During a recent review of the Ellen Greenberg case, Philadelphia Chief Medical Examiner Lindsay Simon discovered 20 additional bruises and three additional “perforations in the skin” never before documented on Greenberg’s body, raising the total number of bruises to 31 and stab wounds to 23, up from 20.

Despite that new information, Simon concluded Greenberg’s death “is best classified as ‘Suicide,’” as it has been by the city since it was switched from homicide in 2011.

In a 32-page report detailing her findings, Simon based her determination on several factors, including Greenberg’s anxiety about her work as a first-grade teacher and how grades “she needed to submit on the day of her death would indicate that she had previously given inflated grades to her students.”

“While her recent change in medications had helped with the insomnia associated with her anxiety, she did not survive long enough to address the anxiety itself,” Simon wrote. “Thus, she had an increase in energy to act on her anxious thoughts.”

The court-ordered reexamination was part of an agreement that Greenberg’s parents, Joshua and Sandra, reached with the city in February to settle two lawsuits they brought against Philadelphia authorities relating to the investigations into their daughter’s death.

Simon’s review was delivered to the Greenberg’ attorney, Joseph Podraza Jr., Friday afternoon, in advance of a court hearing Tuesday to address a motion he filed to compel the city to produce its findings.

The Greenbergs, who haven’t been able to stomach reading the review but are aware of its suicide conclusion, were disappointed but not surprised.

“The whole thing was bogus,” Joshua Greenberg said. “I expected the city to do this. Her synopsis doesn’t change a darn thing. Philadelphia will do everything they can to prove their point.”

Podraza wasn’t shocked by the determination either.

“That didn’t surprise me as much as when I turned to reading the substance of this alleged report,” he said. “Overall, I think it’s a product that’s disingenuous and really constitutes tripe.”

Differing opinions

The suicide determination reached by Simon, who was not previously involved in the investigations into Greenberg’s case, flies in the face of a January statement signed by Marlon Osbourne, the pathologist who conducted Greenberg’s autopsy in 2011.

In that sworn statement, Osbourne — who initially ruled Greenberg’s death a homicide, before later switching it to suicide — said he now believes her death “should be designated as something other than suicide.”

The remaining options are homicide or undetermined. Simon did not address Osbourne’s new position in her review and it is unclear if it factored into her decision.

Simon’s determination also goes against five of the seven consultative reports from forensic experts she considered as part of her review, who concluded that the case is indicative of homicide or “not biomechanically consistent with suicide.”

A sixth report from a blood splatter expert made no determination on the manner of Greenberg’s death, but concluded her body had been moved. All of those reports were retained by the Greenbergs while the seventh report, which supported suicide, was produced by an expert for the city.

From homicide to suicide

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

Investigators on scene treated her death as a suicide because Goldberg told them the swing bar lock to their apartment was engaged 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, 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.

By the time homicide investigators returned to the scene to conduct their investigation, the apartment was already professionally cleaned and electronic devices belonging to Greenberg had been removed by a member of Goldberg’s family.

Shortly after the homicide ruling, police began publicly disputing the findings from the Medical Examiner’s Office and Osbourne later changed his ruling to suicide, with no explanation to the family. The Greenbergs subsequently retained numerous independent forensic experts who have questioned authorities’ findings, as first detailed in a March 2019 Inquirer report.

The lawsuits

The Greenbergs and Podraza filed their first civil suit against the city in 2019, seeking to have the manner of Greenberg’s death changed from suicide back to homicide or undetermined. Their second suit, which was filed in 2022 and resulted from new information obtained through discovery and depositions in the first suit, alleged the investigation into Greenberg’s death was “embarrassingly botched” and resulted in a “cover-up” by Philadelphia authorities.

As part of their February settlement with the city, which came on the heels of Osbourne’s revised position on the case, the Greenbergs agreed to withdraw both suits.

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

The case recently received renewed attention when a three-part Hulu docuseries, Death in Apartment 603: What Happened to Ellen Greenberg?, premiered in late September.

The spinal cord

According to her report, Simon watched the Hulu documentary as part of her review. She also reviewed records and photos of the scene and autopsy from the Medical Examiner’s Office, records from the police department, transcripts from depositions in the lawsuits, and the seven consultative reports from forensic experts.

Her review does not say that she conducted any interviews, nor does it say that she examined the piece of Greenberg’s spinal cord still in storage at the Medical Examiner’s Office.

That specimen was previously examined by a former member of the Medical Examiner’s Office, Lindsay Emery, who testified that two cuts to Greenberg’s spinal column — one to the bone and ligaments in the back and a corresponding cut to the dura — lacked hemorrhaging, which “means no pulse.”

At deposition, Emery said there were three possibilities for the lack of hemorrhaging: There wasn’t enough time between when the wound was inflicted and when Greenberg died for it to hemorrhage; the wound didn’t disrupt the tissue enough to cause a response; or Greenberg was already dead when the wound was inflicted.

Wayne K. Ross, a forensic expert for the Greenbergs who examined the spinal cord specimen, concluded that Greenberg was already dead when that wound was inflicted.

During deposition, Emery said that the wounds were from a “bona fide sharp force injury” and were not done at autopsy, but a month later, the city filed a written declaration by Emery, in which she presented several other possibilities for the lack of hemorrhaging, including that the injury could have been done at the time of autopsy.

In her review, Simon concluded “the preponderance of the evidence suggests the defect was an artifact from the autopsy.”

Podraza said he would have expected Simon to conduct her own exam of the spinal cord specimen or send it out for a neuropathology examination, and not depend on previous reports and photographs.

“You can’t render an opinion as to whether a wound bled or not without a histological exam,” he said. “You can’t say that a wound is an artifact of autopsy without doing more than simply looking at a photograph.”

Simon also noted there was 1220 ml of blood in Greenberg’s chest cavities associated the knife lodged in her chest, which she said indicates Greenberg was “alive when this stab wound was inflicted.”

New wounds and bruises

The three additional “perforations to the skin” Simon discovered during her review that were unaccounted for in Osbourne’s notes “did not result in significant internal injury,” she said.

Simon opined that all 23 of the wounds could be self-inflicted and that 11 were so “small and shallow” that they are “consistent with ‘hesitation wounds’ from self-infliction.”

“While the distribution of injuries is admittedly unusual, the fact remains that Ellen would be capable of inflicting these injuries herself,” she wrote.

When it comes to the 31 bruises, Simon said it is her opinion that they were “consistent with incidental contact sustained during activities of daily living, including her work as a first-grade teacher.”

“That must be a full-contact first grade class, tantamount to playing with the Eagles,” Podraza said.

‘We will never stop’

In reaching her suicide ruling, Simon said there was no indication Greenberg was in an abusive relationship, no indication that a third party gained access to the apartment, no evidence of a struggle, and “no reasonable explanation for the lack of defensive wounds on Ellen’s body.”

And again, she relied heavily upon reports from Greenberg’s family, friends, fiancé, and psychiatrist that she was suffering from anxiety due to work, though none of those individuals ever reported she had suicidal ideations.

Podraza and his co-counsel, William Trask, said Greenberg’s anxiety is overstated and conclusions that it led her to kill herself, without any prior indication she was inclined to do so, are “pure speculation.”

“She was stabbed in brain, spine, liver, et cetera,” Trask said. “I think that the goal here was not to discover the truth about what happened to Ellen, the goal was to smear her mental health and make sure nobody is held accountable for what happened.”

Requests for comment to the Philadelphia Solicitor’s Office and the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office were not returned Monday.

Despite the suicide determination, Podraza said “we will never stop” and there are other options to pursue, though he was not ready to discuss what those may be at this time.

“I want people to understand there is something wrong in the City of Brotherly Love,” he said. “I really fear that if this is how the Greenbergs get treated, what happens to the people in the city with less means? That’s scary.”