in World News PA Official Reverses ‘Suicide’ Ruling for Woman with 20 Stab Wounds, Previously Upheld by Democrat Josh Shapiro
by Alana Mastrangelo and Ezra Dulis
A Philadelphia medical examiner has reportedly reversed the suicide ruling — upheld by former Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro — in the 2011 death of a teacher who was found with 20 stab wounds.
The family of Ellen Greenberg has been fighting for more than a decade to overturn the medical examiner’s ruling after the 27-year-old was found dead with more than 20 stab wounds inside her locked apartment in northwest Philadelphia, according to a report by WPVI.
“It is my professional opinion Ellen’s manner of death should be designated as something other than suicide,” Dr. Marlon Osbourne, who conducted the initial autopsy, said in a Saturday court filing.
Democrat Josh Shapiro, who served as Pennsylvania’s Attorney General in 2019, reviewed the case when Greenberg’s family sued the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office, and his team upheld the suicide ruling in February 2022.
But months later, citizen journalist Gavin Fish alleged there was a personal connection between Shapiro and a potential witness in the case — a lawyer and cousin to the primary suspect, Greenberg’s fiancée Samuel Goldberg — who Goldberg spoke with on the phone the night she died, before he called 911 to report her death.
Shapiro recused himself from the case after these allegations came to light, calling the claims “unfounded” but acknowledging that they “created the appearance of a conflict” of interest.
This ruling makes for the second reversal in Greenberg’s cause of death, as Osbourne had initially determined that the teacher died due to homicide in January 2011, but he changed it to suicide the next month.