Imagine coming home to a locked door. You’re coming from the gym. You’re sweaty. Your fiancée, a bubbly 27-year-old first-grade teacher, isn’t answering. You knock. You text. You start to get "pissed." That's how it started for Samuel Goldberg on a snowy January night in 2011. What happened next in Apartment 603 became one of the most polarizing "suicide" cases in American history.
Twenty stab wounds.
That is the number everyone gets stuck on. Ten of those were in the back of Ellen Greenberg’s neck and head. One was still embedded in her chest. Yet, despite a mountain of civil litigation and a 2025 re-investigation, the official ruling remains suicide.
Honestly, it feels impossible when you first hear it. How does someone stab themselves in the back of the neck ten times? The legal and forensic battle between the Greenberg family and the City of Philadelphia has stretched over fourteen years, turning a private tragedy into a national obsession.
The Night in Apartment 603
On January 26, 2011, Philadelphia was buried under a blizzard. Samuel Goldberg told police he left the apartment around 4:45 p.m. to hit the building's gym. When he came back about half an hour later, the swing-bar lock was engaged from the inside.
He sent a string of texts. "Hello," "open the door," "what r u doin." He eventually broke the door down. Inside, he found Ellen on the kitchen floor.
During the 911 call, things got weird fast. At first, he didn't see the knife. Then, while the operator was telling him to start CPR, he realized she had a 10-inch serrated knife buried four inches into her chest. "She stabbed herself!" he shouted. "She fell on a knife!"
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The police arrived and saw a locked door from the inside and no signs of a struggle. They basically treated it as a suicide from the jump. They didn't even call the Crime Scene Unit that night. By the time anyone realized how messy this would get, the apartment had been professionally cleaned.
The Flip-Flopping Autopsy
Dr. Marlon Osbourne is the pathologist who first looked at Ellen. Initially, he saw those 20 wounds and ruled it a homicide. It makes sense. If you see ten wounds to the back of someone's head and neck, "self-inflicted" isn't your first thought.
But then the police stepped in.
After a meeting with investigators who insisted the door was bolted from the inside and Ellen was alone, Osbourne changed the death certificate to suicide. This reversal is what sparked a decade of fury from Ellen’s parents, Josh and Sandee Greenberg.
The medical details are graphic and, frankly, haunting:
- 8 wounds to the chest.
- 1 wound to the stomach.
- A 2.5-inch gash on her scalp.
- 10 wounds to the back of her neck.
- 11 bruises on her body in various stages of healing.
Experts like Dr. Cyril Wecht and Dr. Wayne Ross have challenged the suicide ruling for years. Ross pointed out a hemorrhage in her neck muscles that suggested strangulation. Even more chilling, a neuropathologist later testified that at least one of the stabs to the back of the neck likely happened after she was already dead because there was no hemorrhaging. If she was dead, she couldn't have stabbed herself.
Recent 2025 Breakthroughs and Settlements
For years, the case was stuck. Then came 2025.
In February 2025, the Greenbergs reached a massive settlement with the City of Philadelphia. They got $600,000, but more importantly, they got the city to agree to a fresh, independent review.
Even Dr. Osbourne, the man who made the original suicide ruling, flipped again. He signed a sworn affidavit stating he no longer believed it was a suicide and that the manner of death should be "something other than suicide." This felt like the finish line for the family.
But the city's new Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Lindsay Simon, had other ideas.
In October 2025, Simon released a 32-page report. She stuck to the suicide ruling. Her logic? While the injuries were "admittedly unusual," she claimed Ellen was capable of inflicting them herself. She pointed to Ellen’s history of anxiety and the fact that Samuel Goldberg’s DNA wasn't on the knife.
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Where Samuel Goldberg Stands Now
Samuel Goldberg has mostly stayed out of the spotlight. He's a TV producer, and for years, he didn't say a word to the press. In 2024, he finally broke his silence in an email to CNN, calling the attempts to "desecrate" his reputation "pathetic and despicable."
He maintains that Ellen was struggling with her mental health. He says he loved her and that her death left him "bewildered."
The legal team for the Greenbergs, led by Joe Podraza, has been vocal about the "botched" nature of the original investigation. They point to the fact that Goldberg’s uncle was allowed to take Ellen’s laptops and phone from the scene before they were properly processed. They also highlighted surveillance footage that showed Goldberg was alone when he broke the door down, contradicting some early police reports that a security guard was with him.
Why This Case Still Matters
This isn't just a "True Crime" story. It's a case study in how the legal system handles "undetermined" deaths. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court even stepped in to look at whether families have the right to challenge a medical examiner’s ruling if it blocks them from getting justice or closure.
Most people assume a death certificate is an objective fact. In reality, it’s an opinion. And in Philadelphia, that opinion has become a legal fortress.
If you’re following this case, the next steps aren't in a courtroom—they’re in the records. The Greenbergs aren't giving up. They are still pushing for the ruling to be changed to "homicide" or "undetermined" to trigger a real criminal investigation.
Actionable Takeaways for Following the Case:
- Monitor the Pennsylvania Supreme Court: Their ruling on "standing" will determine if the Greenbergs can ever actually force a change to that death certificate.
- Look at the 3D Forensic Evidence: The family’s legal team released 3D stab wound analyses that are far more detailed than the original 2011 autopsy photos.
- Watch the Documentary: The Hulu series Death in Apartment 603 features Guy D'Andrea, a former assistant DA who actually saw the evidence files and thinks the suicide ruling is "impossible."
The case of Samuel Goldberg and Ellen Greenberg is a reminder that "closed" doesn't always mean "solved." For the Greenbergs, the fight is about more than a label; it's about the basic right to have a suspicious death treated as exactly that.
To stay updated, you can follow the "Justice for Ellen" social media pages, which are run by the family and provide direct updates on the ongoing litigation against the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office.