As part of the city\u2019s 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\u2019s office conduct an \u201cexpeditious\u201d reexamination of the case.<\/p>\n
But seven months after that agreement was reached<\/a> and five months after it was signed, the office still hasn\u2019t 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\u2019s office and city attorney Michael Pestrak for the delay. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s ridiculous and you obviously just don\u2019t care and that\u2019s probably why the Greenbergs are so frustrated, because if the city cared, expedited means a week or 10 days,\u201d Carpenter said. \u201cNow so much time has gone by how will they have any faith that it was done fairly? Justice delayed is justice denied.\u201d<\/p>\n At one point, Carpenter questioned whether she could conduct a hearing to change the manner of death on Greenberg\u2019s death certificate \u2014 which remains homicide \u2014 to \u201cundetermined\u201d herself, and she floated the idea of forcing the already-settled case back to trial.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy don\u2019t I put this back on the trial list, say the settlement hasn\u2019t happened, there\u2019s been a breach of the settlement?\u201d Carpenter said.<\/p>\n But after Carpenter, Pestrak, and Joseph Podraza Jr. \u2014 the attorney representing Ellen\u2019s parents, Joshua and Sandra Greenberg \u2014 met in a private break-out room for more than a half hour, Carpenter agreed to continue the case until Oct. 14. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll see where we are then,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve heard the city. I understand that there has been a process that\u2019s been going on and while I did express some concern that it wasn\u2019t as expeditious as the court thinks expeditious means, I do understand that there are other things that go on in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n Homicide to suicide<\/p>\n Ellen Greenberg, 27, was found by her fianc\u00e9, Samuel Goldberg, in the kitchen of their Manayunk apartment with a 10-inch knife lodged into her chest on Jan. 26, 2011.<\/p>\n 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the next morning at her autopsy, then-assistant medical examiner Marlon Osbourne noted a total of 20 stab wounds to Greenberg\u2019s body, including 10 to the back of her neck, along with 11 bruises in various stages of healing, and ruled her death a homicide.<\/p>\n Police publicly disputed the findings and Osbourne later changed his ruling to suicide, with no explanation to Greenberg\u2019s parents. In search of answers, Joshua and Sandra Greenberg retained numerous independent forensic experts who have questioned authorities\u2019 findings, as first detailed in a March 2019 Inquirer report<\/a>.<\/p>\n The couple subsequently filed two lawsuits against the city, one<\/a> seeking to have the manner of their daughter\u2019s death changed from suicide back to homicide or undetermined and the other<\/a> alleging the investigation into Greenberg\u2019s death was \u201cembarrassingly botched\u201d and resulted in a \u201ccover-up\u201d by Philadelphia authorities.<\/p>\n After years of fervently battling both lawsuits, the city settled<\/a> with the Greenbergs in February shortly after Osbourne signed a sworn verification statement<\/a> in which he said that based on new information, he now believes \u201cEllen\u2019s manner of death should be designated as something other than suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n Among the terms of the settlement was an \u201cexpeditious\u201d reexamination of the manner of Ellen Greenberg\u2019s death, a $650,000 monetary settlement (which was already paid), and an agreement from the Greenbergs never to sue the city again.<\/p>\n \u2018Understaffed\u2019<\/p>\n