Ellen Greenberg Docuseries Director Discusses Mysterious Case

MANAYUNK, PHILADELPHIA — A new docuseries is examining the disturbing and mysterious death of local teacher Ellen Greenberg.

Greenberg was just 27 when she was found dead by her fiancée Samuel Goldberg with 20 stab wounds to her back in her apartment on Flat Rock Road in Manayunk on Jan. 26, 2011. Her death was ruled a homicide, but that ruling was changed to suicide about two months later, leaving many people flabbergasted and angry, including her parents Sandee and Josh Greenberg.

Detectives and the Medical Examiner's Office initially could not agree on a cause of death, with the Medical Examiner's Office calling the death a homicide, and law enforcement calling it a "suspicious death."

The elementary school teacher's death has been the focus of several productions, but "Death in Apartment 603: What Happened to Ellen Greenberg?" from ABC News Studios aims to dig deeper into the case.

The docuseries premiers Monday on Hulu, and showrunner and director Nancy Schwartzman hopes the fact-driven three-part series sheds more light on the ongoing investigation nearly 15 years after her death.

"I felt like I knew Ellen and understood where she came from," Schwartzman told Patch ahead of the series premier.

Schwartzman — who grew up in Bryn Mawr, attended The Shipley School, and later graduated from Columbia University — has covered other unsolved cases, or cases that were dealt with shoddily.

Her pervious work includes the films "Roll Red Roll" and "Victim/Suspect," and the series "Sasha Reid and the Midnight Order."

"This collided those elements," she said of the Greenberg case. "She was on the verge of all these awesome things only to have this happen and it be called a suicide."

The three-part series will follow her family’s 14-year quest to find out what really happened, as they fight to reopen the case and expose a chain of institutional failures.

Schwartzman has teamed up with sisters Elle Fanning and Dakota Fanning for "Death in Apartment 603," with the actors serving as producers.

"Everything we pulled from was public record or entered into evidence, including conflicting police statements," Shwartzman said.

She and her team also interviewed man people who had tangential connections to the case in their quest for answers. This includes close friends, family members, and her former students and colleagues.

Additional interviews include former neighbors and staff who were present in Greenberg’s apartment building at the time of her death, a former colleague of her fiancé, and attorneys and law enforcement experts.

"We present the facts, and the facts are stark," she said.

Experts also weighed in for the docuseries, with one who has examined more than 1,000 bodies who said they have never seen someone take their own life by stabbing themselves in the back.

The show also covers how the crime scene in the apartment shared by Greenberg and Goldberg.

Schwartzman said investigators did not take enough photos at the scene, and said had the scene been treated properly, more photo documentation would have been logged by authorities.

"If you're not sure of what happened in a scene, the default should be to treat it like a homicide," she said. But that was not the case with Greenberg's death, she said.

The series also touches on the stigmatization of women's mental health.

"She never exhibited suicidal ideation ever," Schwartzman said. "There is no record of saying that, including from her fiancé."

When the homicide ruling was reverse to be suicide, the Greenberg family was stunned, as they realized the facts did not seem to align with suicide.

The internet is full of rumors and hearsay about the case, and Schwartzman assured her new series only traffics in the known knowns of the case.

"We know that Sam Goldberg works in TV for LIV golf," she said. "His uncle James Schwartzman was a prominent attorney in Philadelphia."

Some have speculated Goldberg's family ties to then Pennsylvania Attorney General and current Gov. Josh Shapiro played a role in the case.

Schwartzman said Shapiro was asked directly about the Greenberg case in February this year and doubled down on her death being a homicide.

"It felt like a very strange thing to do," she said.

The ongoing investigation has been tumultuous, as it has been opened, closed, and moved on various occasions.

Sandee and Josh Greenberg have been working to uncover the truth of what happened to their daughter since her death.

In October 2022, her family filed a suit against the Philadelphia, alleging it covered up her death and wrongly ruled her death a suicide.

Greenberg's family in 2019 asked for the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office to reopen the case, but District Attorney Larry Krasner sent the case to Shapiro's AG office, According to Action News. Krasner previously represented the Greenberg family in a previous step in the case, thus his sending the case to the AG's office.

In late 2021, the AG's office was given a 10 gigabyte file by Greenberg's family.

A representative for the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office told Patch in December 2021 that the file was being reviewed and that it was too early to say if it contains new details or new evidence.

However, the case was sent back to Philadelphia.

Then, the case was handed over to the Chester County District Attorney's Office in 2022.

Schwartzman said their first day of filming was in court in February this year.

In 2023, a judge said a suicide ruling could not be overturned, citing the family's lack of legal standing to sue the city in hopes of reversing the suicide ruling to homicide. This ruling came even after the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office said there "is no dispute that evidence in the record could support other conclusions about the manner of [Greenberg's] death."

However, the court said it believes that "providing a detailed review of the Victim’s death and the ensuing investigation is clearly warranted with hopes that equity may one day prevail for the Victim and her loved ones."

"Two days before the suit was going to court, [Osbourne] released the letter [reversing his ruling," she said. "Hours later, after jury selection, the city and medical examiner's office settled."

This was following a "dramatic turn of events," which included Marlon Osbourne in January saying Greenberg did not commit suicide. Osbourne was the pathologist who performed Greenberg's autopsy.

Part of the settlement included an agreement to reexamine the case expeditiously.

However, Schwartzman said nine months later, there has been no new news about the case.

All three episodes of "Death in Apartment 603: What Happened to Ellen Greenberg?" are available on Hulu now.