Who Killed Ellen Greenberg? She Was Stabbed 20 Times, Yet Her Death Was Ruled Suicide

A documentary from ABC News Studios will investigate the death of Ellen Greenberg, a Philadelphia woman who was stabbed 20 times, yet her death was ruled a homicide. The documentary will stream on Hulu, per Deadline.

According to People, Ellen was killed back in 2011. She'd been stabbed 20 times and was found with a knife in her chest. Her death was ruled a homicide at first, but it was later ruled a suicide, which baffled her parents and everyone else. The Death in Apartment 603: What Happened to Ellen Greenberg? will debut sometime in 2025.

People want to know who killed Ellen Greenberg, because it does not seem that she died by suicide. She was found with a 10-inch knife stuck in her chest by her fiancé, Sam Goldberg, in their Philadelphia apartment. Sam claimed that he found her after he came home from the gym. She had stabs to her neck and spine. Ellen also had a six-inch cut on her head, and at first, Ellen's death was ruled a homicide by medical examiner Dr. Marlon Osbourne.

However, in a shocking twist, in April of 2011, the medical examiner changed the cause of death to suicide after meeting with the Philadelphia Police Department, which meant an end to the investigation into her death. The door was locked from the inside, but her shocked parents, Josh and Sandee, claimed that Ellen would never kill herself. "She would never, ever do that," said her mother. The couple has spent the years after Ellen's death looking for answers.

The couple hired forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht, and he ruled that Ellen’s wounds were not self-inflicted. Forensic neuropathologist Dr. Wayne Ross found evidence that Ellen was strangled, and he also believes her killing was staged by someone. Ellen's parents filed two lawsuits to force her case to be reopened. One of the lawsuits was filed against the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office in 2019. The other was filed against the City of Philadelphia in 2022.

Their lawyer, Joe Podraza, claimed in court documents that the case was a "cover-up" and "deeply botched." The lawsuits were settled, and in February of 2025, officials agreed to reevaluate the case but have not come to a conclusion. The medical examiner in the original case signed a sworn statement in January saying that he now believes Ellen's death was the result of "something other than suicide."

Ellen's former fiancé said when he returned home, the door was latched from the inside, so he spent 45 minutes calling for her to open the door before eventually breaking in and finding her.

"Help! I need an ambulance immediately,” he said after dialing 911. "I just came home, and my fiancée is on the floor, covered in blood." After being instructed to give Ellen CPR, he noticed the knife and exclaimed, "She stabbed herself. She fell on a knife."

The autopsy revealed Ellen had been stabbed repeatedly, and the apartment had been cleaned before the police arrived on the scene. Guy D’Andrea, the assistant district attorney in Philly, said that there was no way Ellen could have killed herself.

“There is no way anyone, no one can say, this is conclusively a suicide,” he says. “At this point, at a minimum, because of how botched this was, this should be undetermined."