Hey y’all, it’s Julie Mattson, and this week on Pushing Up Lilies, we’re delving into a case as haunting as it is perplexing, the death of Ellen Greenberg. Found lifeless in her Philadelphia apartment with 20 stab wounds, her death was initially ruled a homicide before inexplicably changing it to suicide. But cracks in that story began to show. We’ll trace the timeline leading up to Ellen’s death, examine the alarming inconsistencies in the investigation, and hear how her family fought tirelessly to reopen the case. With questions about forensic evidence, mysterious injuries, and a grand home full of secrets, this one is far from closed. Join me as we sift through the shadows, ask hard questions, and try to find the truth behind a death that shouldn’t have been forgotten. * Listener discretion is advised.
CONNECT WITH JULIE MATTSON:
• Website: https://pushinguplilies.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pushinguplilies
00:06
Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies. I'm your host, Julie Mattson. Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
00:24
Do I have some stories for you? Are you ready? Good morning, here we are again. Another episode, another week, another busy week. No one who really hasn't been bad for us here, although the weekend staff at our office were pretty busy.
00:46
We had some storms here the other day that blew through and blew over an RV and a lady was trapped in there and actually died of her injuries and she was in her 70s, but the storms y'all have been crazy.
01:03
You know, we had some deaths in my hometown just last year from a tornado. It's been really kind of weird weather. It started raining yesterday morning at like 430 and I mean a downpour. I could not believe how hard it was raining.
01:21
Storms kind of scare me. Anyway, today I wanted to talk about the Ellen Greenberg case, but first I wanted to mention did y'all hear the story about the animal handler in Oklahoma who died from a tiger attack and it's horrifying because he was actually performing in front of a crowd at an animal preserve in Oklahoma, so not far from where I'm at.
01:50
And it always gets me how everybody's surprised, you know, when there's a wild animal attack and I just don't think they can be trained. And this happened this past Saturday in Ugo, Oklahoma. Ryan Easley was only 37.
02:08
He was the owner of this wildlife preserve, and he was performing with a tiger for an audience when the animal actually turned on him and killed him. I guess it was close to the end of the show, but all these people actually saw it.
02:28
It's strange when people say no one knows what made the tiger attack him. Well, you know, this is a wild animal being held in captivity. I mean, dogs turn on people. So if you have a huge tiger that gets mad, you know, then you're lunch.
02:49
I guess Easley had raised this tiger since it was a cub. But, you know, I don't know. I mean, I always think hell. I mean, people kill people. People that actually have the capability of loving one another kill people.
03:03
So, it wouldn't be unusual to me that a wild animal who, I mean, I don't know if they can feel love or not, I guess they can, but they, I think, sometimes don't know their own strength. If you have this huge animal, apparently it bit him around the neck and shoulder and killed him instantly.
03:25
His wife and daughter were among those who actually witnessed the attack. And, of course, the wife rushed into the cage and, I guess, removed the animal, which would scare me. I wouldn't wanna get in the cage with the animal once it attacked and killed my husband.
03:43
Of course, he was taken to the medical examiner's office. And I've never worked a case of a wild animal like this. I have worked a case where a dog mauled somebody, but I guess that's the only, now that I think of it, that's the only case I've really ever worked where animals were involved.
03:59
Of course, we have animal activity after death, and I've worked a lot of those. But yeah, it's just kinda strange to me that people are surprised when this happens. It's super sad, I mean, cuz he was very passionate.
04:17
He was a passionate advocate for wildlife conservation. He loved animals, especially tigers and cats, and dedicated his life to protecting him. And that's great, but I mean, these tigers, they don't know those things.
04:33
But anyway, I decided I'd mention that. I know yesterday I wasn't working. It came across these new stories pop up on the lower right-hand side of my computer. And I'm always like, that'd be an interesting case to talk about.
04:45
And they're popping up all day long. So, I did decide I'm gonna do some episodes on wild animal killings. The guy that got mauled in Africa by the Cape buffalo. I mean, and these are wild animals. They don't love people.
05:01
And when you're threatening them and holding them in captivity, it's not always going to go over well. So, this week I want to talk a little bit about the Ellen Greenberg case. Very suspicious death. She's 27-year-old, first grade teacher found in her Philadelphia apartment.
05:20
This case happened back in January of 2011. It's one that baffled forensic experts. A lot of investigators don't 100% agree on exactly what happened. Everybody's still kind of searching for answers. So, it's an older case.
05:39
And what followed after this case was a battle between homicide and suicide rulings and conflicting forensic opinions, which we get a lot. And more than a decade of her parents fighting for the truth.
05:54
It's chilling not only for its brutality, but again, it helps to reveal cracks in the justice system. So, we're going to dive deep into what happened in apartment 603. Ellen Rae Greenberg was actually born June 23rd, 1983 in New York.
06:14
Her parents were Josh and Sandy Greenberg. She grew up loved and supported, she excelled in school. She eventually pursued a degree in communications at Penn State University. And then she earned her teaching credentials from Temple University and Chestnut Hill College, so very well educated.
06:34
By 2011, she was working as a first-grade teacher at Juniata Park Academy in Philadelphia. She was described as warm, patient, very dedicated. She adored her students. And she was planning her wedding with her fiancé Samuel Goldberg, who was a television producer.
06:54
So, life was good for her. She was happy and doing well. The day this happened; there was a blizzard that was so severe that schools closed early. So, Ellen went home to her apartment in Manayunk, which she shared with her fiancé Sam.
07:14
And that afternoon, surveillance shows Ellen coming home, as we all do, changing into comfortable clothes, working on lesson plans, eating a snack, just kind of doing the normal everyday things, be an Ellen.
07:30
Around 4.45, Sam Goldberg went downstairs to work out in the gym at the apartment complex. About an hour later, he returned, and supposedly he could not get into their apartment. He said that the swing let's lock was on from the inside.
07:49
So, he called and texted her repeatedly. She didn't answer after about an hour. hour he forced the door open. He found Ellen collapsed in the kitchen floor and there was blood running down the cabinets, blood everywhere.
08:04
When Sam called 911, he told the dispatcher she'd stabbed herself, that she'd fallen on a knife. But when he began CPR, he saw a 10-inch serrated kitchen knife sticking out of her chest. Medics arrived on scene.
08:20
She could not be saved. Autopsy was performed. Ellen had sustained 20 stab wounds, 10 to her back and neck and others to her chest and some even on the top of her head. She also had 11 bruises, and these bruises were all in various stages of healing.
08:41
They were on her arms, her abdomen, her legs, given the number and the location of all these wounds. The assistant medical examiner at the time, Dr. Marlon Osborn, initially ruled her death as a homicide, which we all would.
08:57
But the door was locked. So, parts of the story aren't consistent with homicide. But the next day, the Philadelphia police said the death was not officially classified as a homicide, even though they did call it suspicious.
09:15
Weeks later, Dr. Osborn reversed his ruling, and Ellen's manner of death was changed from homicide to suicide. The murder investigation basically stopped, which was completely unthinkable to her parents and devastated them, as you can imagine.
09:34
And you know, we're all very inquisitive. And we're smart, right? Because, I mean, everybody watches First 48 and CSI. And so we're going to have questions. You know, even people who don't work for a medical examiner and people who aren't in the forensics field are going to be like, wait, 20 times, 10 stab wounds in the back?
09:55
How do you do that to yourself? How can you stab yourself 20 times? What about the old bruises? Where did those come from? These were in various stages of healing, obviously not all new, some old, some new.
10:10
The very next day, before a thorough investigation was done, the apartment was cleaned and sanitized. So, we all know how suspicious that is. When you walk in and smell bleach, somebody's been cleaning up.
10:23
And Sam's uncle, Judge James Swartzman, entered the apartment the same day to retrieve laptops, phones, and credit cards belonging to Ellen and Sam before the police obtained a search warrant. So, this judge goes in there and removes all these things into the crime scene before the police went in and removed all those things.
10:47
When police did return with a warrant, they had to request those items that had already been removed. But that chain of custody breach causes issues. I mean, there's fingerprints on those things now.
11:02
First of all, why did you take them? So, several top forensic experts have reviewed this case since then. Dr. Cyril Wick, who is famous for challenging the JFK assassination findings, has called Ellen's case strongly suspicious of homicide.
11:20
And Dr. Henry Lee, who is one of the most respected forensic scientists in the world, agreed that the wound patterns and bloodstain evidence were consistent with homicide. Now, a family hired investigator, Dr.
11:33
Wayne Ross argued that the spinal cord injuries would have caused immediate incapacitation, making additional self-inflicted wounds very unlikely. Ellen's parents, Josh and Sandy Greenberg, have never accepted this suicide ruling, which I don't think I would either.
11:52
In 2019, they filed a civil suit against the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office, seeking to have Ellen's manner of death changed to homicide or undetermined. And now we've talked about this before.
12:05
Sometimes if they don't know, if they can't determine, a case is undetermined. In this case, the family is basically saying, it doesn't look like a suicide. If you don't think it's a homicide, let's at least change the ruling to undetermined.
12:23
Families don't like for their family members to commit suicide and for it to be public. We have a lot of families who call us and say, “We don't want it to be visible by the public”, although it is public information.
12:37
We can remove it from our website so that no one can go in and look at it. The death itself is devastating enough to the family, but for it to be ruled a suicide and for everyone to know about it is oftentimes embarrassing for family members.
12:53
New technology was used to recreate wounds, showing that some injuries were nearly impossible to inflict on herself. In 2022, again, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office reaffirmed suicide, which really made her parents upset.
13:14
And later, the district attorney's office reopened the case and in 2024, Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed to review the manner of death. Finally, this year after a settlement with the city, the case was officially set to be reinvestigated.
13:32
The very pathologist who once ruled Ellen's death a suicide signed a statement reversing his position and declared Ellen's death should not be considered suicide. Since he no longer worked for the medical examiner's office, he really didn't carry a lot of legal weight.
13:51
So, in September 2025, ABC News Studios is releasing a three-part docuseries called Death and Apartment 603, What Happened to Ellen Greenberg? This series is gonna have some new interviews and exclusive case footage, so that should be very interesting to watch.
14:12
So where does this leave us? 20 stab wounds, wounds to the back of the head and neck, multiple bruises, conflicting expert opinions, an apartment, a crime scene, compromised within a 24-hour period, and then her poor parents, they fought for 14 years and haven't gotten any closure.
14:33
And if her death wasn't a suicide, then someone killed her and that person has not been held accountable. Forensic cases like this actually highlight the power. y'all, and the responsibility of the medical examiner's office, like how important our jobs really are, how important a good investigation really is, and the consequences when the rulings are questioned.
14:57
And so it really gives you something to think about. Ellen was, you know, a daughter, a teacher, a friend, a young woman planning her wedding. Her parents just continued their battle. And thanks to ongoing legal efforts, and hopefully this docuseries, this story will reach more people.
15:17
So, I'm curious, what do you think happened? I want to hear y'all's input, and I'd love for y'all to message me and let me know what your thoughts are on this story. It would be hard to stab yourself in the back.
15:30
I mean, in rare cases, people will use multiple attempts and multiple methods. It's not uncommon for someone who is in severe psychosis or under the influence of drugs to repeatedly stab themselves. You know, when you look into how could this actually happen, delirium intoxication, mental illness that can actually reduce pain response and coordination, and all your protective reflexes could allow for repeated self-inflicted injuries that would stop,
16:05
you know, anyone else who is not under the influence of all those things. But this is not really the case here. Some stab wounds can be inflicted from the front or the sides, but from behind, you'd have to be pretty, I mean, and 10 times in the back, y'all, like leaning over, twisting, even in an unusual position, it would be very hard to be able to do that to yourself that many times.
16:35
Of course, whenever the medical examiner looks at these cases, they're going to look at trajectory, they're going to look at what angle did the going in, is it possible for someone to do that at that angle to themselves?
16:50
Trajectory is a big part of the investigation. Depth analysis, what organs, what structures were hit. A lot of times they'll do like a 3D reconstruction to show whether certain wounds could be self-inflicted and whether certain areas of the body would even be reachable, like would be a reachable position.
17:14
They would check toxicology to see if there were any drugs or alcohol that would impair that person. Again, that would make that person impaired and maybe feel less or be a little bit more determined to die and capable of self-inflicted wounds like that.
17:36
They look at bloodstain pattern analysis to reconstruct movements to see like where this happened in the house, look at all the possibilities. Again, this judge knew the importance of crime scene investigation.
17:53
So that to me sounds very, very suspicious. They're going to examine the body for defensive wounds because we all know if you have wounds on the palm of your hands or certain areas where you would get stabbed or would have injuries on them when someone's trying to defend themselves.
18:13
Also, these bruises, like why are there old and new bruises on her? Like what happened? And also, you know, a big part of our job is the surveillance cameras, interviewing witnesses and the police look at phone records to corroborate the timeline.
18:32
Stabbing suicides happen, but they're much less common than gunshot or poisoning suicides. So, Goldberg, apparently when his call came through 911, his voice was frantic. He kind of painted a picture of himself as a victim.
18:47
Her spinal cord had actually been severed. So again, she had two deep forceful stabs to her neck. Her brain had been pierced. And you would think that those injuries would leave her unable to continue any additional self-inflicted harm.
19:06
But very suspicious how Goldberg's uncle came in there and removed a lot of the evidence. Apparently, Goldberg has moved on. He's married now; he lives in New York. He has two children. Many people supported him because they felt like, you know, he was inappropriately blamed.
19:28
But he's at the center of this story. But I feel like that she would have been physically incapable of doing this to herself. And that's just me. 20 stab wounds can be self-inflicted, but under very unusual.
19:43
circumstances like severe mental illness, intoxication, but many of the specific wound patterns that were described in her case, back of the neck, spine, and all these bruises make self-infliction an improbable explanation without very strong supporting forensic evidence.
20:05
I am so glad that top forensic experts and the family pressed for re-investigation in this matter. Suicide by stabbing is rare compared with, again, firearms and poisonings, but it is documented and I'm glad that they're looking into this again.
20:26
I'm curious to see what the inflicted deaths. There are some peer-reviewed cases, but... When pathologists weigh suicide versus homicide, again, they map each wound's angle and depth. They check whether a person could physically reach those sites.
20:50
They look for hesitation cuts versus defense injuries. They study the blood stain pattern, and they correlate all that with toxicology, mental health history, all those kind of things. So, the number of wounds doesn't in itself decide the manner of death.
21:07
So very happy that this investigation is being reopened. Lots of things to look at. So want to know what y'all think about it. What are your thoughts? Do you think someone could commit suicide by stabbing themselves 20 times?
21:23
I have seen someone shoot themselves twice. The first time maybe they didn't incapacitate themselves enough and feared that it wasn't going to work. And so, they shot themselves again in another area.
21:38
I have seen that. But 20 times is a lot, y'all. You can't stabber your own spinal cord and then stab yourself multiple other times. And a lot of it depends on the order of the injuries too. And sometimes you can't tell that, you know, where were they stabbed first.
21:57
Anyway, there's a lot of conflicting evidence. And so, I'm really happy that this case is being reopened. So headed to work this morning. Please don't forget to go online, buy your tickets to our first annual murder mystery dinner.
22:13
October 11th is right around the corner, y'all. Well over half of the tickets are gone. So if you are interested and you really want to go, please sign up. I can promise you it's going to be a night of so much fun.
22:25
Our booth at the McCart Street Mercantile is doing very well. Everyone loves true crime and I'm happy for that. So yeah, I'm going to be restocking that scene with, you know, tasteful true crime. crime merchandise.
22:41
You have to be careful when you're in this field. You don't want to offend people. So, I'm trying to provide tasteful gifts. And just cute because we all love true crime. Don't forget to go get your tickets.
22:55
Don't forget to visit the McCart Street Mercantile if you're here close in the area. And I look forward to talking till next week. I hope that everyone has an amazing week. I hope the county is good to me today and I will talk to y'all soon.
23:09
Bye y'all. Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies. If you like this podcast and would like to share with others, please do me a quick favor and leave a review on Apple podcast. This helps to make the podcast more visible to the public.
23:25
Thanks again for spending your time with me. And be sure to visit me at pushing up lilies.com for merchandise and past episodes.