Death of Ellen Greenberg, Teacher Stabbed 20 Times in Case Ruled Suicide, Now Reexamined After 11 Years

The case of a beloved Pennsylvania schoolteacher found dead with 20 stab wounds is being reopened more than a decade after it was initially ruled a suicide.  

The family of Ellen Greenberg emphatically denied there being any chance that she could have killed herself. The 27-year-old educator was about to be married when her fiancé told police he came home from the gym to find her lying in their Philadelphia apartment on Jan. 26, 2011 

Her fiancé, Sam Goldberg, told the 911 operator he thought she may have slipped and hit her head, and audio recording of the call captured the moment he discovered she had been stabbed.  

“Her shirt won't come off, it's a zipper. Oh, my God, she stabbed herself,” he said.  

Greenburg was stabbed 20 times, 10 in the back of her neck, once in the scalp, eight times in the chest and in the abdomen.  

Her death was at first ruled a homicide but was later changed to suicide. Her parents have spent the last 11 years fighting that ruling.  

Sandee and Josh Greenberg even commissioned images to show how improbable it was that their 27-year-old daughter could stab herself that many times.  

“The authorities trying to make us believe that our daughter committed suicide when she didn't is just reprehensible to me,” Sandee Greenberg told Inside Edition.  

Now prosecutors have agreed to review the case.  

“We hope so,” Josh Greenberg said of the chance that this will bring about developments in his daughter’s case. “We’re not gonna let this go.” 

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