Ellen Greenberg’s unlikely ‘suicide’ decision revealed as detectives dig into video

Ellen Greenberg, a Philadelphia teacher, died on January 6, 2011, during a nor’easter that paralyzed much of the city. She had 20 stab wounds, including 10 to the back of her head and neck, but authorities ultimately ruled her death a suicide.

Few people looking at the case from the outside agree. Outside investigators and a panel of Pennsylvania judges pointed out glaring flaws in the police response and autopsy findings, while calling for an independent review.

A crime scene cleanup company emptied the apartment before police arrived with a search warrant, according to the family’s attorney, Joe Podraza. The knife found in Greenberg’s chest never left fingerprints and a possible second weapon was never found. Investigators did not use the blood detection chemical luminol to examine the scene.

An independent investigation is currently underway, launched about two years ago by the Chester County District Attorney’s Office, which intervened after Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner and former Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, now governor, both recused themselves.

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Ellen Greenberg, left, in an undated family photo. (Greenberg family)

Amateur sleuths and family supporters from across the country spent hours watching snippets of surveillance video from the building’s lobby and hallways looking for clues. Two of them recently shared their findings with family, his parents told Fox News Digital.

One of them, a childhood friend of Greenberg’s who works for the Navy in Mechanicsburg, said Ellen’s mother, Sandee, told him he thought the body language shown by the men going and coming from the elevator indicates “nervous” and “suspicious” behavior. He also questioned whether a man the family previously thought was the cousin of Greenberg’s fiancé, Sam Goldberg, could be someone else.

WATCH: Ellen Greenberg’s then-fiancé Sam Goldberg seen in 2011 surveillance footage

The other, whose day job is a librarian in Chester County, where the outside investigation is underway, told PennLive she believed a man seen “nervously bouncing” in the lobby was going up and down the elevator before using “a Kleenex to dab the blood” from an unspecified injury. She allegedly passed this information on to investigators.

Greenberg’s father, Dr. Josh Greenberg, told Fox News Digital that the family welcomes the support – but that more concrete evidence may be available on a video that has not yet been made public.

WATCH: Phil Hanton, a security guard at Ellen Greenberg’s apartment at the time, is seen in surveillance footage from 2011

“What the police are holding back, they only gave us a three-hour video window, not the whole day before, not the whole day after,” he told Fox News Digital. “They have Melissa Ware, the crime scene videotape made by the building manager. Somehow they can’t produce that.”

“The police are not interested in solving this crime,” he sighs.

Philadelphia police did not immediately respond to a request for comment. They previously declined to discuss the case, citing the open investigation in Chester County and ongoing civil litigation.

A shared image shows Ellen Greenberg smiling in an undated family photo and a computer-generated photo based on an autopsy report showing knives where she was stabbed 20 times. The medical examiner, Dr. Marlon Osbourne, concluded that they were self-inflicted. (Greenberg family)

Greenberg’s parents have been embroiled in bitter legal battles with the government, accusing the medical examiner’s office of covering up their daughter’s murder, demanding that police provide more evidence and seeking to have the designation changed from ” suicide” on his death certificate with “undetermined”. or “homicide.”

Police released several hours of surveillance footage from Greenberg’s apartment building the night of his death to Podraza, who first shared it with Gavin Fish, an independent investigative journalist who has a website dedicated to the resolution of the case.

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Ellen Greenberg’s parents discuss the affair. (Fox News)

There are hours of additional surveillance video that police have yet to turn over, according to Dr. Greenberg, and a recording of the crime scene before it was cleaned up was also withheld from the family, a- he declared.

“The building’s property manager, Melissa Ware, later explained that an anonymous person (Philadelphia Police Department) advised him to call a third-party service to have the apartment deep cleaned,” Commonwealth Judge Ellen Ceisler wrote in an appeal ruling last year. “There is no evidence in the record that Ms. Ware, the unidentified cleaning service, or the PPD representative were never interviewed by the investigating authorities.

WATCH: Melissa Ware Discusses Cleaning Ellen Greenberg’s Apartment

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Ware previously spoke to Fox Nation about the case and cleaning up the apartment.

“I received a call from a member of Sam’s family. I think it might have been the uncle. They wanted to come to the apartment to pick up some personal items for the funeral. I immediately called the police to see what I could or could do.” “I didn’t, and they told me it was OK to let them in. It wasn’t a crime scene anymore,” Ware said. “And then I asked, ‘Well, what’s the condition of the apartment?’ Because I hadn’t gone inside. And is there anyone who could clean it? And they said that was something they didn’t do. I asked for a recommendation. They gave me a crime scene cleanup.

WATCH “THE MYSTERY OF A TEACHER’S DEATH” ON FOX NATION

Dr. Greenberg believes Ware’s video may contain clues that could shed light on what really happened. The same goes for his daughter’s devices — three laptops and two cell phones — which he says went missing from the crime scene.

Ellen Greenberg, a 27-year-old Philadelphia teacher, was found dead in her apartment in 2011 – with 20 stab wounds – in a case that investigators ruled was a suicide. His parents don’t believe the manner of death is accurate, based on information they’ve uncovered during more than a decade of battling with city leaders. (Sandée Greenberg)

“The first EMT, with 30 years of experience doing this sort of thing, knew something was wrong at the scene,” he told Fox News Digital. “No one ever interviewed him and asked, ‘What did you see when you walked into the apartment?'”

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Ware, a former manager of the building, found the cleaning strange and videotaped the apartment, he said. But despite repeated requests from the police, the family does not have a copy.

“Something is wrong,” Dr. Greenberg said. “We have evidence. We have facts. This isn’t about a crazy mom and dad yelling at a table. We did everything the right way.”

He said he and his wife have continued their fight for answers for 14 years and have no intention of giving up.

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Last year, a panel of appeals court judges ruled against the parents’ request to force the Philadelphia Medical Examiner to reclassify Greenberg’s death. The panel ruled the parents lacked standing, but judges criticized the city, police and medical examiner’s office for investigating.

As part of the parents’ civil lawsuits, they must meet with an independent forensic psychiatrist.

PHILADELPHIA TEACHER’S SUSPICIOUS SUICIDE CRIME SCENE WAS CLEANED UP BEFORE POLICE ARRIVAL WITH A POINT WARRANT

Plenty of evidence in this case merits examination, according to Podraza and the family’s private investigator, Tom Brennan. Despite collapsing from nearly two dozen stab wounds in a blood-stained kitchen, Greenberg was found holding a “pristine” white napkin in her left hand.

Dr. Cyril Wecht, a renowned forensic pathologist who conducted an independent review of the autopsy, found the evidence “highly suspicious of homicide.”

Wecht, who died in Maypreviously told Fox News Digital that after reviewing the forensic evidence, he believed the idea that Greenberg could have committed suicide was “highly, highly unlikely.”

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Another highly respected forensic pathologist, Dr. Henry Lee, also examined the case. He found that the angle of the injuries to the back of Greenberg’s head “would have been difficult to inflict on herself” and that her injuries were “consistent with a homicide scene,” according to court documents.