Ellen Greenberg case referred to Chester County DA

The Chester County District Attorney’s Office will take a new look at the case of Ellen Greenberg — whose 2011 death by 20 stab wounds was ruled homicide, then changed to suicide — after it received the case on a referral from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office this week.

Chester County DA spokesperson Michelle Bjork said a prosecutor and investigator have been assigned to Greenberg’s case. Further details, including a timeline of how long the new investigation might take, were not available.

In 2018, when Greenberg’s parents, Joshua and Sandra of Harrisburg, began raising new questions about their daughter’s death and the investigation that followed, they asked Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner to reopen the case.

» READ MORE: A locked-room mystery: The death of Ellen Greenberg confounds forensic experts and anguishes her parents

Krasner, who represented the Greenbergs in their quest for answers about their daughter’s death while he was in private practice, referred the case to Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s office, citing a conflict of interest.

In 2019, after conducting what it said was a “thorough investigation,” the AG’s Office stood by the suicide ruling and closed the case.

In December, attorney Joseph Podraza, who is representing the Greenbergs in their ongoing civil lawsuit against the city, delivered new testimony and records obtained through the civil suit to the AG’s Office, but the office continued to stand by the suicide ruling.

Last month, the AG’s Office referred the case back to the Philly DA’s Office due to the “appearance of a conflict of interest” that had arisen, though a spokesperson for the office said no such conflict actually existed.

Due to Krasner’s own conflict of interest, his first assistant district attorney handled the referral and sent the case to the Chester County DA’s Office, with its consent, said Philly DA spokesperson Jane Roh. Case files were then transferred directly from the AG’s Office to the Chester County DA, Roh said.

“I was extremely pleased with the promptness of the reassignment by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office to another DA’s office. That was viewed very positively by the Greenbergs,” Podraza said Wednesday. “We are very hopeful we’ll finally get the independent and thorough review of the matter that is required.”

On Jan. 26, 2011, Greenberg, 27, a first-grade teacher, was discovered by her fiance in the kitchen of their locked Manayunk apartment with 20 stab wounds to her body and a knife lodged in her chest.

The Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office initially ruled her death a homicide, but after police publicly disputed the ruling, the manner of death was changed to suicide, with no explanation to her parents.

In the years since, the Greenbergs have retained a cadre of experts who’ve raised questions about the suicide ruling and the police investigation into the case. Their civil suit against the city remains ongoing, but is currently held up in Commonwealth Court on a rare pretrial appeal filed by city lawyers.