'This Was Not A Suicide': New Evidence In Death Of Ellen Greenberg, Philadelphia Teacher Found Stabbed 20 Times
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Eyewitness News is revealing new evidence in the death of a Philadelphia school teacher that happened more than a decade ago when she was found stabbed 20 times.
On Friday, Ellen Greenberg's family and their attorney will make their case to a city judge to argue her death was a homicide, not a suicide.
Greenberg was a beloved teacher who worked at Juniata Park Academy.
"Ellen was a very very good, caring person," Josh Greenberg, Ellen's father, said.
But her parents say she had her life cut short at just 27-years old after she was found dead in her Manayunk apartment with more than 20 stab wounds to her body in 2011.
Now, a decade later, Greenberg's parents are still pushing the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office to change her manner of death from a suicide to homicide.
"We want justice for our daughter," Josh Greenberg said.
In 2020, the Greenberg's family attorney showed Eyewitness News images he says forensically proved Ellen could not have stabbed herself 20 times.
Now, this deposition of a city-hired medical expert reveals testimony that corroborates those images, according to the Greenberg's family attorney, Joe Podraza.
"In this neuropathologist's best determination, Ellen wasn't alive when she was stabbed," Podraza said.
The deposition is of neuropathologist Lyndsey Emery, who was hired by Philadelphia to review Ellen Greenberg's spinal cord a few years ago.
Emery revealed her findings for the first time to Podraza.
"What's significant here is that there's no hemorrhage," Emery said.
"And in your experience, no hemorrhage can equate to the person having been deceased at the time of the administration of the trauma?" Podraza asked.
"Yeah, I mean, in general, no hemorrhage means no pulse," Emery replied.
"People without pulses do not stab themselves repeatedly. So that, by itself, establishes suicide is absolutely impossible in this case," Podraza said. "And not only warrants but demands, changing the death certificate from suicide back to either homicide or cannot be determined for further investigation."
"It corroborates what we always thought. This was not a suicide. This was vicious," Josh Greenberg said.
That deposition video will be a focal point in Friday's hearing inside a Philadelphia courtroom as Greenberg's family and their attorney fight to change her manner of death from suicide to homicide.
