Police have reopened an investigation into a woman’s 2011 “suicide,” following a lengthy battle from friends and family who have insisted the woman could not have killed herself.
Ellen Greenberg was a teacher in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, preparing for her upcoming wedding when her fiancé, Sam Goldberg, called police on January 26, 2011, to say he found her dead in their kitchen, Fox News reported. Her death was initially ruled a homicide since Greenberg had 20 stab wounds to her body, half of which were on her back.
But after pathologists, the city medical examiner’s office, and investigators met to discuss the case, the ruling was changed to a suicide, baffling friends and family.
“Ellen was always looking for that happily-ever-after true love: She wanted to start a family; she loved kids; she was excited about getting married and she was excited about having this new job,” her close friend Erica Hamilton told Fox News. “It seemed like everything was kind of settling into place for her, so at no time did I ever think that she was depressed or so overly stressed out that she was gonna do something to hurt herself. She was happy. She was excited.”
Hamilton told the outlet she had spoken to Greenberg just a couple of days before her death. Hamilton knew her friend was seeing a therapist and on anti-anxiety medication but insisted she would never kill herself.
“When I found out that Ellen had died, I didn’t know how – the only thing I knew was that they said that she killed herself,” Hamilton told Fox. “When we found out that she had died by stabbing – there was no way.”
Another friend of Greenberg’s, Alyson Stern, told the Daily Mail that Greenberg had called her shortly before her death, but Stern wasn’t able to pick up. Stern also told the outlet that Greenberg didn’t seem like herself the days before her death.
“We spent that Saturday together bridesmaid dress shopping for my wedding,” Stern said. “I could tell her she was not herself. Even when I picked her up to go dress shopping, she just looked disheveled.”
“She was always fully put together, but her hair wasn’t done and she just wasn’t herself,” Stern added. “When we were in the fitting room, she even started crying a little and just like ‘I’m so sorry, I know I’m not myself. But I’ll get it together.’”
Joe Podraza, the attorney representing Greenberg’s parents in their fight to learn the truth about their daughter’s death, told Fox that evidence shows at least two of Greenberg’s stab wounds were inflicted after her heart had stopped beating. Records further indicated that she was covered in bruises that were in various stages of healing.
The Chester County District Attorney’s Office has finally assigned an investigator and a prosecutor to look into Greenberg’s death.