The shocking death of Ellen Greenberg, a first-grade teacher found dead in 2011 in her Philadelphia apartment with 20 stab wounds, has been unraveled in a new three-part docuseries now streaming on Hulu and Disney+. Her parents have fought in court for years to prove the death was wrongly classified as a suicide.
Death in Apartment 603: What Happened to Ellen Greenberg? tells the story of the unusual investigation into Greenberg’s death, which was first ruled a suicide, then determined to be a homicide, only for officials to revert to considering the death a suicide, closing off further investigation.
“I mean, just as a headline, it’s so outrageous,” Nancy Schwartzman, the director and showrunner of the series, told Philly Voice. “You can’t exactly believe it. And then the more you dig in and learn, there were 10 stab wounds on her back. How is that a successful mode of suicide? The more you learn, it’s harder and harder to believe that it’s a suicide.”
Greenberg’s fiancé, Sam Goldberg, who did not participate in the series, was the one who found the teacher’s body.
After breaking down a latched door, he encountered the deceased teacher, who had numerous stab wounds across her head and back, as well as a kitchen knife sticking out of her chest.
“She fell on a knife!,” Goldberg tells a 911 operator in audio used in the documentary. “Her knife is sticking out. There’s a knife sticking out of her heart.”
During the exchange, the 911 operator then tells Goldberg she will walk him through how to administer CPR, to which he replies, “I have to, right?”
“The man that was going to marry my daughter, have children with her – when he is asked to do CPR and says ‘I have to, right.’ I couldn’t believe my ears,” Greenberg’s mother, Sandra, told Variety.
The death being ruled a suicide would later confound efforts to investigate what happened, as police didn’t consider the apartment a crime scene and it was soon wiped down by a professional cleaning company.
Following years of appeals, the city of Philadelphia in February settled two lawsuits from Greenberg’s parents, Sandra and Joshua, paying the family $600,000 and agreeing to review what caused the death.
Their efforts were bolstered by a finding from the pathologist who originally considered the death a suicide that Greenberg’s passing should instead be considered “something other than suicide.”
The pathologist wrote earlier this year that questions remained in the case, including “whether the door was forced open as reported; whether Ellen’s body was moved by someone else inside the apartment with her at or near the time of her death; and the findings of Lindsey Emery, M.D., from her neuropathological evaluation of Ellen’s cervical segment sample.”
During a hearing earlier this month, a Philadelphia judge expressed frustration with the city medical examiner’s office over the slow pace of the reexamination, giving officials until October 14 to complete their work.
