On a snowy night in January 2011, Sam Goldberg came home to his Philadelphia apartment to find his fiancee, first-grade teacher Ellen Greenberg, dead in their kitchen. There was a 10-inch kitchen knife sticking out of her chest, and Greenberg had sustained 20 stab wounds to the back of her head and back, Variety reported.

The police initially ruled her death a suicide, much to the horror of Greenberg’s family and friends. Authorities removed her body from the scene and encouraged Goldberg’s family to hire a cleaning crew to scrub the apartment, according to the Philly Voice.

In the months following Greenberg’s death, the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office flip-flopped its ruling, determining the first-grade teacher’s death was a homicide just days after her funeral. Four months later, it was ruled a suicide again, and authorities closed the case.

But Greenberg’s loved ones wanted answers. They still do, and Death in Apartment 603: What Happened to Ellen Greenberg? aims to get them. The three-part ABC News Studios docuseries streaming on Hulu revisits the case and chronicles Greenberg’s parents, Josh and Sandra Greenberg, who never believed their daughter died by suicide, on their quest for justice.

What really happened in apartment 603? Here’s more on the docuseries’ chilling discoveries.

Director Nancy Schwartzman discovered an obvious ‘human error’ made in Greenberg’s case

According to the docuseries, police considered Greenberg’s case a suicide upon their arrival. Because of that determination, authorities didn’t consider Greenberg and Goldberg’s apartment a crime scene, which marked the start of a series of questionable decisions made by authorities, including allowing Goldberg’s uncle to enter the apartment the following day.

Authorities even provided the apartment building manager with the contact information for a cleaning crew to clean the apartment.

In a bizarre turn of events, Greenberg’s cause of death was ruled a homicide on Jan. 28, just days after her death. Greenberg’s case was reopened and an investigation begun, though authorities still believed it was a suicide and went as far as publicly contradicting the Medical Examiner’s Office’s findings.

Months later, on Mar. 10, the medical examiner flipped and declared Greenberg’s cause of death a suicide. But Greenberg’s loved ones weren’t convinced. Neither was Nancy Schwartzman, who directed Death in Apartment 603: What Happened to Ellen Greenberg?

“I mean, just as a headline, it’s so outrageous,” she said. “You can’t exactly believe it. And then the more you dig in and learn, there were 10 stab wounds on her back. How is that a successful mode of suicide? The more you learn, it’s harder and harder to believe that it’s a suicide.”

Schwartzman spoke to Greenberg’s loved ones, Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Stephanie Farr, former Philadelphia police officers, a detective and forensic pathologist, Joseph Scott Morgan and Dr. Michelle Dupree, who confirmed they’ve never heard of someone stabbing themselves in the back, to learn the truth. Morgan and Dupree also addressed the “textbook strangulation marks” on Greenberg’s neck and bruises in various stages of healing found on her body.

“There are no rumors, theories, and conspiracies (in this doc),” Schwartman said. “Everything we [examine] in the series is public record and came through legal process and discovery. It raises a lot of questions. What we saw with our dive into the investigation is that there was obviously human error made.”

Goldberg heard hesitating to perform CPR in his 911 call

Golberg didn’t participate in the series, nor did his family, but his voice is heard in the 911 call he made after finding Greenberg’s body.

Goldberg told the 911 operator, “She fell on a knife! Her knife is sticking out. There’s a knife sticking out of her heart.”

The operator explained to Goldberg that she could walk him through doing CPR if he was willing to do the lifesaving procedure.

Goldberg asked, “I have to, right?”

Sandra shared in the docuseries that she was horrified by Goldberg’s response.

“The man that was going to marry my daughter, have children with her — when he is asked to do CPR and says ‘I have to, right,’ I couldn’t believe my ears,” she said.

Gov. Shapiro declined Schwartzman’s request for an interview

Philadelphia Gov. Josh Shapiro, who was the state’s attorney general at the time of Greenberg’s murder and inherited the case, appears in the docuseries by way of archival news footage.

Shapiro declined Schwartzman’s request for an interview, as did the Philadelphia Police Department, the Medical Examiner’s office, the Attorney General’s office and the District Attorney’s office.

“I think this is where documentary films really shine because we do our best to hold those in power to account,” Schwartzman said.

In February, Shapiro doubled down yet again on his office’s 2019 ruling.

“There’s nothing I wanted more than to give these parents some finality, some answer, some clarify and we received more evidence more information during the course of our investigation that sadly didn’t show what they wanted it to show, but actually rather pointed to more data more information that pointed toward a suicide,” he said at a press conference at the time.

Death in Apartment 603: What Happened to Ellen Greenberg? is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
The post ‘Death In Apartment 603’s True Story, Explained: Mysterious Death Of Ellen Greenberg appeared first on Blavity.



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