Pa. Supreme Court takes case of Ellen Greenberg, whose death by 20 stab wounds was ruled suicide

The state’s highest court will take on one of the city’s most confounding death cases — that of Philadelphia first-grade teacher Ellen Greenberg, whose death by 20 stab wounds in 2011 was ruled homicide before being switched to suicide.

In an order issued Tuesday, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania granted the appeal filed by Greenberg’s parents, Joshua and Sandra of Harrisburg, of a Commonwealth Court ruling last year that prevented their civil case against the City of Philadelphia from going to trial. In that case, the Greenbergs seek to have the manner of their daughter’s death changed from suicide back to homicide or undetermined.

The Greenbergs’ Center City attorney, Joseph Podraza, said his clients were “elated” and moved to tears when they learned their petition to appeal was granted.

“I’m extremely pleased, too, and a little surprised, given how hard it is to have a case accepted for review by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court,” Podraza said. “The court can only take a very small fraction [of cases] and then only those which impact Pennsylvanians across the state.”

A spokesperson for the city’s law department declined to comment, due to ongoing litigation.

According to the order granting the appeal, the Supreme Court will consider the issue of whether “executors and administrators of an estate have standing to challenge an erroneous finding recorded on the decedent’s death certificate where that finding constitutes a bar or material impediment to recovery of victim’s compensation, restitution or for wrongful death, as well as private criminal complaints.”

Greenberg, 27, was found by her fiancé, Samuel Goldberg, in the kitchen of their Manayunk apartment with a 10-inch knife lodged in her chest on Jan. 26, 2011.

Investigators on the scene treated her death as a suicide because the apartment door — which Goldberg said he broke down — was locked from the inside, there were no signs of an intruder, and Greenberg had no defensive wounds, police have said.

But the next morning at the autopsy, then assistant Philadelphia Medical Examiner Marlon Osbourne discovered a total of 20 stab wounds to Greenberg’s body, including 10 to the back of her neck, and ruled her death a homicide.

Police publicly disputed the findings and Osbourne later changed his ruling to suicide, with no explanation to Greenberg’s parents.

The Greenbergs retained numerous forensic experts who have questioned authorities’ findings, as first detailed in a March 2019 Inquirer report.

Podraza filed a civil suit on behalf of the Greenbergs in 2019 against the ME’s Office and Osbourne, seeking to have the manner of Ellen’s death changed back to homicide or undetermined. As a result of that suit, additional details about the case came to light through discovery, including Goldberg’s call to 911, new information about the unusual process around how Ellen’s death was classified, and new testimony about whether one of the wounds to her neck was possibly administered after she died.

In October 2021, Judge Glynnis D. Hill of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas ruled that the family’s suit could proceed to trial.

The city appealed that ruling to the Commonwealth Court, arguing that under the law, a medical examiner’s “inherently discretionary professional opinion” can’t be challenged and that even if the findings were incorrect “... the law makes clear that a medical examiner can be wrong as to the manner of death yet cannot be compelled to change it.”

In the Commonwealth Court’s 2-1 decision in September, judges wrote they had “no choice under the law” but to grant the City of Philadelphia’s appeal because the Greenbergs didn’t have standing to seek a revision in their daughter’s listed manner of death.

Even though the Commonwealth Court ruled in the city’s favor, its opinion of how Philadelphia authorities handled the investigation into Greenberg’s death was blistering. The judges wrote that “... this court is acutely aware of the deeply flawed investigation of the victim’s death by the City of Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) detectives, the City of Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office (DAO), and the MEO [Medical Examiner’s Office].”

In writing their 39-page opinion, which included a review of the investigations, the Commonwealth Court said it did so “in the interests of justice” and “with hopes that equity may one day prevail for the victim and her loved ones.”

Podraza said he hoped the Supreme Court would take up the appeal because a medical examiner or coroner’s decision on a manner of death impacts people statewide on many things, such as entitlement to insurance money and victims funds, and because giving a coroner or medical examiner “absolute discretion that can’t be challenged” is “a very foreign concept.”

This is especially true in Pennsylvania, he said, where a coroner is typically an elected position, one that does not require a medical degree or medical training. While Philadelphia, Delaware, and Allegheny Counties have appointed medical examiners who are certified forensic pathologists, and Northampton and Luzerne Counties have appointed coroners, the remaining 62 counties have elected coroners who must meet only three requirements: They are over 18, have lived in the county for a year, and have taken a basic, 32-hour education course.

“It’s scary when you consider all the counties in Pennsylvania and a very small percentage actually have a coroner or a medical examiner who has medical training,” Podraza said. “That, to me, is the definition of an area of decision that needs to be closely watched.”

Both parties will be required to file briefs in the case and then oral arguments will be heard by the court at a date that is yet to be determined.

In rendering its order, the Supreme Court noted that Justice David N. Wecht did not participate in its decision. Wecht’s father, noted Pittsburgh forensic pathologist Cyril H. Wecht, is one of the experts the Greenbergs consulted with who have questioned Philadelphia authorities’ findings.

A second civil suit the Greenbergs have filed 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 remains ongoing.