CNN
—
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 numerous bruises. Authorities ruled her death a suicide.
Greenberg was a 27-year-old schoolteacher. Her parents insisted she’d been murdered. They fought to have the ruling amended. Now, after years of investigation, multiple lawsuits, and an online petition that has drawn more than 166,000 signatures, the pathologist who performed her autopsy says he has changed his mind.
Dr. Marlon Osbourne signed a document Friday saying that after considering new information in the case he no longer believes that Greenberg killed herself. Greenberg’s parents resolved their claims against Osbourne over the weekend, one of their attorneys said.
And on Monday, just before a jury could be impaneled in a separate suit by the Greenbergs against various city officials, the remaining parties reached a settlement in both lawsuits. The Greenbergs were seeking damages for what they called a “conspiracy to cover-up Ellen’s murder.”
Philadelphia city spokesperson Ava Schwemler said that while city officials did not admit liability, the Greenbergs will receive a monetary payment — the amount of which will be disclosed at a later date — and the city’s Medical Examiner’s Office will re-examine the Greenberg case.
“We’re very excited,” Greenberg’s mother, Sandee, told CNN by phone after she heard the news of Dr. Osbourne’s reversal. “I mean, never in my wildest dreams did I think anything like this was gonna happen.”
All these developments could clear the way for what Greenberg’s parents have wanted all along: a criminal investigation into their daughter’s death.
“This is what they’ve been fighting for,” said Will Trask, one of their attorneys.
Osbourne’s attorney, Marc Bailkin, declined to comment when reached by phone.
When a CNN reporter asked if the statement attributed to Osbourne was authentic, he said, “It is. It speaks for itself.”
It all began on January 26, 2011. At 6:30 p.m, Greenberg’s fiancé, Sam Goldberg, called 911 and said, “I just walked into my apartment; my fiancée’s on the floor with blood everywhere.”
More than two minutes passed before Goldberg first mentioned a shocking detail: A knife was sticking out of Ellen’s chest.
“She stabbed herself!” he said.
“Where?” the 911 operator said.
“She fell on a knife,” Goldberg said.
The next day, Dr. Osbourne conducted an autopsy. He noted the many stab wounds, as well as bruises in various stages of healing. Writing that she was “stabbed by another person,” he ruled the case a homicide.
But the Philadelphia police treated the death as a suicide from the beginning. Investigators were so convinced Ellen had killed herself that they released the scene without calling in the Crime Scene Unit.
By the time investigators returned, the apartment had been professionally cleaned. Potential evidence had been washed away.
The police held fast to their determination of suicide — partly because it appeared that Ellen had been alone when she died. Investigators thought the door was fastened from the inside by a swing bar latch, and initial reports indicated that Goldberg had been accompanied by a security guard while forcing open the door.
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Osbourne later said in a deposition, “she’s the only one found in the apartment, with nothing disturbed, nothing out of place, no other way of getting in there, it doesn’t lend to the fact that someone else was there to do it. So that was discounted.”
After conferring with law-enforcement officials, Osbourne amended the death certificate to “suicide.” Officially, Ellen Greenberg had killed herself.
But her parents did not accept that conclusion. As they later said, they wanted to exonerate their daughter. And one by one, they found experts who agreed.
The noted pathologist Cyril Wecht said the case was “strongly suspicious of homicide.” A crime-scene reconstructionist said it appeared Greenberg’s body had been moved. And another outside pathologist, Wayne Ross, pointed out a hemorrhage in her neck muscles that he thought was indicative of strangulation. He wrote that the various bruises on her body “were consistent with a repeated beating.”
As for the claims about the apartment door, those were less certain than they first appeared.
Melissa Ware, who managed Greenberg’s apartment building, told CNN that the latched door didn’t prove Greenberg had locked herself in. It was possible, she said, that the latch swung by itself in response to a closing door. It had happened to her, she said.
A security guard said he had not been there when the fiancé forced open the door. And despite two relatives’ claims that they’d been on the phone with Goldberg when he forced open the door, a CNN analysis of phone records and other evidence seemed to contradict that claim.
Last November, Goldberg gave a statement to CNN lamenting what he called “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.”
But on Friday, a judge issued a ruling that would have allowed the Greenbergs’ second lawsuit to go to a jury trial. A series of legal maneuvers followed. And Dr. Osbourne — now a pathologist in Pompano Beach, Florida — signed a document that amended his long-held position on Greenberg’s death.
Osbourne wrote, “it is my professional opinion Ellen’s manner of death should be designated as something other than suicide.”
Trask, one of the Greenbergs’ attorneys, said Osbourne produced the statement as a way of resolving the lawsuit with the Greenbergs. He said the Greenbergs agreed Monday to release Osbourne from the suit.
Osbourne’s statement cited “additional information” he’d gotten since he issued the amended death certificate:
“I am now aware that information exists which draws into question, for example, whether Ellen’s fiancé was witnessed entering the apartment before placing the 9-1-1 call on January 26, 2011; whether the door was forced open as reported; whether Ellen’s body was moved by someone else inside the apartment with her at or near the time of her death; and the findings of Lindsey Emery, M.D. from her neuropathological evaluation of Ellen’s cervical segment sample.”
Emery, a neuropathologist for the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office, said in a 2021 deposition that it appeared Greenberg had been stabbed in the back of her neck after she was dead. She later filed a declaration walking back that conclusion and saying there could have been other explanations for the lack of vital response in one of her wounds.
With Osbourne’s departure, that left two defendants as jury selection began Monday morning: Sam Gulino, the city’s former chief medical examiner; and police Det. John McNamee. Both have denied wrongdoing in the case.
Just before 11:30 a.m., one of Greenberg’s relatives at the courthouse reported that the jurors had been dismissed. Minutes later, Greenberg attorney Joe Podraza gave a statement to reporters.
“We have resolved the matter,” he said, adding that the Greenbergs’ second lawsuit, demanding the medical examiner’s office change its ruling on Ellen’s cause of death, had also been settled. That suit was pending before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
CNN reached out for comment to the city’s police department, medical examiner’s office, and mayor’s office, as well as two attorneys representing Gulino and McNamee. None had responded by the time of this article’s publication.
Dr. Osbourne’s new conclusion is not binding on the city. He acknowledged in his statement that “I am no longer empowered to amend Ellen’s death certificate myself because I no longer maintain a Pennsylvania medical license and am no longer employed by the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s office.”
“Look, the Greenbergs have been fighting this for 14 years,” said Trask, one of their attorneys. “They’re exhausted. They spent their retirement on this case. They’re ready for closure.”
He added, “all they wanted was for Dr. Osbourne to admit that he was wrong, and that their daughter didn’t kill herself. And that’s what they got. And the rest of it was icing on the cake.”
Reached by phone on Monday afternoon, Greenberg’s father, Josh, said it felt as if he’d just taken and passed a very difficult test.
“We fought very long to get this,” he said. “To get justice for our daughter. And we did.”
