The death of Ellen Greenberg

I am grateful that The Philadelphia Inquirer printed this letter. Something is very, very wrong in the decisions relating to this tragic case. Among them, the crime scene was cleaned before a full investigation was possible. Relatedly, far too many vulnerable children under our care die. If you have interest, please visit my papers at the UPenn Archives for photos and info about them.

To the editor:

Try as I may, I can’t wrap my head around Chief Medical Examiner Lindsay Simon’s recent ruling that 27-year-old Ellen Greenberg’s stabbing death was by suicide.

You most likely are familiar with the details of the case: In January 2011, Greenberg was found on the kitchen floor of the Manayunk apartment she shared with her fiancé, Sam Goldberg, a politically connected producer at NBC Sports. Greenberg had been stabbed 20 times, and she was discovered by Goldberg, who was never considered a suspect or charged with any crime.

Simon, in her recent review, which was prompted by two lawsuits Greenberg’s parents filed against the city, discovered 20 additional bruises and three additional “perforations of her skin” never before documented, raising the number of bruises to 31 and stab wounds — including one in the back of her neck — to 23. Well, I’m not a medical examiner, a criminal investigator, a police officer, an assistant DA, or an attorney. But I have so many questions.

Although Simon states that all of the wounds and bruises could have been self-inflicted, it seems to me that only a skilled contortionist could accomplish what was described. Did Simon conduct further interviews to validate her conclusions? Did she examine Greenberg’s emails?

Mostly, though, I remain clueless about how, through the long years since Greenberg’s death, her parents, Joshua and Sandra Greenberg, have held on to any semblance of the ability to rest, to sleep — or even breathe.

SaraKay Smullens
Philadelphia

Published in The Philadelphia Inquirer, October 20, 2025