2011 death of Philadelphia teacher with over 20 stab wounds and cuts is again ruled a suicide

Philadelphia’s top pathologist ruled that a schoolteacher found with a kitchen knife in her chest died by suicide, the latest conclusion in a case in which officials have repeatedly reversed their findings in the 2011 death of Ellen Greenberg

Philadelphia’s top pathologist ruled that a schoolteacher found with a kitchen knife in her chest died by suicide, the latest conclusion in a case in which officials have repeatedly reversed their findings in the 2011 death of Ellen Greenberg.

In a 32-page report completed last week, Chief Medical Examiner Lindsay Simon wrote that while the distribution of Greenberg’s injuries — she was found with more than 20 stab wounds and cuts to her neck, head and torso — were “admittedly unusual, the fact remains that Ellen would be capable of inflicting these injuries herself.”

“Many of these stab and incised wounds would best be categorized as hesitation wounds,” Simon wrote.

The pathologist who performed Greenberg's autopsy in 2011 documented 20 wounds, but Simon's report notes three more.

There was no evidence that anyone else entered Greenberg’s apartment before her fiancé forced his way into the locked home on Jan. 26, 2011, found her body and called 911, according to the report. Nor was there evidence of a struggle or of someone else using the knife found in Greenberg's chest, the report says.