Ellen Greenberg Found with Multiple Stab Wounds
On January 26, 2011, Goldberg told detectives he left his fiancée in the apartment at around 4:45 p.m. for a workout at the building’s on-site gym. Goldberg said he returned to discover that the apartment door’s inside latch was locked, preventing him from entering.
According to the medical examiner’s report, Goldberg called, texted and emailed Greenberg for nearly 30 minutes. Goldberg decided to break the door. He said he found her lying on her back on the kitchen floor and called 911, per The Philadelphia Inquirer.
“Help! I need an ambulance now,” Goldberg told a dispatcher. “I just walked into my apartment. My fiancée is on the floor with blood everywhere.”
The dispatcher was about to guide Goldberg in administering CPR when Goldberg said, “She fell on a knife. I don’t know. Her knife is sticking out. There’s a knife sticking out of her heart.”
At that point, he was instructed not to perform CPR.
Back and Forth Ruling
Of the 20 stab wounds Greenberg suffered, experts considered two of them fatal, according to the medical examiner’s report. Assistant Medical Examiner Marlon Osbourne declared Greenberg’s death a homicide, but police investigators believed it was a suicide.
Philadelphia prosecutors and police investigators met with Osbourne and his boss, Chief Medical Examiner Sam Gulino, to present evidence that prompted Osbourne to change his medical opinion and reclassify Greenberg's death as suicide, according to a 2022 court opinion issued by a Philadelphia judge for one of the lawsuits filed by Greenberg’s parents.
The details that police provided to Osbourne included background information about Greenberg’s mental health problems and a statement from a neuropathologist stating that Greenberg could have inflicted all of the 20 stab wounds (including 10 on her head and back). There was also a police assertion that the doorman of the apartment building saw Goldberg break down the locked apartment door, suggesting no one had gained entry to harm his fiancée.
Ellen Greenberg's Parents Devastated By Suicide Ruling
Greenberg’s parents were stunned by the April 2011 reclassification of the death and filed lawsuits against city officials to challenge the official death findings and investigation.
Experts hired by the Greenbergs to bolster their lawsuit allegations concluded that some of her injuries probably happened after she died. Forensic pathologist Wayne Ross said his examination of autopsy photos suggested she could have been strangled, citing a “mark over the front of the neck which was consistent with a fingernail mark” and “multiple bruises under the neck and in the strap muscles over the right side of the neck.”
Their conclusions are detailed in a lawsuit filed by the Greenbergs against Osbourne and Philadelphia police detective John McNamee. The suit also includes a declaration by a crime scene reconstruction expert that evidence of scattered blood patterns around Greenberg’s body indicated it had been moved from the position where it was found.
Although police insisted Goldberg broke down the door to the apartment, lawyer Joe Podraza, representing the Greenbergs, said in the Osbourne/McNamee lawsuit that the door’s latch was not severed and that the doorman who said he had witnessed Goldberg break down the door was never interviewed by police.
The 2022 court opinion stated that the doorman had signed a statement saying he did not accompany Goldberg to the apartment, nor did he see him break down the door and enter the apartment.
Sam Goldberg Says Part of Him Died with Fiancée
Goldberg declined to speak to A&E about the case, saying in a text message: “Thank you for reaching out, but I won’t be providing any comment at this time.”
In his only public comments to the media, Goldberg sent an email to a reporter in response to an extensive CNN story about the case that was published in December 2024.
“When Ellen took her own life, it left me bewildered,” Goldberg wrote. “She was a wonderful and a kind person who had everything to live for. When she died a part of me died with her.”
He added: “Unimaginably, in the years that have passed, I have had to endure the unimaginable passing of my future wife and the pathetic and despicable attempts to desecrate my reputation and her privacy by creating a narrative that embraces lies, distortions and falsehoods in order to avoid the truth. Mental illness is very real and has many victims.”
Officials Agree to Review Ellen Greenberg's Death
In January 2025, Osbourne, the assistant medical examiner, said he wanted to change his opinion about his classification of Greenberg’s death from suicide to homicide or undetermined. But he had left the Philadelphia medical examiner’s office in 2014 for a job as a Florida assistant medical examiner, meaning he could not update his report about the death.
One month later, lawyers for the city of Philadelphia settled the lawsuits before trial with the Greenbergs, agreeing to pay $650,000 (which is less than the $800,000 the Greenbergs claim they have spent) and to have the case reviewed.
“The terms of the settlement include an independent review of the autopsy file, and an express waiver of any claims that might be brought as a result of that process,” the city said in a statement.
As of September 2025, the Greenbergs were still waiting for action with “no indication of anything having been done to either initiate or conclude that reexamination,” Podraza says. Philadelphia City Solicitor Michael Pestrak did not respond to a request for comment.
Joshua says the “only change we want is changing suicide to undetermined or homicide.”
“I don’t believe she died from knife wounds,” he adds. “I believe she died from strangulation and trauma. I think it was all a cover-up.”
