Fourteen years ago, on a snowy evening in Philadelphia, Ellen Greenberg was found dead on the kitchen floor of her apartment. She had 20 knife wounds and countless bruises. Authorities decided her death a suicide.
Greenberg was a 27-year-old teacher. Her parents got rid of it. They fought to have the ruling changed. Now, after years of research, several lawsuits and an online petition that has drawn more than 166,000 signatures, says the pathologist who has performed her autopsy that he has changed his mind.
Dr. Marlon Osbourne signed a document on Friday and said that, after he had considered new information in the case that he no longer believes that Greenberg has committed suicide. The parents of Greenberg resolved their claims to Osbourne on the weekend, one of their lawyers said.
And on Monday, just before a jury by the Greenbergs against different city officials could be implicated into a separate court case, the remaining parties reached a regulation in both court cases. The Greenbergs sought compensation for what they called a 'conspiracy to hide the murder of Ellen'.
Spokesman Ava Schwemler of Philadelphia City said that although city officials have not allowed liability, the Greenbergs receives a monetary payment-from which the amount will be announced at a later time and the office of the city's medical researcher will re-examine the Greenberg case .
“We are very excited,” Greenberg's mother, Sandee, told CNN by telephone after hearing the news of the reversal of Dr. Osbourne. “I mean, never in my wildest dreams, I thought something like that would happen.”
All these developments can clear the way for what the parents of Greenberg have wanted all the time: a criminal investigation into the death of their daughter.
“This is what they fought for,” said Will Trask, one of their lawyers.
Osbourne's lawyer, Marc Bailkin, refused to comment when reached by telephone.
When a CNN reporter asked if the statement attributed to Osbourne was authentic, he said, “That's it. It goes without saying.”
The pathologist initially ruled Greenberg's death as a murder
It all started on January 26, 2011. At 6.30 pm Greenberg's fiancé, Sam Goldberg, 911 and said: “I just walked in my apartment; my fiancé is everywhere on the floor with blood.”
More than two minutes passed before Goldberg called a shocking detail for the first time: a knife stuck from Ellen's chest.
“She stabbed herself!” he said.
“Where?” said the 911 operator.
“She fell on a knife,” Goldberg said.
The next day Dr. Osbourne out an autopsy. He noticed the many stab wounds, as well as bruises in different stages of healing. Writing that she was “stabbed by another person,” he ruled the case as a murder.
Ellen Greenberg and her fiancé, Sam Goldberg, on an undated photo. – Courtesy Greenberg Family
But the police of Philadelphia dealt with death from the start as suicide. Researchers were so convinced that Ellen had committed suicide that they had released the scene without calling in the unity of the crime scene.
By the time the researchers returned, the apartment was professionally cleaned. Potential evidence was washed away.
The police held on to their determination of suicide – partly because it turned out that Ellen had been alone when she died. Researchers thought that the door was confirmed from the inside by a swing bar lock, and first reports indicated that Goldberg was accompanied by a guard while he opened the door.
Osbourne later said in a statement: 'She is the only one who is found in the apartment, with nothing disturbed, nothing misplaced, no other way to get in there, not borrowing that someone else was there to do it To do it. So that was discounted. “
After submitting law enforcement officials, Osbourne changed the death certificate to 'suicide'. Ellen Greenberg had officially committed suicide.
But her parents did not accept that conclusion. As they later said, they wanted to free their daughter. And one by one they found experts who agreed.
The well -known pathologist Cyril Wakt said that the case was “strongly suspicious of murder”. A reconstructionist from the crime scene said it seemed as if the body of Greenberg had been moved. And another external pathologist, Wayne Ross, pointed to bleeding in her neck muscles that he thought was an indication of strangulation. He wrote that the different bruises on her body were “consistent with a repeated hit.”
Regarding the claims at the door of the apartments, they were less certain than they first appeared.
Melissa Ware, who managed the Greenberg apartment building, said CNN that the locked door did not show that Greenberg had locked itself. It was possible, she said, that the lock was naturally sought in response to a final door. It had happened to her, she said.
A person cycling from Apex Manayunk, the apartment building where Ellen Greenberg died, in Philadelphia on November 20, 2024. – Hannah Beers for CNN
A guard said he had done that not Been there when the fiancé opened the door. And despite the claims of two family members that they had been on the phone with Goldberg when he opened the door, a CNN analysis of telephone records and other evidence seemed to contradict that claim.
Last November, Goldberg gave a statement to CNN who complained about what he called 'the pathetic and despicable attempts to desecrate my reputation and her privacy by creating a story that embraces lies, disturbances and lies to prevent the truth. Human disease is very real and has many victims. “
But on Friday a judge gave a decision that the second lawsuit of Greenbergs would have allowed to go to a jury court. A series of legal maneuvers followed. And Dr. Osbourne-NU A pathologist in Pompano Beach, Florida Supporting a document that has changed his long-term position about the death of Greenberg.
Osbourne now says that new information has led him to doubt his earlier statement
Osbourne wrote: “It is my professional opinion Ellen's way of death should be referred to as something other than suicide.”
Trask, one of the lawyers of Greenbergs, said that Osbourne produced the statement as a way to resolve the lawsuit with the Greenbergs. He said that the Greenbergs agreed on Monday to release Osbourne from the suit.
Osbourne's statement called “additional information” he had received since he published the changed death certificate:
“I am now aware that there is information that questions, for example, or Ellen's fiancé was seen that the apartment came in before he placed the 9-1-1 call on January 26, 2011; whether the door was open as reported; Or the body of Ellen was moved by someone else in the apartment with her on or near the time of her death; And the findings of Lindsey Emery, MD of her neuropathological evaluation of the monster of Ellen's cervical segment. “
Dr. Marlon Osbourne, the former pathologist in Philadelphia, later moved to Florida. As an assistant medical researcher for Palm Beach County, he saw witnesses here during the Parkland School -Schieter Nikolas Cruz's 2022 test in Fort Lauderdale. – Mike Stocker/Pool/AFP/Getty – Images/File
Emery, a neuropathologist for the office of the Philadelphia Medical Examiner, said in a 2021 statement that it seemed that Greenberg had been stabbed in her neck after she was dead. Later she had a statement in that conclusion and said that there may have been other statements for the lack of vital reactions in one of her wounds.
With the departure of Osbourne, two defendants left behind when the jury selection started on Monday morning: Sam Gulino, the former lead researcher of the city; and police det. John McNamee. Both have denied misconduct in the case.
Just before 11.30 am, one of the family members of Greenberg reported in the courthouse that the jury members had been fired. Minutes later Greenberg lawyer Joe Podraza issued a statement to reporters.
“We solved the case,” he said, adding that the second lawsuit of Greenbergs, who demands the office of the medical investigator that his statement about Ellen's death was also arranged. That case was being processed for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
CNN started contact with the police of the city, the office of the medical investigator and the mayor's office, as well as two lawyers who represent Gulino and McNamee. No one had responded to the publication of this article.
The new conclusion of Dr. Osbourne is not binding on the city. He acknowledged in his statement that “I am no longer authorized to change the death certificate of Ellen myself because I no longer maintain a medical license from Pennsylvania and are no longer employed by the office of the Philadelphia Medical Examiner.”
Josh and Sandee Greenberg pose for a portrait with a photo of their daughter Ellen in November 2021. – Dan Gleiter/Pennlive
“Look, the Greenbergs have been fighting here for 14 years,” said Trask, one of their lawyers. “They are exhausted. They passed their retirement to this case. They are ready for closure. “
He added: 'The only thing they wanted was that Dr. Admission Osbourne that he was wrong and that their daughter himself did not kill. And that's what they have. And the rest was icing on the cake. '
Greenberg's father, Josh, said by telephone by telephone and said it felt like he had just done and had passed a very difficult test.
“We fought for a long time to get this,” he said. “To get justice for our daughter. And we did. “
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