Ellen Greenberg case: Chester County DA to take over investigation of teacher's stabbing death, lawyer says
PHILADELPHIA - As the family of Ellen Greenberg searches for answers more than 10 years after her death, the Chester County District Attorney's Office is now taking over the case.
Greenberg, a school teacher, was found stabbed to death inside her Manayunk apartment in January 2011.
Her death came just a few days after she sent out save the dates for her upcoming wedding.
Officials initially ruled her death as a suicide before changing it to homicide.
Then, the medical examiner's office switched the matter of death back to suicide, but Greenberg's parents, Sandee and Josh, were determined to keep pushing for answers.
They maintained that Greenberg could not have stabbed herself that many times.
"I want my daughter's name cleared, because there's no way that she could have done that to herself," Sandee Greenberg said on Good Day Philadelphia in 2021.
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Greenberg's parents filed a lawsuit against the medical examiner's office and were granted a non-jury trial to try and get the cause of death changed back to homicide or marked as "undecided."
Tom Brennan, a private investigator, joined Greenberg's parents on Good Day Philadelphia and said Ellen's fiance's uncle removed items from the apartment after the crime scene was cleared, including two laptops and a cell phone.
"Right then and there, that negates that chain of evidence," Brennan said. "That adversely impacts the chain of evidence on those devices so that anything that's discovered on those devices can be challenged in court."
According to Brennan, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office promised to provide a forensic analysis of Ellen's laptop, but the family never received a report. They do not believe an analysis was ever conducted.
The Attorney General's Office released a statement, saying:
"Ellen’s death is nothing short of a tragedy, and our heart goes out to her family and friends. Her death is unimaginable and admittedly hard to accept, but all of the evidence thoroughly reviewed by our office and the findings of the medical examiner show this was a suicide. Allegations of new evidence have been unfounded. While it is heartbreaking to everyone that our investigation didn’t find the resolution her family wanted in this bizarre and perplexing case, there is nothing more for our office to do until and if legitimate new evidence is brought forward. At this time, no such information has been shared with our office notwithstanding our request for interested parties to provide any relevant information."
In addition to the Greenbergs pushing for the case to be reopened, a change.org petition called "Justice for Ellen Greenberg" has more than 145,000 signatures calling for the case to be revisited.
On Wednesday, the attorney representing the Greenberg family confirmed to FOX 29 that the Chester County District Attorney would investigate the case.