She Died of 20 Stab Wounds, the Police Called It ‘Suicide’, a New Docuseries Will Find Answers

Ellen Greenberg was a 27-year-old Philadelphia resident who taught first grade. In 2011, she was found dead in her locked apartment with 20 stab wounds and 11 bruises. The investigation into Ellen’s death has been controversial as it was bizarrely ruled a suicide despite her extensive injuries — which some experts say would have been impossible for someone to self-inflict. A new Hulu docuseries, Death in Apartment 603, will dive into the details of the investigation and hopefully provide justice for her family, who believe she was murdered.

What happened to Ellen Greenberg?

Ellen Greenberg lived in an apartment with her fiancé Sam Goldberg, a producer for NBC. On January 26, 2011 Ellen left her job early due to heavy snow hitting the area. She returned to her apartment and was with Sam Goldberg until 4:45pm when he left to go to the gym inside the apartment building. After 30 minutes, Sam returned but says he was locked out of the apartment, first attempting to use his key, then knocking loudly on the door, then trying to reach Ellen by phone. He texted her for 22 minutes before eventually breaking into the apartment.

Inside, Sam says he discovered Ellen’s body. She had been stabbed 20 times and was found with a serrated knife sticking out of her chest. 10 of her stab wounds were on her neck and head. Her lunch was sitting half made on the counter. Ellen still clutched a clean white towel in her hand. When police arrived, they treated the crime scene as a suicide.

On January 27, 2011 the Philadelphia medical examiner ruled that Ellen’s death was a homicide. Police detectives working the case overruled the medical examiner and her official cause of death was suicide.

Why did police say Ellen Greenberg’s death was a suicide?

The crime scene was contained to the apartment’s kitchen and there weren’t signs of an intruder. Ellen’s body also lacked defensive wounds, but many of her stab wounds were to her back and neck, so she may have been blitz attacked and unable to fight back. Neighbors hadn’t heard anything unusual. All the blood on the knife and in the kitchen was found to belong to Greenberg alone.

Because the door was locked police also looked for other entrances to the apartment, but the only other entrance was a balcony, which was filled with freshly fallen, undisturbed snow. They thought Ellen’s fiancé, Sam Goldberg, was cooperative. He didn’t have any fresh wounds.

The apartment building where the couple lived had a fob system that could track people coming into the building. Police were able to verify both that Sam’s story aligned with his fob history, and that no one without a fob had been in the apartment building around the time of Ellen’s death. Security camera footage confirmed this.

Was Ellen Greenberg suicidal?

Those close to Ellen say she had recently displayed a strange shift in behavior. Despite being engaged, she had asked her parents about moving home with them. Her parents encouraged her to see a mental health professional, which she did for three sessions. The psychiatrist was interviewed and says Ellen was not suicidal and seemed happy with her relationship with Sam. She was prescribed Klonopin and Ambien, which were found in her bloodstream in the autopsy.

Upon searching Ellen’s computer, a search for “painless suicide” was found. However “painless suicide” doesn’t match up with Ellen’s actual death, which included 20 stab wounds and was excessively painful.

What do the forensic experts say about Ellen Greenberg’s death?

On March 7, 2011, the medical examiner officially backed police and changed their ruling from homicide to suicide. They theorized that one of the stab wounds in the back of Ellen’s neck could have caused her to lose feeling in her body, allowing her to continue stabbing herself. Greenberg’s parents responded by hiring their own forensic pathologist who investigated the case and argued it was most likely homicide. A third pathologist who examined Greenberg’s neck wound thought her cranial nerves had been severed, which would have caused her to pass out. A fourth pathologist also found Greenberg’s wounds were most consistent with homicide.

Later investigations also noted that it’s possible to lock a door like Ellen’s from the outside. Instructions for how to do this are widely available on the internet. They also seemed surprised Sam Goldberg had such trouble getting into the apartment, given that the lock was flimsy.

In 2019, Ellen Greenberg’s parents sued the original pathologist who conducted her autopsy and the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office as an entity.

In 2021, the neuropathologist who examined Ellen Greenberg’s body says she was not even alive at the time some of her stab wounds were delivered. This would rule out the possibility of suicide completely.

An attorney for the Greenberg family, Joe Podraza, revealed that a neuropathologist hired by the city of Philadelphia, Lyndsey Emery, has told him that some of Ellen Greenberg’s wounds had no hemorrhage. Emery further explains that this means there was no pulse in the body at the time of the injury, meaning Ellen was deceased when they were delivered.

Ellen Greenberg’s family says “It corroborates what we always thought. This was not a suicide. This was vicious.” Her family maintains the Justice for Ellen Greenberg Facebook page.

Death in Apartment 603: What Happened to Ellen Greenberg? is now streaming on Hulu.