Woman found strangled was trying to straighten out life

Elaine Goldberg had finally straightened out her life.

Bright, pretty, and smart, she turned 21 on Sept. 12. She was ready to put her past behind her.

She had reenrolled as a nursing student at Gwynned-Mercy College in Montgomery County. She had kicked a persistent drug problem. As she told her friends on her Facebook page on Oct. 27, "30 days clean today-hollllaaa."

After ending a tumultuous relationship and having a miscarriage, she was back living with her family in Northeast Philadelphia, said her sister, Careen, 17.

"She wanted to go places," Careen Goldberg said. "She had set goals and she was going to achieve them."

But the path to those goals was cut short. On Wednesday, Goldberg's half-naked body was discovered in a trash-strewn lot in Kensington.

The former honor student at Little Flower Catholic High School appeared to have been strangled, police said. As of Friday night, the medical examiner had not determined a cause of death.

"She didn't deserve to die. She worked so hard to stay alive," her sister said. "She just overcame a disease. She wanted to stay alive, and somebody else took that from her."

Mike Jones, Elaine Goldberg's ex-boyfriend, said her addiction had become so bad that he kicked her out of his Wellington Street house in May. She returned home to her family, which includes five siblings.

"She was this smart, awesome girl," Jones said. "Drugs destroyed her."

According to her friends, Goldberg's addiction to narcotics brought her to the brink of death several times. But she told them she did not want to get high anymore. She was rekindling friendships with her high school friends, some of whom lived in Kensington, her sister said.

"I could tell Elaine really, really wanted to be a nurse," said Andrea Hollingsworth, dean of the School of Nursing at Gwynedd-Mercy College. "I greatly admired her perseverance."

Just before Halloween, Goldberg e-mailed friends looking for a drug-free and alcohol-free party to attend.

She went out Wednesday morning. Her family grew concerned when she did not return by sundown.

"I went out looking for her," said Joe Goldberg, her father. "Then I tried calling her friends."

At 11 p.m., a police officer knocked on the door of their two-story ranch house. Elaine's body had been found in the 2800 block of Ruth Street, in a lot ringed by barbed wire, adjacent to an abandoned warehouse.

The news left the family reeling.

"I was shocked, just really confused," said her brother Joey, a freshman at Father Judge High School. "I still am. I was hoping she would walk through the door."

Careen Goldberg said the family was angered by the news coverage that followed.

"This is not about the drug problem," she said. "She was murdered."

Careen Goldberg said her sister had set her sights on becoming a nurse in eighth grade, after the death of her grandmother, Elizabeth Marie Goldberg.

"She had a very close relationship with my grandmom, who spent the last few years of her life in nursing homes and hospitals," Careen Goldberg said. "She really wanted to take care of people."

A Funeral Mass is scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. Martin of Tours Roman Catholic Church, 5450 Roosevelt Boulevard. Elaine will be buried next to her grandmother, her sister said.