Penn Supreme Court to review suicide ruling in case of Philly woman stabbed 20 times in 2011—then-AG Josh Shapiro backed claim wounds were self-inflicted

With the announcement of Vice President and presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris that she will begin campaigning in Philadelphia, Penn. with her yet-to-be-named running mate, many speculated that her selection would be Pennsylvania Democrat Governor Josh Shapiro. The pick would be a hard sell for the radical base because of Shapiro’s Jewish roots and his support for Israel, but a 2011 case that is now headed to the state supreme court could be an even bigger threat to the campaign.

In 2011, 27-year-old Ellen Greenberg, a first-grade teacher at Juniata Park Academy, died in an apartment she shared with her fiancé, Sam Goldberg in Manayunk. Her body was found with a knife in her chest on the floor of the kitchen and the Philadelphia Assistant Medical Examiner Marlon Osbourne found 20 stab and slash wounds, half of which were in the back of her neck and head.

"Philadelphia Medical Examiner Marlon Osbourne initially ruled her death a homicide," NPR reports, "noting the large number of stab wounds, including 10 to the back of her neck. After police publicly challenged the findings, Osbourne switched the ruling to suicide without explanation."

The death was ruled a suicide and then-AG Josh Shapiro backed that up when the case landed on his desk, despite the clamor that it was a homicide. The Greenberg family has been fighting to have her death ruled back to a homicide for all these years, and there is evidence that many say backs up their claim.

It was announced Tuesday that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will finally hear arguments from the Greenberg family to rule the case a homicide and not a suicide. According to CBS, “Justices will hear arguments on whether executors and administrators of an estate have standing to challenge a finding on a death certificate that limits someone's ability to collect victim's compensation, receive restitution through a wrongful death suit or submit a criminal complaint.”

However, the process could take over a year to play out and the investigation now sits with the Chester County DA's Office due to conflicts in Philadelphia and with the state Attorney General’s office. On Tuesday, attorney Joe Podraza said in an interview with WHP-TV, "Whether coroners and medical examiners have absolute power, or can they be challenged when the evidence shows they are not only mistaken, but grossly mistaken." Over 160,000 people signed a petition on Change.org asking for Greenberg's death certificate to be changed to a homicide.

Osbourne originally ruled her death a homicide. However, According to court documents, there was a campaign by the Philadelphia Police Department, his boss, and a representative from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office to pressure Osbourne into changing his mind and declaring her death a suicide. It was changed. A&E later questioned how someone could stab themselves 20 times.

Ellen’s parents, Josh and Sandee Greenberg, have been fighting against the city of Philadelphia to change the manner of their daughter’s death back to homicide. In 2021 during a deposition, former Philadelphia Assistant Medical Examiner Dr. Lindsey Emery testified that in 2019 at the request of Chief Medical Examiner Sam Gulino, she reviewed a city-retained piece of Ellen Greenberg’s spinal column and in her opinion, at least two of the stab wounds occurred after Greenberg died.

After the Greenbergs’ attorneys informed then-Pennsylvania Attorney General Shapiro of the new testimony, his office replied in a letter that they had reviewed the case and still supported a finding of suicide. However, according to journalist Gavin Fish, many details of the case conflict with the findings. On January 26, 2011, Greenberg’s fiancé Sam Goldberg called 911 to report that Ellen was lying on the floor with “blood everywhere” at approximately 6:31 pm.

According to Fish, he told investigators that he left their sixth-floor apartment approximately 45 minutes earlier to go to the gym on the building’s first floor. He claimed that when he came back the door was locked from the inside with a swing bar lock and when he couldn’t reach Ellen by phone, text, email, or by shouting, he broke open the door and found Ellen’s body on the floor of the kitchen.

A source of Fish's, confirmed by a letter from the Goldberg family’s attorneys to Fish, said that at 6:14 pm Goldberg called his cousin, Kamian Schwartzman in a call that lasted for approximately five minutes. During the next seven minutes, Sam missed multiple calls from his uncle, James Schwartzman but at 6:26 pm, James Schwartzman tried calling again, and Sam finally answered the phone.

Kamian and James Schwartzman, both lawyers, were at the apartment building sometime that evening perhaps as early as 6:34 pm before first responders arrived. However, they claimed in a letter to Fish, that he arrived with his father “closer to 7:30.” 

"Her body was slumped against a kitchen cabinet in a seated position. However, an attorney for Ellen's parents said in court Tuesday that her body had been moved," PennLive reported in 2024, in the lead-up to the high court taking the case.

James Schwartzman runs in the same political and social circles as Josh Shapiro and comes from the same neighborhood. Schwartzman is very politically connected. According to his firm’s website, he is the chair of the Ethics and Professional Responsibility Group, a former Assistant US Attorney, and was appointed to be a judge on the Pennsylvania Court of Judicial Discipline by Governor Tom Wolf. He was elected as the President Judge of the Court of Judicial Discipline in 2019 and sat on the board of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority for 19 years.

The day after Ellen Greenberg was found dead, James Schwartzman and another unidentified person went back to the apartment to retrieve a suit for Goldberg to wear to Ellen Greenberg’s funeral. However, according to Fish, they also took her personal laptop, her work laptop, another laptop, and her cell phone from the apartment which was now a crime scene. According to a property receipt, Philadelphia Police retrieved the electronics from Schwartzman two days later.

Josh Shapiro and Schwartzman’s daughter Kimberly “Kimby” Schwartzman Kimmel went to school together and Shapiro called Mrs. Kimmel and her husband “friends." The Schwartzmans also donated to Shapiro’s political campaigns. On Friday, July 15, 2022, three days later, Shapiro’s office told ABC 6 that the case would be referred out because of the perception of a conflict of interest.