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Philadelphia settles Ellen Greenberg civil suits and agrees to review her autopsy

The settlement comes just days after the pathologist who ruled Ellen Greenberg’s death a suicide said the ruling should be changed.

Ellen Greenberg's parents, Joshua and Sandra Greenberg.
Ellen Greenberg's parents, Joshua and Sandra Greenberg. Read moreDavid Swanson

After more than five years of contentious legal battles, Philadelphia settled two civil lawsuits brought by the parents of Ellen Greenberg Monday, just before jury selection was to begin in one of the cases.

The settlement includes an undisclosed monetary amount and an agreement that the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office will conduct an “expeditious” review of the manner of Greenberg’s 2011 death by 20 stab wounds, which was initially ruled homicide then switched to suicide, said Joseph Podraza Jr., the Greenbergs' attorney.

The settlement comes just days after Marlon Osbourne, the former assistant medical examiner with the ME’s Office who conducted Greenberg’s autopsy, signed a sworn verification statement in which he said that based on new information, he now believes “Ellen’s manner of death should be designated as something other than suicide.”

“I think it’s important to recognize the Greenbergs' persistence in reaching the result today and over the weekend with Dr. Osbourne’s verification,” Podraza said. “In my view, they have more than brought justice to Ellen and Ellen’s memory.”

Joshua and Sandra Greenberg, formerly of Harrisburg and now of Lake Worth, Fla., said the recent events are “remarkable” and haven’t really sunk in yet.

“I didn’t care about money, all I wanted was Ellen not having been accused of suicide. That’s all I care about,” Joshua Greenberg said. “We fought further and more than anybody, and we won, and we never blinked an eye when it came to fighting for our daughter.”

The couple were in Philadelphia for this week’s trial but will head back to Florida to “regroup and follow the road,” Sandra Greenberg said.

“The heavy lifting has been done. It never should have gone on this long. We should have never had to fight for 14 years for something that is so obvious,” she said. “But we are grateful to the system, to you [Stephanie Farr], and to other journalists, and I’m going to continue to take care.”

As part of the settlement, Joshua and Sandra Greenberg agreed to withdraw both of their civil lawsuits against the city, Podraza said. The first suit, which was filed in 2019 and was slated for a hearing before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania later this year, sought to have the manner of Greenberg’s death changed from suicide back to homicide or undetermined.

The second suit, which was filed in 2022 and slated for trial this week at City Hall, alleged the investigation into Greenberg’s death was “embarrassingly botched” and resulted in a “cover-up” by Philadelphia authorities. It sought monetary damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress against several city employees who were involved in the investigation.

Podraza said as part of the settlement, the Greenbergs agreed not to sue the city again, regardless of the outcome of ME’s reinvestigation of the case.

“Once we got the verification from Dr. Osbourne, that was really the statement that the Greenbergs were looking for all along. The first lawsuit, that’s all they wanted, was for him to say this shouldn’t be a suicide so investigations can go for further,” Podraza said.

It’s not clear what law enforcement entity or prosecutor’s office, if any, might take up investigating the case based on Osbourne’s new opinion or based on any revisions the ME’s Office may make to the manner of death following its reevaluation. (Greenberg’s manner of death is currently still listed as suicide.)

“The Greenbergs will not be looking to the city of Philadelphia agencies to pursue any relief in bringing the murderer or murderers of Ellen to justice,” Podraza said. “Instead, I imagine they will turn their attention to federal and other state agencies.”

Joshua Greenberg said that there’s “still things to talk about and still things to do.”

“There are other criminal justice systems in this country that might take an interest,” he said. “The future is open.”

Ava Schwemler, spokesperson for the Philadelphia Law Department, acknowledged the settlement via email and said the terms include “an independent review of the autopsy file.” It was unclear if the scope of the review would extend beyond the file itself, to include evidence like a piece of Greenberg’s spinal column that’s believed to still be in storage at the ME’s Office.

William Trask, Podraza’s cocounsel, said he doesn’t think the ME’s Office can credibly ignore Osbourne’s revised determination when it reviews the case.

“They’ve taken the position throughout that the medical examiner can’t be told what decision to make that’s, in part, why they resisted any change up until this point,” Trask said. “I would hope they would do the right thing based on evidence.”

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

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.

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.

Police publicly disputed the findings and Osbourne later changed his ruling to suicide. The Greenbergs subsequently retained numerous independent forensic experts who have questioned authorities’ findings, as first detailed in a March 2019 Inquirer report.

Though the Greenbergs settled their civil lawsuits and obtained Osbourne’s statement, they still have questions about their daughter’s final moments.

“We hold out hope that we will find out more information about what happened that night,” Sandra Greenberg said.