'Suicide' ruling for teacher's 20 stab wounds may be reexamined as family secures potential major win
Pennsylvania Supreme Court to hear appeal from parents of Ellen Greenberg, whose death by 20 stab wounds was controversially ruled a suicide in Philadelphia.
A pathologist's controversial ruling that Ellen Greenberg, a 27-year-old Philadelphia woman whose death by 20 stab wounds was a suicide, will receive a new review after Pennsylvania's Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments from her parents and their attorney.
The family learned the court had agreed to hear their case on Tuesday, Greenberg's mother, Sandee Greenberg, told Fox News Digital. The court will examine whether the parents, as executors of her estate, have legal standing to challenge the medical examiner's findings.
Last year, a panel of appellate court judges ruled against the parents' request to force the Philadelphia medical examiner to reclassify Greenberg's death from suicide to homicide or undetermined. The panel found that the parents lacked standing.
But the judges also slammed the city, police and the medical examiner's office for the investigation.
Greenberg's parents alleged a murder cover-up and vowed to take their fight to the state's Supreme Court, finally succeeding last week after outside experts warned them they would face an uphill battle.
"We always wondered why we didn't have standing, Ellen's mother and father," her father, Dr. Joshua Greenberg, told Fox News Digital. "We started it as a fight for Ellen, but… we are fighting on standing and on the ability to challenge the medical examiner. Right now the medical examiner's conclusion cannot be challenged."
After Greenberg's death, a forensic pathologist with the city medical examiner's office named Dr. Marlon Osbourne ruled it a homicide, according to court documents. Then he reversed course after meeting with police behind closed doors and dubbed it officially a suicide.
Greenberg was discovered dead in her kitchen in January 2011 with 20 stab wounds, including 10 from behind, at least one of which could have been inflicted after she was already dead, according to court documents. Her body was also covered in bruises in different stages of healing.
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Investigators found a half-made fruit salad on the countertop and signs of a struggle, including that the knife block had been knocked over.
There was evidence the door lock had been tampered with and that her body had been moved, according to her parents' lawyer, Joe Podraza. He told Fox News Digital the knife found at the scene had never been fingerprinted.
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The crime scene was cleaned up before detectives arrived with a search warrant, according to court documents. And the appellate court judges said they had not been given any record of police interviews with the building security guard or with Greenberg's fiance, who called 911 to report finding her slumped over in their apartment.
But city police and prosecutors have repeatedly insisted the death was a suicide.
"They never talk about the big gash to Ellen’s head," Dr. Greenberg said Monday. "They never talk about the restraint on the wrists, how she was restrained, only that there was no defensive wounds."
There's also missing video evidence, he said.
"This is such a bogus case," he added. "It's a cluster----."
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A lot of evidence in the case deserves scrutiny, according to Podraza and the family's private investigator, Tom Brennan. Despite collapsing with nearly two dozen stab wounds in a bloodstained kitchen, Greenberg was found clutching a "pristine" white towel in her left hand.
Dr. Cyril Wecht, a famed forensic pathologist who conducted an independent review of the autopsy, found the evidence "strongly suspicious of homicide."
Wecht, who died in May, previously told Fox News Digital that after looking at the forensic evidence, he believed the idea that Greenberg could have committed suicide was "highly, highly unlikely."
"In all my years of experience, and all of the homicides that I’ve done, and suicides, I’ve never seen anything like this," he said.
Another highly respected forensic pathologist, Dr. Henry Lee, also reviewed the case. He found that the angle of the wounds on the back of Greenberg's head "would have been difficult to inflict herself" and that her injuries were "consistent with a homicide scene," according to court documents.
The Chester County District Attorney’s Office is conducting another outside investigation after Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner stepped away due to a conflict of interest and former Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is now the governor, was accused of having another conflict of interest.
Dr. Osbourne has since moved to Florida, where he works in the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner’s Office. He has not responded to requests for comment on the Greenberg case.
