an 'unusual' meeting with the police and DA's office.

'[It's] clear that they were presenting information because they felt that the manner of death was different from what had been ruled,' he said in depositions.

'We're smiling, we're very optimistic... I hope we're making our daughter proud. There's been a lot of frustration, but we haven't given up,' Sandee said

Joshua said the family would change a longstanding precedent if it won, and hoped Greenberg's cause of death would at least be changed to 'undetermined'

The documents claimed police gave the pair information they knew to be false to pressure Osbourne into changing his homicide determination.

'Gulino supported changing the manner of death from homicide, warning Osbourne that "if it remains homicide, someone could be unduly incarcerated and/or wrongful charges adjudicated against them",' they claimed.

The lie, the documents claimed, was police claiming they confirmed a doorman was with Goldberg when he broke the door down - despite him never saying so.

This became a pivotal moment in the case and was a key factor in the manner of death being changed to suicide.

'[It] was important to find out if it was broken, if anyone was there to see it be broken, or is it just the story we're getting from the decedent's boyfriend that it was broken by him,' Osbourne said in depositions. 

'[It] doesn't seem like anyone else could have been in the room to inflict those injuries other than Ms Greenberg herself, and that is how I came to the conclusion of suicide.'

But the doorman, Phil Hanton, submitted a signed statement saying he wasn't there and never left his post as he was the only one on duty.

Cameras in the building also showed Hanton did not go upstairs with Goldberg.

Goldberg told police he had gone to the gym downstairs about 4.45pm and couldn't get back inside the apartment when he returned half an hour later

Goldberg is now a married father-of-two working as a film and TV producer in Manhattan. He married Caroline Fay Shnay, the daughter of well-off real estate agents, at the Plaza in New York City on January 11, 2014

The documents also claimed Osborne fabricated a story about taking a section of Greenberg's spinal column to renowned neuropathologist Lucy Rorke-Adams.

Bizarrely, he claimed he put it in a jar and walked it through heavy snow to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where Rorke-Adams worked.

Osborne claimed she looked at it and could see the spinal cord itself wasn't cut, so Greenberg wasn't paralyzed and could have kept stabbing herself.

However, Rorke-Adams never billed for the consultation or wrote a report, and years later said she had no memory of the entire episode.

'Osbourne's claims about Rorke-Adams are phony, as a jury could reasonably conclude,' the documents argued.

'Even Gulino knows this and, at different times over the years, expressed skepticism to others about Osbourne's claims of Rorke-Adams' involvement.' 

'Without the lies, Osbourne could not walk back his determination Ellen was murdered based on the overwhelming medical evidence of homicide obtained at her autopsy.'

Gulino was so skeptical of Osborne's story that he secretly had Emery examine the section of Greenberg's spinal column kept in storage.

Emery told the deposition that the wounds on the spinal column and the dura didn't have any hemorrhaging around them.

'Lack of hemorrhage means no pulse,' she said.

'There is no hemorrhage. There is no tissue injury, which I know, then, by looking at it under the microscope. 

'So I have all of this evidence that says there is no - there's no hemorrhage or reaction to any of these changes in the spinal cord.'

Podraza replied: 'So what you're saying is, Ellen would have been dead when this was administered?'

Emery confirmed, 'Yeah'.

Greenberg's body was also covered in 11 bruises on her arm, abdomen, and leg at varying stages of healing, which her father claimed had to be from abuse over a long period of time

The documents explained she told Gulino about her findings and told the deposition 'he ordered her not to write a report or otherwise record the findings from her examination'.

'They instead concealed Emery's findings, content with misleading the world and Ellen's family into believing Ellen's death was a suicide,' it claimed.

'Allowing a murderer(s) to remain free, and without a thought about the severe emotional consequences they were inflicting on Josh and Sandee, parents who were and are desperate to know why their only child died so gruesomely.'  

Gulino claimed he intended to record Emery's findings in a written report shortly after Emery shared them, the documents stated.

But he didn't because he was 'specifically instructed by a Philadelphia solicitor not to prepare anything in writing' because the Greenbergs had filed a lawsuit.

Gulino also 'does not deny telling the officers that he was inclined to amend Ellen's manner of death to something other than suicide but was instructed not to by a City's Solicitor'.

A month after Emery's deposition, she made a written declaration saying she didn't fully grasp the scope of the question and there were three more reasons there could have been no hemorrhaging.

Podraza and Greenberg's parents don't buy it, with the documents calling it 'a sham, a fabrication contrary to Emery's sworn testimony'. 

'The declaration is merely a poor attempt at subterfuge to cloud Emery's unambiguous May 11 testimony on the 1.1cm wound,' it claimed.

A crime scene analyst hired by the family noted that Ellen had been moved. She was found seated on the floor, propped up against kitchen cabinets, yet a streak of coagulated blood ran in a horizontal line from her nose to her ear

This graphic shows knife wounds Ellen suffered to her neck and chest, that pierced her brain and severed her spinal cord

The documents explained Emery's deposition was the first time the Greenbergs realized there was a cover up, a decade after her death.

'[They] learned that no matter how compelling or conclusive their evidence, these officials would never allow Ellen's manner of death to be changed,' it claimed.

Joshua vented his frustration at the city sending an army of lawyers to block them at every turn.

'We have had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and 13 years trying to get justice for our daughter,' he told DailyMail.com.

'And it could have been handled right away without spending a hell of a lot of money and a lot of time. 

'How much is the city spent on this? How much is the city wasted, time wise, where they could be doing more beneficial things to the citizens of Philadelphia and the state of Pennsylvania?

'What they're covering up, I don't know. Are they covering up police inadequacy and mistakes? Are they covering up some other personality or person? 

'I don't know, but it's a cover up. There's a mistake somewhere here, a big f**king mistake.'

Another graphic show's Ellen's spinal cord had actually been severed and her brain pierced in two forceful stabs to the neck. She could have neither defended nor harmed herself after those blows

Greenberg's parents spent years conducting their own investigation with private detectives, several pathologists, and photogrammetry recreating each of the 20 stab wounds.

'This is not something we thought, in a million years, we would ever be doing or would ever happen. We thought there was a very bright future. We were planning for future generations never expecting her life to end like this,' Sandee said.

'It took years for us to piece this together. At the beginning I was sitting up at night looking at reports with a centimeter ruler trying to figure out how that really translated into how shallow or deep the incisions were on my child's body. 

'We realized we needed to get experts to help us do this so that's what we did.'

DailyMail.com conducted its own investigation in 2020, speaking with the experts the Greenbergs employed along with others - all of whom agreed the case wasn't as open and shut as authorities insisted.

Much of the suspicion has fallen on Goldberg, who is now a married father-of-two working as a film and TV producer in Manhattan.

He has never spoken publicly about his fiancée's death, and never been outright accused of causing it.

'Police murder investigations usually start with the people who are closer in relation to the victim,' Joshua said.

He added that given the number of wounds, there could have been a second attacker with a murder weapon that was never found.

Ellen had been stabbed ten times in the back of her neck and head and ten in her stomach, abdomen and chest and a knife was still plunged in her heart

Greenberg's body was also covered in 11 bruises on her arm, abdomen, and leg at varying stages of healing, which her father claimed had to be from abuse over a long period of time.

'I think those those injuries are crucial to the whole thing,' he said, adding that covering up the abuse could be a motive for murdering her.

Joshua said his daughter's behavior changed and she wanted to quit her job, leave Goldberg and move back home with her parents, and they had agreed to take her in.

'Sandy and I both believe Ellen was gonna go home that day,' he said.

'She had taken off the engagement ring, had packed up her makeup, which was very valuable to her, and she was planning to leave.

'And I think things didn't work out well, and she never made it home.'

Police claimed the bruises were likely from playing contact sports, or doing yoga or pilates - none of which Greenberg did. 

'The whole thing is baloney,' Joshua said.

Greenberg's parents also insisted she was not suicidal, but she was nervous and anxious in the weeks leading up to her death.

The door had a swing lock that Greenberg's family said was barely damaged and not in the right way for it being kicked in 

Sam Goldberg (right) is seen with friends and family in a 2009 Facebook photo posted by his sister

Friends told her parents that they too noticed a change, and that increasingly she deferred to Goldberg on decisions she would once have made for herself.

Her parents made her a deal that she could come home if she saw a psychiatrist about what was troubling her, and she agreed.

'Ellen's behavior had changed, and the police tried to say that she was crazy and suicidal. Well, she wasn't,' Joshua said.

'I made an agreement because she wanted to come home and I wanted to take care of her, but I didn't want her to lose her job if she didn't have to.'

Psychiatrist Ellen Berman saw Greenberg three times, diagnosed her with anxiety, and prescribed her Ambien and Klonopin - but was very clear that she wasn't suicidal.

Podraza also said the FBI searched her computer and didn't find any suicide-related searches.

Where is Sam Goldberg now? 

Greenberg's parents said Goldberg sporadically kept in touch with Sandee for two or three years after her death.

'At the end of the conversation, I would always say, you know, Sam, this was not a suicide, we know this is not,' she told DailyMail.com 

'He never responded, and he would just hang up.'

The last they heard from him was in 2013 in an email telling them he was getting married. 

Goldberg married Caroline Fay Shnay, the daughter of well-off real estate agents, at the Plaza in New York City on January 11, 2014, almost exactly three years after Greenberg's death.

Sam Goldberg with wife Caroline Shnay Goldberg and their child in a 2017 Facebook photo

Shnay told a blogger in 2017 about how she quit her career as a fashion buyer after 12 years to be a full-time mother to her daughter Lola, who was born in late 2015.

'Today Lola is 18 months and I stand by this decision. I admit, there are many challenging days and I often remind myself that this day, this time in my life will not last forever,' she said

'What they say about motherhood is true, the days are long, the years are short.'

Shnay said Goldberg was 'hands on, and present, a true life saver' 

'He is also a star in the kitchen. Besides from me breastfeeding Lola for her first five months of life, Sam has cooked most of her meals that are not from an Annie's box,' she said.

Martin Shnay and his daughter Caroline Shnay attend Alice + Olivia pop-up store opening at Scoop on November 20, 2009

The couple live in a two-bedroom apartment in Grammercy Park they bought for $1.8 million in 2017.

Goldberg is a film and TV producer whose credits mainly consist of little-known independent titles.

Greenberg's parents said they hadn't kept up with his life since then, and didn't care to.

'I don't think it's any of our business, I don't know what he does. There's no interest on my part about what his life is like,' Joshua said.