Ellen Greenberg’s parents holding up a photo of her. (ABC News Studios)
Ellen Greenberg was a 27-year-old Jewish woman who was found dead on the floor of her apartment in Manayunk on the blizzard night of Jan. 26, 2011, and was found by her fiancé, Sam Goldberg. The result of around 20 stab wounds, Greenberg’s death was ruled a suicide, a contention that has been disputed by her family, which has spent the 14 years since her death questioning that finding.
Earlier this year, the pathologist who had initially ruled Greenberg’s death a suicide agreed, as part of a lawsuit settlement, to sign a document stating that he no longer believes Greenberg died via suicide. The city also agreed to a financial settlement with the Greenbergs and to reexamine the case, with a mid-October deadline looming for an update. Now, Greenberg’s death and her family’s fight for justice are the subject of a new three-part documentary, titled “Death in Apartment 603: What Happened to Ellen Greenberg?”
Produced under the auspices of ABC News Studios, the documentary is set to premiere on Hulu on Monday, Sept. 29. The project’s showrunner and director, Nancy Schwartzman, is herself Jewish and a native of the Philadelphia region, although she doesn’t have any personal or family ties to the people involved.
“I come from a Philly family. My mom actually grew up in the city, and she’s a Temple grad. And Philly is a big part of her family lineage,” Schwartzman, the director, told the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent in an interview. She grew up in Bryn Mawr and went to the Shipley School.
“The connection to Ellen’s story is so strong,” Schwartzman said. “I know exactly where the Venice Lofts [where Greenberg died] are because I grew up playing tennis down the street.” Sam Goldberg, the fiancée, also went to Shipley, although not at the same time as Schwartzman.
Ellen Greenberg, who was a teacher, was an alumna of Penn State, with teaching degrees from Temple and Chestnut Hill College.
The documentary includes interviews with Ellen’s parents, Sandee and Josh Greenberg, some of her old friends, and Stephanie Farr, the Philadelphia Inquirer columnist who has written extensively about the case.
In the film, Greenberg’s family talks about how Jewish funeral customs required Greenberg to be buried within two days, which affected the investigation. Her funeral shiva is discussed as well.
Schwartzman said that, after a period of research, the project started filming earlier this year, “when the family had launched their lawsuits and were ready to go to court.”
Upon learning about all of the grisly details of the death itself, as well as about her life, Schwartzman began to relate to Ellen Greenberg.
“Learning the kind of young woman Ellen was — and I relate — I do not like blood. I do not like pain. And this is a girl who didn’t even want to get her ears pierced. So, she was very wary of all that stuff. So to see the wounding on her body, and then hear that this was declared a suicide, it looked anatomically absolutely impossible. When you learn who Ellen was, Ellen loved her family. Ellen was such a connected daughter, cousin, friend, teacher and neighbor. I mean, like she was so connected. Suicide is so unlikely.”
Some of the determinations in the case have hinged on some Google searches on Greenberg’s computer that involved methods of suicide; however, the documentary states that there are questions about the chain of custody for that evidence.
Schwartzman singled out Farr’s coverage of the case, which she called “the fulcrum of what brought national attention to Ellen’s case.”
Ellen Greenberg, right, with her fiancé. (ABC News Studios)
The Greenberg case has gotten national attention for another reason: Gov. Josh Shapiro, during his time as Pennsylvania attorney general, took over the case in 2018, seven years after Greenberg’s death. The following year, his office reaffirmed its ruling of the case as a suicide.
Shapiro’s handling of the case has often been criticized by political opponents of the governor, both to his left and his right. The issue was raised in 2024, when Shapiro was under consideration to serve as Kamala Harris’ running mate, and can be expected to come up again in the governor’s reelection campaign, or in a potential run for the presidency.
Earlier this year, after the reopening of the case by the city, Shapiro addressed the case when asked about it at a press conference.
“As a father of four, my heart breaks for the Greenberg family. No family should ever, ever have to bury a child,” Shapiro said in February of this year.
“There’s nothing I wanted more than to give these parents some finality, some answer, some clarity. And we received more evidence, more information during the course of our investigation that sadly didn’t show what they wanted it to show, but actually rather pointed to more data, more information that pointed toward a suicide,” the governor said.
“The bottom line is, Josh Shapiro inherited this case,” Schwartzman said of the governor’s involvement. But she went on to declare it “unfortunate” that Shapiro had made that statement after the February settlement.
“It’s very perplexing to me why Gov. Shapiro, three days later, would sort of double down on suicide at that point,” she said. “I would have thought Gov. Shapiro would have a more nuanced statement on the matter, and hinging it on a few searches on a computer that could have been compromised also just really doesn’t seem sound.”
The documentary, while focused on the Greenberg family’s quest for justice, does not come out and declare that any specific person was responsible for the death.
“My goal as a storyteller is to craft a really compelling story and make you care about Ellen and her family, which I think you’d have to be a stone not to feel their grief, and also this massive injustice,” Schwartzman said. “It is just so highly unlikely this is a suicide. And there was a miscarriage of justice here. And we would hope that the institutions involved would make it right. And it’s time to make it right.”
Stephen Silver is a Broomall-based freelance writer.