Nancy Grace has released a catalogue of evidence in the case of Ellen Greenberg, a Pennsylvania teacher whose death was controversially ruled a suicide after she suffered 20 stab wounds.
The matter recently gained further attention when Josh Shapiro emerged as a potential running mate for Kamala Harris.
Because the state’s Attorney General, Shapiro, had doubled down on the suicide case and blocked an effort by Ellen’s family to have the case re-examined.
That’s been cited as one of the reasons Harris didn’t pick Shapiro, but Minnesota Governor Tim Walz instead.
On January 26, 2011, Ellen, a 27-year-old first grade teacher with a “megawatt smile,” was found dead in her Philadelphia apartment.
Ten of the twenty stab wounds were to her neck and the back of her head.
Philadelphia Assistant Coroner Marlon Osbourne initially ruled her death a homicide, but after speaking with police and prosecutors, she changed it to suicide.
In her upcoming book What Happened to Ellen? An American Miscarriage of JusticeNancy reveals some reasons why she thinks it should be changed back to murder.
Ellen Greenberg, a 27-year-old elementary school student who was found with 20 stab wounds in 2011.
Ellen Greenberg’s family fights to overturn coroner’s ruling of suicide
Importantly, an expert tells her that three of the injuries were inflicted post-mortem.
Her investigation found that a lawyer who attended the meeting with the coroner was granted immunity in the case.
Last week, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court finally agreed to hear arguments from Ellen’s parents, Joshua and Sandee, who are attempting to file a legal challenge to the suicide ruling.
Nancy, who has visited the Greenbergs, told Dailymail.com that they have been “through hell and back.”
Nancy said the following about the three post-mortem injuries: ‘Her heart has stopped beating and she’s still stabbing herself, right?’
An expert also said that one of the stab wounds “hit” Ellen’s spinal cord and severed the dura (the membrane surrounding it), but that she would still have had to stab herself afterwards.
Ellen was also found sitting against a kitchen cupboard.
“Then why is there blood flowing horizontally from her nose to her ear? I believe in the law of gravity,” Nancy said. “The scene was staged, her body was moved. There was a cover-up.”
This image shows the stab wounds Ellen sustained to her neck and chest, penetrating her brain and severing her spinal cord
In another graphic show, Ellen’s spinal cord was severed and her brain pierced with two powerful stabs to the neck
She added that Ellen should have stabbed herself with a right-to-right motion, left-to-right motion, then turned the knife and stabbed from right to left. “That didn’t happen,” she said.
She added that the kitchen was “extremely clean” when in fact there should have been a “bloodbath”.
“It stinks like hell. How can anyone go along with that?” she said.
No fingerprints were taken at the time from the knife still lodged in Ellen’s chest, and police did not film the scene.
Luminol was not used at the crime scene to look for signs of diluted blood.
The apartment manager got permission to have it professionally cleaned. He made before and after videos, but the video was ‘lost’ by the police.
Former prosecutor Nancy Grace has been investigating the case for years
Ellen’s parents Joshua and Sandee have been campaigning for 13 years to overturn the suicide ruling
Nancy said a female prosecutor who attended the 2011 meeting with the coroner had been granted immunity in the case.
“Why do people get immunity? Usually when the state believes that person has information.
“We are told that the female prosecutor who was granted immunity was present at the meeting with the coroner,” she said.
Shapiro’s involvement has come to the fore again in recent weeks.
Shapiro was revealed to have been Pennsylvania’s attorney general when his office announced in February 2022 that it had reviewed the case and upheld the suicide ruling.
In July 2022, Shapiro withdrew from the case without providing a detailed explanation.
In a statement, his office said: “While the Attorney General’s Office has no actual conflict of interest in this matter, circumstances beyond our control have created the appearance of a conflict of interest and our involvement no longer serves one of the primary purposes of the District Attorney’s original referral of the conflict of interest.”
Josh Shapiro ‘doubled down’ on suicide ruling when he was Pennsylvania’s attorney general
Shapiro was at one point the favorite to become Kamala Harris’ running mate
Shapiro’s “mishandling” of the case had caused “anger, pain and outrage” among Ellen’s family, Nancy said.
Things turned dramatic when Shapiro was shortlisted for vice president.
‘Instead of saying this is completely wrong, he doubled down. He blocked a new investigation into the matter, he fought it tooth and nail.
“What they should have done was say we don’t know what happened and so we need to have a hearing.”
Nancy described Ellen as a “poster teacher for first grade” who loved her students.
She was also a “daddy’s girl,” enjoying going to sporting events with her father and playing softball.
She said it had been a “very long ordeal” for the Greenbergs as they tried to get the ruling changed. “They tried and tried and tried,” she said.
Ellen was found with 10 stab wounds from a 10-inch knife in her neck and the back of her head, and 10 in her abdomen, stomach and chest.
Her fiancé Sam Goldberg told police he broke down the door, which was locked from the inside, found her and tried to revive her while he was on the phone with 911.
The Greenbergs filed a lawsuit against the coroner’s office and Osborne in 2019, but their request was denied by the Commonwealth Court last September.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied their appeal to hear the case, arguing it was a “matter of state significance.”
Ellen Greenberg, 27, was discovered on the kitchen floor of a locked apartment with a 10-inch kitchen knife in her chest
Ellen died on January 26, 2011 in her Philadelphia apartment
After that decision, Sandee told Dailymail.com: “We’re laughing, we’re very optimistic. I hope we make our daughter proud. There’s been a lot of frustration, but we haven’t given up,” Sandee said.
The court will hear arguments on whether “executors and administrators of an estate have standing to challenge an incorrect finding on the deceased’s death certificate.”
Nancy said she wanted the case to be “appropriately” judged as a murder and that she would “push things to the limit” with other cases.
“Only then will this case proceed with an appropriate murder investigation,” she said.