Suicide or Homicide: Mystery over Dauphin County woman’s death baffles experts

CBS21 News – Part 1 

DAUPHIN COUNTY, PA — What lengths would you go to for your child?

For one Dauphin County couple, the efforts are limitless as they attempt to clear their daughter’s name.

We first brought you this story late last year.

In January 2011, Ellen Greenberg, a 27-year-old woman with her whole life in front of her, was found dead with 20 stab wounds to her body.

But it’s who police say is responsible that’s stunned some medical experts and members of law enforcement.

“We haven’t been sleeping for nine years,” Ellen’s mother, Sandra Greenberg, said.

For Sandra and her husband, Josh, it’s been nearly a decade of long days and late-night thoughts.

“We didn’t go away and we’re not going away,” Sandra said.

For years, the couple says they’ve struggled to get anyone to re-investigate Ellen’s death.

Then, in January, a small victory.

A Philadelphia judge ruled the couple could move forward with a lawsuit against the city’s medical examiner to get her official cause of death removed from the record.

“There’s a murderer out there. A killer. Somebody who brutally attacked somebody, with multiple stab wounds and let her bleed to death and left her for dead,” Josh said.

However, that’s not how the city sees it.

Instead, investigators concluded Ellen, an elementary school teacher living in Manayunk with her fiancé, committed suicide.

Yet, the Greenberg’s and their attorney, Joe Podraza,(Lamb McErlane PC) believe the evidence overwhelmingly defies suicide.

“Some of the wounds are virtually impossible to be self-inflicted and certainly at least two of the wounds from behind are so devastating as to render Ellen incapable of defending herself and could have been by themselves sufficient to kill her,” Podraza said.

Podraza says those two wounds are to the back of the neck and would have rendered Ellen paralyzed.

He plans to prove that through technology called photogrammetry when the case heads to trial.

“What we have done is we have literally transposed all of Ellen’s dimension; from height, weight, everything and each of the wounds that she has sustained. From their exact length, their exact depth and exact angle of entry with the weapon,” Podraza said.

The Philadelphia medical examiner originally ruled Ellen’s death a homicide.

However, Podraza says it was later changed to suicide at the request of the Philadelphia Police Department; a move that’s puzzled many experts.

“The determination of manner of death is left to the medical experts. Not left to the police department. And that is what is very, very disturbing about this case,” Podraza said.

The Greenberg’s can’t understand why the ruling was switched and why experts disagree over what happened.

“We just don’t understand. What we think is they should be leading us, not blocking us,” Josh said.

“The first solid, semi-solid I’m going to say, actually, was Cryil Wecht’s report,” he added.

Wecht, a forensic pathologist who famously argued the one bullet theory in J.F.K.’s assassination, opinioned Ellen’s death is “strongly suspicious of homicide.”

“How to identify suicide from homicide? Women don’t use knives. Women don’t stab themselves through their clothing,” Josh said as he recalled Wecht’s report.

The Greenberg’s hope a jury takes a close look at the evidence and reaches the same conclusion.

“As tragic and as horrible and as violent as this situation was, there’s so much love and support from everywhere. It really helps give us strength. And make no mistake about it. We didn’t go away and we’re not going away,” Sandra said.

The trial is scheduled to begin in 2021.

Article by: Brian Sheehan

View the article and watch part 1 of the interview here: https://local21news.com/news/local/mystery-over-dauphin-county-womans-death-baffles-experts

Click here for part 2 of the Interview and news story.