Ellen Greenberg’s fiancé breaks silence about ‘vile attempts to tarnish my reputation’

When the public last heard from Ellen Greenberg’s fiancé, it was his 911 call that, according to Greenberg’s lawyers, laid the groundwork for a death investigation that was “botched” from the start.

“She stabbed herself,” Samuel Goldberg said in the call he made on the evening of Jan. 26, 2011.

Nearly 14 years later, Goldberg has broken his silence about Ellen’s brutal death from 20 stab wounds in the couple’s Manayunk apartment.

In comments emailed to CNN, Goldberg reiterates that Ellen took her own life amid a mental health crisis. He then addresses those – including Ellen’s matriarch – who insist she was the victim of murder in the supposedly locked apartment while a snowstorm hit Philadelphia.

“Unimaginably, over the past few years, I have had to endure the unimaginable death of my future wife and the pathetic and despicable attempts to desecrate my reputation and her privacy by creating a narrative that includes lies, distortions and untruths to avoid them.” the truth. “Mental illness is very real and has many victims,” Goldberg wrote to CNN for his recently published article.

Goldberg’s comments come at a time when Ellen’s death is receiving more media attention than ever before. Her parents, Joshua and Sandee Greenberg, have spent $700,000 to launch their own investigation into her death. They filed two civil lawsuits seeking to overturn the suicide verdict in her death and hold accountable four Philadelphia officers who they say conspired to cover up evidence in a murder case.

On the snowstorm-stricken evening of January 26, 2011, Sam Goldberg returned from working out at the apartment complex’s gym to find the door to the apartment he shared with Ellen locked from the inside. She didn’t respond to his knocks and calls. Goldberg later told police that he had to break the interior doorknob to enter and found Ellen slumped on the kitchen floor, covered in blood, with a 10-inch knife protruding from her chest.

In response to Goldberg’s 911 call in which he repeatedly said that Ellen had “stabbed herself,” Philadelphia police also treated the case as a suicide.

At the time of her death, the 27-year-old elementary school teacher from Harrisburg was seeing a psychiatrist and receiving medical treatment for anxiety. Because they suspected Ellen’s death was suicide, the police did not consider the blood-covered apartment a crime scene that evening. The Venice Loft Condominiums unit remained unsealed when investigators left and was cleaned and disinfected the next day.

When potential evidence was lost in the apartment, Philadelphia pathologist Dr. Marlon Osbourne performed his autopsy on Ellen, who was taken to the city morgue with the knife still protruding from her chest. Citing “multiple stab wounds by an unknown person,” Osbourne ruled Ellen’s death a homicide on Jan. 27.

The next day, investigators returned to the scene of Ellen’s death with a search warrant and a crime scene unit – only there was nothing to search or evidence to process. In short, every investigation into Ellen’s murder came to nothing. That’s why the alleged cover-up began, Greenberg’s lawyers say.

The first of several “secret” meetings between investigators Osbourne and his boss, medical examiner Sam Gulino, took place in early February. On April 4, 2001, with the stroke of a pen, Osbourne changed Ellen’s manner of death from murder to suicide.

That has remained the case ever since, leading to one of the Greenbergs’ lawsuits, which is expected to be heard by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in early 2025. Meanwhile, a judge’s decision on whether the Greenbergs’ second lawsuit alleging the cover-up can go to trial is due on January 31, 2025.

Goldberg’s comments come against this backdrop. Still, they left Ellen’s parents surprised and suspicious.

When contacted by PennLive, Sandee Greenberg was hesitant to discuss Goldberg’s comments. “I’m not supposed to comment,” she said.

But later in the conversation, as Sandee recalled staying in close contact with Goldberg for more than a year after Ellen’s death, she reflected on the timing of Goldberg’s comments.

“It’s very strange. I don’t know why,” Sandee said. “Why was it suddenly time for Sam to speak up?”

Sandee added that it was for the public and media to decide.

Joshua Greenberg was more direct in his criticism of the comments, suggesting to a PennLive reporter that the email response was written for Goldberg or that he was “coached.”

“Sandee and I don’t think he wrote that himself. We just don’t believe that,” Mr. Greenberg told PennLive.

In fact, Goldberg’s email to CNN about Ellen’s death is mostly about him.

It begins: “When Ellen took her own life, I was confused. She was a wonderful and kind person who had everything to live for. When she died, a part of me died with her.”

And it ends with a personal appeal to the CNN reporter to keep the story focused on mental health: “I hope and pray that you never lose someone you love like I did to a terrible illness and then to ignorant and wrong people Informed people are blamed for causing death. If you are truly writing a truthful story, dig deeper and please do something good by raising mental health awareness.”

Joshua Greenberg is having none of it.

Joshua Greenberg pointed to the 11 bruises in various stages of healing on Ellen’s body that were mentioned in the autopsy report – and even more of Greenberg’s words can be seen in autopsy photos – and said he believes his daughter was abused and that this was with related to her murder.

However, Greenberg was at pains to point out that neither he nor his wife nor their lawyers had ever pointed the finger at Goldberg.

“We didn’t accuse him of anything,” Joshua Greenberg said of Goldberg. “We wish he had shown more interest in finding out who (killed Ellen). But if he thinks she committed suicide, that’s fine.”

The CNN article makes it clear that Goldberg never agreed to an actual interview, adding that his emailed response “left most… questions unanswered” — including those about Ellen’s unexplained bruises.

Early Monday, PennLive left detailed messages seeking further comment from Goldberg on his cellphone and to his email address. As of this publication, he has not responded.

Goldberg’s comments were similar in content to the August 2022 letter from Goldberg family attorney Geoffrey R. Johnson. In response to a media report about the Greenberg case, the attorney says the Goldberg family has “maintained a respectful silence on the terrible events of that day.” “Law enforcement has done its job and correctly concluded that Ellen’s death was a suicide….”

In his letter, Johnson added: “Ellen Greenberg was taking a variety of strong psychiatric medications, which unfortunately caused suicidal thoughts as a side effect.”

For their part, the Greenbergs admitted that Ellen was “struggling with something” and that she had seen her psychiatrist on January 12, 17 and 19. During the course of her treatment for anxiety, Ellen was initially prescribed Zoloft and then switched to a “low dose” of Xanax. After she had “no success,” she was prescribed Ambien and Klonopin. All of this emerges from a report by the late Pennsylvania pathologist Cyril H. Wecht, who was hired by the Greenbergs to investigate Ellen’s case.

Many months after Ellen’s death, Sam Goldberg would call Sandee, but never Joshua, the Greenbergs said.

Even in those early days, long before the Greenbergs launched their own death investigation and filed two lawsuits over the suicide verdict, Sandee said she made it clear to Goldberg each time that she and Joshua would never believe that Ellen had taken her own life.

“He called me regularly about all sorts of things,” Sandee said of Goldberg. “He would be there at a golf tournament. We always had a really nice conversation, but at the end of every conversation I said, ‘You know, Sam, we know this isn’t suicide.'”

What would Goldberg say then?

It turned out, nothing.

“There would be a long silence,” Sandee told PennLive.

It is a silence that Sam Goldberg has now broken after almost 14 years.

READ PennLive’s three-part special report on the Ellen Greenberg case:

Part one: Ellen Greenberg died by “suicide” with 20 stab wounds. Her parents want to prove that this is impossible

Part Two: The Greenbergs’ private investigator uncovers a possible bombshell that Ellen was likely dead from one of her supposedly self-inflicted knife wounds – and Philly ME officials knew it.

Part Three: The Greenbergs’ investigation focuses on each of Ellen’s 20 stab wounds, as well as her numerous old and new bruises.