In January 2011, the body was found dead with 20 stab wounds in the kitchen of an apartment in Philadelphia. After smashing the latch door, Greenberg’s fiancee, Sam Goldberg, discovered her body, a long 10-inch foreskin knife protrudes from her chest and stabs wounds in the back of her head and back.
At the scene, police were surprised that all Greenberg’s family and friends committed suicide in her death. A professional cleaning company wiped out Greenburg’s kitchen after police removed her body.
A few days later, during Greenberg’s funeral, the Philadelphia Examination Office ruled the case as murder. Immensely, four months later, Greenberg’s cause of death was switched to suicide. The city of Philadelphia closed the case without further investigation.
Greenberg’s strange and tragic death is the subject of ABC News Studios Docuseries, “Death in the Apartment 603: What happened to Ellen Greenberg?”, directed by Nancy Schwartzman, a three-part series that revisits the horrifying incident and follows Ellen’s parents, Josh and Sandra Greenberg.
Schwartzman began filming the series in February shortly after the civil lawsuit filed by Greenberg against the city of Philadelphia, and soon after the current medical inspectors were resolved in an agreement to review the case. Philadelphia officials were ordered to complete a re-investigation of Ellen Greenberg’s death by October 14th.
“It was this perfect moment to roll the camera into the story because there was momentum,” Schwartzman says. “It had a legal action that took forever, but then, all of a sudden, and finally, it all came together, and when we filmed, we unfolded the story in that moment, coupled with who Ellen is, who his family is, and how all of this evidence came together.”
For Josh and Sandra Greenberg, teaming up with ABC News and Schwartzman meant an opportunity to draw more attention to Case and Ellen’s life.
“I want this documentary to help bring justice to Ellen,” says Josh Greenberg. “But the main part of this series is talking about Eren and how special she was.”
Sandra Greenberg said, “We wanted to know us in the world as a family. We wanted to learn from people who Ellen was and what she was. She loved life.”
In addition to Greenberg, Schwartzman interviewed Eren’s friends and extended family. Philadelphia Inquirer Reporter Stephanie Far, former Philadelphia police officer, detective and forensic pathologists Joseph Scott Morgan and Dr. Michelle Dupree said they had never heard of a case where they had returned to their backs and stabbed someone else. The pathologist also discusses the “textbook stranglehold traces” on Greenberg’s neck and the bruises at various stages of healing throughout her body.
“There are no rumors, no theory, no plot (in this document),” says Schwartzman. “Everything we (examine) in the series is public records and comes through legal procedures and discoveries. It raises a lot of questions. What I jumped into the investigation and saw was clearly an artificial error.”
These human errors include perhaps cleaning the kitchen where Greenberg died, and Sam Goldberg’s uncle has a Greenberg computer from her bedroom without permission after her death.
“Essentially, what we wanted to point out was this snowman effect,” Schwartzman said. “All of these serious mistakes, whether they are malicious or not, will be seen as errors in the investigation. And there is a lack of motivation to say they are actually right and say, “What do you know? Our Beat Cop made a mistake that night.” ”
Goldberg did not participate in the series, but his voice can be heard on the 911 phone call he made after discovering his fiancée’s bloody body.
“She fell on the knife!” Goldberg tells the 911 operator. “Her knife is sticking out. The knife is sticking out from her heart.”
When the 911 operator says he’ll walk away when he does the CPR, Goldberg responds, “I have to do that, right?”
“The man who was about to marry my daughter is having a child with her. When he was asked to do CPR and said, ‘I have to do it,’ I couldn’t believe my ears,” says Sandra Greenfield.
The series also includes the voice of Governor Josh Shapiro via archival news footage. Shapiro inherited the case when he was Pennsylvania Attorney General. In 2019, his office reaffirmed the ruling in the case as a suicide.
Shapiro’s attitude towards the Greenberg incident has not been changed. “We don’t just want to give these parents some finality, some answers, some clarification, and we received more evidence in the course of our investigation that they didn’t show what they wanted to show, but in fact we pointed out more data pointing to more data directed towards suicide,” Shapiro said at a February press conference.
Schwartzman contacted Shapiro for an interview. He declined, as well as the Philadelphia police department, examination rooms, the Attorney General’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office.
“I think this is where documentary films really shine because we try our best to have the authority to explain,” Schwartzman says.
“Death in the Apartment 603: What happened to Ellen Greenberg?” is currently streaming on Hulu.
