As part of the city’s settlement with the parents of Ellen Greenberg, whose 2011 death by 20 stab wounds was ruled homicide then switched to suicide, Philadelphia agreed to have its medical examiner’s office conduct an “expeditious” reexamination of the case.

But seven months after that agreement was reached and five months after it was signed, the office still hasn’t completed its reevaluation. At a remote hearing on Zoom Wednesday seeking to compel the city to produce its findings, Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Linda Carpenter chastised the city solicitor’s office and city attorney Michael Pestrak for the delay.

“It’s ridiculous and you obviously just don’t care and that’s probably why the Greenbergs are so frustrated, because if the city cared, expedited means a week or 10 days,” Carpenter said. “Now so much time has gone by how will they have any faith that it was done fairly? Justice delayed is justice denied.”

At one point, Carpenter questioned whether she could conduct a hearing to change the manner of death on Greenberg’s death certificate — which remains homicide — to “undetermined” herself, and she floated the idea of forcing the already-settled case back to trial.

“Why don’t I put this back on the trial list, say the settlement hasn’t happened, there’s been a breach of the settlement?” Carpenter said.

But after Carpenter, Pestrak, and Joseph Podraza Jr. — the attorney representing Ellen’s parents, Joshua and Sandra Greenberg — met in a private break-out room for more than a half hour, Carpenter agreed to continue the case until Oct. 14.

“We’ll see where we are then,” she said. “I’ve heard the city. I understand that there has been a process that’s been going on and while I did express some concern that it wasn’t as expeditious as the court thinks expeditious means, I do understand that there are other things that go on in the city.”

Homicide to suicide

Ellen Greenberg, 27, was found by her fiancé, Samuel Goldberg, in the kitchen of their Manayunk apartment with a 10-inch knife lodged into her chest on Jan. 26, 2011.

Investigators on the scene treated her death as a suicide because Goldberg told them the apartment door was locked from the inside and he had to break it down to get in. There were no signs of an intruder and Greenberg had no defensive wounds, police have said.

But the next morning at her autopsy, then-assistant medical examiner Marlon Osbourne noted a total of 20 stab wounds to Greenberg’s body, including 10 to the back of her neck, along with 11 bruises in various stages of healing, and ruled her death a homicide.

Police publicly disputed the findings and Osbourne later changed his ruling to suicide, with no explanation to Greenberg’s parents. In search of answers, Joshua and Sandra Greenberg retained numerous independent forensic experts who have questioned authorities’ findings, as first detailed in a March 2019 Inquirer report.

The couple subsequently filed two lawsuits against the city, one seeking to have the manner of their daughter’s death changed from suicide back to homicide or undetermined and the other alleging the investigation into Greenberg’s death was “embarrassingly botched” and resulted in a “cover-up” by Philadelphia authorities.

After years of fervently battling both lawsuits, the city settled with the Greenbergs in February shortly after Osbourne signed a sworn verification statement in which he said that based on new information, he now believes “Ellen’s manner of death should be designated as something other than suicide.”

Among the terms of the settlement was an “expeditious” reexamination of the manner of Ellen Greenberg’s death, a $650,000 monetary settlement (which was already paid), and an agreement from the Greenbergs never to sue the city again.

‘Understaffed’

At the hearing Wednesday, Podraza said he filed the motion to enforce the settlement because he and the Greenbergs “thought a judicial nudging” would compel the city to complete its reexamination.

Pestrak said the medical examiner’s office and Chief Medical Examiner Lindsay Simon have been reviewing the case since April and the city solicitor’s office has provided all necessary information, including the police file.

“The only thing that was unforeseen that slowed the medical examiner’s office down was the strike in July which caused the medical examiner’s office to be understaffed,” Pestrak said, referring to the AFSCME District Council 33 strike this summer.

Pestrak proposed inviting Podraza to his office and making Simon available to explain what she’s done for her review so far and what she still has left to do.

Carpenter questioned why Pestrak didn’t invite Podraza to such a meeting before the hearing or why he didn’t bring Simon to the hearing or present evidence at it.

“From the beginning, I never really understood why this just couldn’t be changed to undetermined because of the circumstances,” Carpenter said. “I don’t understand what needs to be re-looked at.”