Philadelphia is not upholding an agreement to reexamine Ellen Greenberg’s death, family claims in court
The city has fulfilled the monetary obligations of its settlement agreement with Greenberg's parents but it has yet to provide the results of its reexamination of the case.
As part of a February settlement, the City of Philadelphia agreed to pay Joshua and Sandra Greenberg $650,000 and conduct “an expeditious” reexamination of their daughter Ellen’s 2011 death by 20 stab wounds, a case which was ruled a homicide, then switched to suicide, by the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office.
The Greenbergs received the monetary portion of their settlement, according to their attorney Joseph Podraza Jr., but they have gotten no word on the medical examiner’s reexamination of their daughter’s case, where it stands, or if it has even begun.
And so this week Podraza filed a motion in Common Pleas Court to enforce the settlement.
“Why can’t this get done? Why can’t they fulfill what they promised to do? And they can’t even give us an explanation or indication of where anything stands. It’s insulting, it really is,” Podraza said. “If the city thinks the Greenbergs are going away, or they’re going to wait until the Greenbergs are no longer of this earth and think this matter is going to go away, they are wrong, very wrong.”
Podraza said the medical examiner’s office has not contacted the Greenbergs or any of their forensic experts about the reexamination, despite their willingness to participate. He said he has been in regular contact with the Philadelphia Law Department about the status of the case and was told the results would be shared by the end of June.
“June has passed and it became July. At this point the Greenbergs are fed up,” Podraza said.
In an emailed statement, Philadelphia Law Department spokesperson Ava Schwemler said: “The City will fulfill its obligations under the settlement agreement, and will respond to Plaintiff’s motion in due course.”
Ellen Greenberg, 27, was found by her fiance, Samuel Goldberg, in the kitchen of their Manayunk apartment with a 10-inch knife lodged into her chest on Jan. 26, 2011.
Investigators on the scene treated her death as a suicide because Goldberg told them the apartment door was locked from the inside and he had to break it down to get in. There were no signs of an intruder and Greenberg had no defensive wounds, police have said.
But the next morning at her autopsy, then assistant medical examiner Marlon Osbourne noted a total of 20 stab wounds to Greenberg’s body, including 10 to the back of her neck, along with 11 bruises in various stages of healing, and ruled her death a homicide.
Police publicly disputed the findings and Osbourne later changed his ruling to suicide. The Greenbergs subsequently retained numerous independent forensic experts who have questioned authorities’ findings, as first detailed in a March 2019 Inquirer report.
In October 2019, the Greenbergs filed their first of two lawsuits against the city, seeking to have the manner of their daughter’s death changed from suicide back to homicide or undetermined.
The second suit, which was filed in 2022, alleged the investigation into Greenberg’s death was “embarrassingly botched” and resulted in a “cover-up” by Philadelphia authorities. It sought monetary damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress against several city employees who were involved in the investigation.
After years of legal battles, the first lawsuit was slated for a hearing before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court later this year.
The second suit was set for trial in February at City Hall, but just before it began, Osbourne signed a sworn verification statement in which he said that based on new information, he now believes “Ellen’s manner of death should be designated as something other than suicide.”
Shortly thereafter, the settlement between the city and the Greenbergs was reached. As part of the agreement, the Greenbergs withdrew both of their lawsuits and agreed to never sue the city again, regardless of the outcome of the medical examiner’s reinvestigation of the case.
While the settlement was forged in February, it was not signed until April, according to court documents. Podraza said that it took time to negotiate the language of the agreement, but that it was “understood at the time of settlement that there was no impediment to the medical examiner’s office proceeding” with its examination immediately.
Podraza said the city requested to keep the examination in-house.
“We didn’t have a problem with that because every legitimate pathologist and now Dr. Osbourne agreed this can’t be a suicide. So we view the medical examiner’s reexamination to be perfunctory,” he said.
The suicide ruling that remains on Greenberg’s death certificate is an impediment to any new investigations, Podraza said, though it’s not clear which, if any, agency would take up the case if the manner of death is switched to homicide or undetermined.
“This death certificate provides cover for anybody to run and not involve themselves, but once it changes somebody has to step forward and has to take charge and do the investigation the case requires,” he said.