by The Pennsylvania Supreme Court will hear the case of Philadelphia teacher Ellen Greenberg, whose 2011 stabbing death was ruled a homicide before the medical examiner ruled it a suicide after police objected.
It’s a bombshell update that her parents, Joshua and Sandra Greenberg, have been waiting for.
Officials initially ruled Ellen’s manner of death as a homicide in 2011, but it was later changed to a suicide. Since then, her parents have been fighting for justice.
This meant asking the court to change the ruling from suicide to homicide or undetermined death. Armed with a team of experts, they conducted an investigation that challenged the decision of suicide, which they claim was changed at the insistence of the police.
“It’s been 13 years and the city has been fighting us every step of the way,” said Sandra Greenberg The Independent in April. “Ellen was a Philadelphia girl, she deserves better from her city.”
Now, they are one step closer. Ellen’s case will now move to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
“For every citizen in this Commonwealth this case could have an impact in their lives or the lives of their loved ones,” said Joseph Podraza, the family’s attorney. The Philadelphia Inquirer following the order issued on Tuesday.
“We believe that if we are allowed to go to trial, a jury or judge will determine that the evidence is so overwhelming that Ellen did not commit suicide, but rather a homicide that will bring someone or certain people to justice.”
Greenberg, 27, was found dead on January 26, 2011, by her fiancé Samuel Goldberg, at their neighboring apartment in Manayunk. She was slumped against the cabinets, her legs flashed out in front of her. The beloved primary school teacher was stabbed at least 20 times. A 10 inch knife was placed in her chest.
The Philadelphia Medical Examiner, Marlon Osbourne, ruled her death a homicide, noting the multiple stab wounds, including 10 to the back of her neck.
But police ruled her death a suicide because the door to her flat was locked from the inside and her husband – who said he found her after breaking down the door – had no defensive wounds.
After police publicly challenged the findings, Osbourne shifted the ruling to unexplained suicide.
For more than a decade, the Greenbergs have been fighting to change their manner of death from suicide back to homicide or undetermined, alleging in civil lawsuits that it was reversed after a closed-door meeting with city police.
The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office reviewed Ellen’s case in 2019 and ruled her death a suicide. In 2022, Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s office reaffirmed that ruling after reviewing the case again between December 2021 and January 2022.
Shapiro, who served as AG from 2017 to 2023, was elected governor of Pennsylvania in 2023, and is reportedly on Vice President Kamala Harris’ short list, along with Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.
In 2019, the Greenbergs filed a civil lawsuit against the Office of the Medical Examiner and pathologist Marlon Osbourne, seeking to have their daughter’s manner of death changed.
But a Pennsylvania appeals court ruled that the Greenbergs do not have standing to sue the city of Philadelphia over the investigation into her death. The Commonwealth court did not rule on whether or not the manner of death could be changed, and criticized the investigation into Ellen’s death.
The panel said that while they were “very aware of the highly flawed investigation into the victim’s death by detectives of the City of Philadelphia Police Department, the City of Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, and the Office of the Medical Examiner, we have no choice under the law,” and in instead it sent it back to the lower courts for further action.
“However, in the interest of justice, we believe that providing a detailed review of the Victim’s death and subsequent investigation is clearly warranted in the hope that justice will one day prevail for the Victim and her family,” wrote Judge Elaine Ceisler in. the September 13 ruling.
The “grossly flawed” investigation included crime scene cleanup that took place before the forensic team arrived and was sealed off, according to appeals court documents.
Nearly a year later, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court allowed the appeal filed by the Greenbergs of a Commonwealth Court ruling last year that prevented their civil case against the City of Philadelphia from going to trial.
The state Supreme Court said it will consider whether “executors and administrators of estates have standing to challenge an erroneous determination recorded on the decedent’s death certificate where that determination constitutes a material impediment or hindrance to the victim’s recovery of compensation, restitution or wrongful death, as well as private criminal complaints.”
Oral arguments will be heard in court at a future date.
The Greenbergs have also filed a second civil suit against members of the Medical Examiner’s Office, the Police Department, and the DA’s Office seeking monetary damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress. That suit is still ongoing.
