On Wednesday, a Pennsylvania appeals court ruled against reopening the death investigation of a woman whose 2011 death was deemed a suicide.
Ellen Greenberg, 27, was found stabbed 20 times in her Manayunk apartment, and the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office and State Attorney General’s Office maintain it is not a homicide. PennLive reported that Commonwealth Court overturned a lower court’s ruling that would have reopened Greenberg’s death investigation.
Discovered by her fiancé, Greenberg suffered stab wounds to her neck and back and a kitchen knife was found lodged in her chest. According to PennLive, responding police officers did not treat the apartment as a crime scene as they treated as a suicide. Conversely, the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s office ruled it a homicide the next day, following an autopsy.
However, the medical examiner’s office later changed her cause of death to suicide — something her family believes was done to not contradict police findings.
Greenberg’s fiancé allegedly told police that he returned home from the gym and realized he was locked out, with the swing lock latched from the inside. He claimed he called and texted Greenberg several times with no luck and could not get ahold of the apartment management, so he broke the lock.
Greenberg’s fiancé said he found her slumped over in the kitchen. He claimed he was gone for 45 minutes before returning to the apartment, and investigators determined surveillance footage corroborated his claims about what happened that day.
However, neuropathologist Lyndsey Emery, who was hired by the city of Philadelphia years earlier to evaluate Greenberg’s spinal cord, told Greenberg’s family attorney that it was “significant” she had no hemorrhaging, as it strongly suggests she did not have a pulse when she was repeatedly stabbed. She went on to conclude that at least one of the 20 stab wounds on Greenberg occurred postmortem.
Emery’s statements were made in a deposition that Greenberg’s family attorney provided to the Attorney General’s Office in December 2021. However, the document was reportedly available to the public months before that.
Despite this, Commonwealth Court wrote in Wednesday’s ruling: “While this Court is acutely aware of the deeply flawed investigation of the victim’s death by the City of Philadelphia Police Department detectives, the City of Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, and the Medical Examiners Office, we have no choice under the law but to reverse and remand to the Trial Court for the entry of judgment in favor of the Medical Examiners Office.”
The appellate court also ruled that despite their ruling, Greenberg’s family should receive a review of her death and the investigation that followed.
PennLive reported that Greenberg’s family also has a pending civil lawsuit which accuses officials of a coverup.
Greenberg’s mother told the news outlet after Wednesday’s ruling, “I’m beyond tears.”
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[Featured image: Ellen Greenberg/Facebook]
