As the parents of 27-year-old Ellen Greenberg, a Philadelphia teacher whose 2011 death was ruled a suicide after she was found with 20 stab wounds and covered in bruises, advance from a significant legal battle this week, Greenberg’s fiancé, Sam Goldberg, spoke publicly about her death for the first time.
Greenberg’s parents, Dr. Josh and Sandee Greenberg, have been entangled in court fights with the government since their daughter’s death, contesting the determination that it was a suicide. They have filed two active lawsuits, one accusing local officials and the medical examiner’s office of covering up their daughter’s death and the other aiming to have the designation of “suicide” on her death certificate replaced with “homicide” or “undetermined.”
Oral arguments in their civil suit were heard on Wednesday in a Philadelphia City Hall courtroom. It was the first time the Greenbergs sat in a courtroom and listened to arguments in their daughter’s case.
“We are getting closer to justice for Ellen,” Sandee said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “We are very determined and not giving up.”
ELLEN GREENBERG PROSECUTORS SAY THEY CAN’T PROVE CRIME IN ‘SUICIDE’ BY 20 STAB WOUNDS
Ellen Greenberg and Sam Goldberg (Greenberg family)
Greenberg’s parents do not believe her death was a suicide, and over the years forensic pathologists, crime-scene experts, former law enforcement officials and attorneys have expressed similar opinions.
However, her fiancé seems to believe otherwise.
“When Ellen took her own life, it left me bewildered. She was a wonderful and a kind person who had everything to live for. When she died, a part of me died with her,” Goldberg told CNN in his first public statement about Greenberg’s death.
“Unimaginably, in the years that have passed, I have had to endure the unimaginable passing of my future wife and the pathetic and despicable attempts to desecrate my reputation and her privacy by creating a narrative that embraces lies, distortions and falsehoods in order to avoid the truth. Mental illness is very real and has many victims.”
“I hope and pray that you never lose someone you love like I did to a terrible disease and then be accused by ignorant and misinformed people of causing her death. If you’re really writing a truthful story, dig deeper, and please do some good by raising awareness for mental health.”
JUDGE TIED TO ELLEN GREENBERG’S FIANCÉ TOOK ITEMS FROM HER ‘SUICIDE’ SCENE BEFORE POLICE SEARCH
Ellen Greenberg and Sam Goldberg (Greenberg family)
The bride-to-be was found in her kitchen with 20 stab wounds, a knife in her chest, with a half-made fruit salad on the countertop during a blizzard on Jan. 6, 2011.
After Greenberg’s death, Goldberg said he came back from the gym, broke down the door and found Greenberg’s deceased body in their shared apartment in Manayunk, a quiet neighborhood in Philadelphia.
SIGN UP TO GET THE TRUE CRIME NEWSLETTER
A forensic pathologist with the city medical examiner’s office, Dr. Marlon Osbourne, initially ruled Greenberg’s death a homicide, according to court documents. Then he reversed course after meeting with police behind closed doors and officially deemed it a suicide.
Greenberg’s stab wounds included 10 from behind, at least one of which could have been inflicted after she was already dead, according to court documents.
WATCH ‘TEACHER DEATH MYSTERY’ ON FOX NATION
Outside investigators said the damage shown to the lock on Greenberg’s apartment door is inconsistent with the report that it had been kicked in from the outside. (Tom Brennan)
Greenberg’s parents did not provide a response to Goldberg’s statement. However, they previously described what they believe Ellen was experiencing leading up to her death.
“My daughter was being abused,” her father, Josh Greenberg, previously told Fox News Digital. “She had injuries on her body consistent with abuse.”
According to the autopsy report, Greenberg was covered in bruises in different stages of healing, implying she had received them over the course of some time.
GET REAL TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE TRUE CRIME HUB
Ellen Greenberg was a 27-year-old Philadelphia teacher whose 2011 death was ruled a suicide after she was found with 20 stab wounds and covered in bruises. (Ellen Greenberg’s family)
Greenberg’s parents also said that not long before her death, their daughter had wanted to leave her shared apartment with Goldberg and come home to their house in Harrisburg, adding that a psychiatrist, Dr. Ellen Berman, later diagnosed the 27-year-old with anxiety. Berman also noted that Greenberg did not have suicidal thoughts or feelings.
Dr. Cyril Wecht, a famed forensic pathologist who conducted an independent review of the autopsy, found the evidence “strongly suspicious of homicide.”
Wecht, who died in May, previously told Fox News Digital that after looking at the forensic evidence, he believed the idea that Greenberg could have died by suicide was “highly, highly unlikely.”
TEACHER’S UNLIKELY ‘SUICIDE’ RULING CALLED OUT AS WEB SLEUTHS DIG INTO SURVEILLANCE VIDEO
Greenberg’s parents, along with outside investigators, have repeatedly raised concerns that police botched their response to her death and released the scene too early. They have also questioned why Goldberg’s uncle, James Schwartzman, was allowed to remove a number of items from the scene.
“Things were removed from the crime scene without our permission. The chain of custody was broken from the very beginning when Jim Schwartzman removed computers, electronics, my daughter’s handbag,” Greenberg’s father previously told Fox News Digital.
FOLLOW THE FOX TRUE CRIME TEAM ON X
A representative for Schwartzman, a judge in Pennsylvania, responded to these claims on his behalf, telling Fox News Digital that police gave Schwartzman permission to go in and take Greenberg’s belongings. He denied removing her handbag, but he confirmed he had removed her computers and cellphones.
Neither Goldberg nor Schwartzman have been charged with any wrongdoing in relation to Greenberg’s death.
‘SUICIDE’ RULING FOR TEACHER’S 20 STAB WOUNDS MAY BE REEXAMINED AS FAMILY SECURES POTENTIAL MAJOR WIN
Ellen Greenberg with her parents Dr. Josh and Sandee Greenberg (The Greenberg family)
The Chester County District Attorney’s Office announced last month that after conducting its independent investigation, prosecutors are “currently unable to move forward with criminal charges.” They moved Greenberg’s case to an “inactive” status in Chester County but left it open to re-examine if they get new information.
In September, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments from the Greenbergs and their attorney.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“The Supreme Court is going to be deciding whether or not Sandee and I have standing. And that’s a real big thing … I mean, no one has ever gotten this far. … I know it’s taken almost 14 years, but it’s still a very important case,” Dr. Greenberg previously told Fox News Digital.
Philadelphia police did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. They have previously declined to discuss the case, citing the open investigation in Chester County and the ongoing civil litigation. Goldberg did not immediately respond for comment.
Fox News’ Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.
Mollie Markowitz is a reporter for Fox News Digital. Email tips to [email protected]. She joined Fox in 2019 and made her way from producing live news coverage to true-crime documentaries at Fox Nation. She has interviewed Ted Bundy survivors, the children of notorious serial killers, survivor Lisa McVey, members of law enforcement and families impacted by traumatic crime.Currently, she covers national crime stories for Fox News Digital. You can follow Mollie on LinkedIn.
Elizabeth Warren’s scary remark about United Healthcare CEO’s murder is latest of her many crazy comments
Join Fox News for access to this content
Plus special access to select articles and other premium content with your account – free of charge.
Please enter a valid email address.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Progressive Democrat Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren caught many off guard this week when she spoke with MSNBC’s Joy Reid about the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. As Fox News reported, the lawmaker said, “it was wrong but also served as a ‘warning’ of sorts that ‘you can only push people so far. We’ll say it over and over. Violence is never the answer. This guy [Luigi Mangione] gets a trial who’s allegedly killed the CEO of UnitedHealth[care], but you can only push people so far, and then they start to take matters into their own hands.’”
While many casual observers were taken aback at Warren seeming to offer a “both sides” take on the slaying of a health care executive on the streets of Manhattan, long-time followers of the senator’s career were not surprised.
To be fair, Warren’s latest dust-up, arguing that if you push people hard enough, they will “start to take matters into their own hands”— is a new extreme, even for her. She later scrambled to issue a clean-up statement to quell the political backlash over her remarks but her history of using violent rhetoric offers an illuminating insight into the worldview of many on the left.
Consider that in 2011, as Warren was launching her senate bid and the radical Occupy Wall Street protests were cresting in cities across America (a movement Warren claimed credit for creating), a video of the then-Harvard professor bragging about her record having “thrown rocks at people that I think are in the wrong” went viral.
ELIZABETH WARREN SAYS KILLING OF UNITEDHEALTHCARE CEO WAS A WARNING: ‘YOU CAN ONLY PUSH PEOPLE SO FAR’
Or there was her preference of “plenty of blood and teeth left on the floor” instead of compromise over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Warren’s disdain isn’t just with Republicans, either. Even Democrats who stray from her purity tests are not immune. She had a long-running feud with President Joe Biden where she accused the future president of selling out to the credit card companies. (In an example of even a stopped clock being right twice a day, Biden, as a candidate for president in 2019, described Warren’s approach as, “representative of an elitism that working and middle-class people do not share: ‘We know best; you know nothing.’”)
Left unsaid in the brouhaha with Biden, of course, was Warren’s past as a corporate attorney. Her pro-consumer bona fides were undermined by her some of her private sector work, most notably her representation of insurance companies seeking to limit their legal liability, as reported by the left-leaning Boston Globe. Her hypocrisy is a different topic for a different column.
FORMER WAPO REPORTER SAYS ‘WE WANT THESE EXECUTIVES DEAD’ AFTER THE MURDER OF INSURANCE CEO
The assassination of the chief executive of one of the nation’s leading health care companies has left a nation reeling and wondering how we ever arrived at this moment in time – not just the senseless murder in the busy streets of New York City, but how some on the left are appearing to justify it.
For a rudderless Democratic Party, desperate for answers and a path forward, there are few unifiers, but disdain and outright hostility to the private sector is one of the commonalities.
Warren has been one of the ringleaders in this sphere. A quick perusal of the press release section on her Senate website belies her anger. Just look at the categories: “Billionaires.” “Greedy brokers.” “Corporate greed.” “Price gouging.”
In Warren’s eyes, private sector industries are the villains. Just this week, she referred to TurboTax, a service that more than 40 million Americans rely on each year get back their hard-earned tax dollars from the government, as “sleazy.”
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION
Warren isn’t alone in these beliefs. Nearly two thirds of Democrats have a favorable view of “socialism.”
Instead of appreciation for the opportunity they provide, businesses are viewed as the enemy, and government and politicians are the answer.
There are encouraging signs that the tide may be turning. President-elect Donald Trump enjoyed a warm welcome ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday. In a sign that capitalism could be celebrated again, he was treated as a conquering hero.
Hopefully his swearing on January 20 will mark a turning of the page and a return to the principles that made America the envy of the world: hard work, success and a belief in free enterprise as an economic force for good that lifts everyone up.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Senator Warren and her fellow liberals may never subscribe to these theories, but we’ve tried it their way. For the last four years, America has been governed by a president who brags about being the most progressive since FDR, a boast substantiated by socialist Senator Bernie Sanders, (I-Vt.). We’ve seen the results: record high inflation, energy prices and a belief that America is off course.
Thankfully, a new era is dawning and brighter days are ahead.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM COLIN REED
Source link