In the mysterious case of Ellen Greenbergs 2011 death, Nancy Schwartzman is not of the same opinion as Dr. Lindsay Simon.
On Monday, Dr. Simon, the chief medical examiner for the city of Philadelphia, released her findings on Greenbergs suspicious death 14 years ago: it was a suicide, Simon concluded. On Tuesday, Schwartzman, the director of Hulu documentary series Death in Apartment 603: What Happened to Ellen Greenberg?, called the medical opinion totally disappointing and outrageous.
Were all just shocked, Schwartzman told The Hollywood Reporter. Really shocked. Schwartzman is aligned with the Greenberg familys line of thinking, that the 27-year-old teachers death was a homicide. And if it were a homicide, which it had been ruled as at least once (its a whole thing), the number-one suspect would be Greenbergs live-in fianc, Sam Goldberg. It was Goldberg who found Greenberg dead with a knife in her chest, 20 stab wounds and numerous bruises. What kept Goldberg from being a suspect, basically, was the fact that their shared-apartments door was found to be latch-locked from the inside, where only Greenberg was. Goldberg broke through the latch and found Greenberg unresponsive in their kitchen, he told police. The only DNA found on the knife was Greenbergs, and there was no sign of a struggle. There was no known history of domestic violence in Greenbergs and Goldbergs relationship.
Greenberg had been suffering from anxiety, Goldberg, her friends and family told investigators. On this particular day, she was feeling extra pressure to get her students grades in by a deadline. Greenbergs manner of death would later be reclassified as a homicide, but by then, the alleged crime scene had been professionally wiped clean. Greenbergs death was later reaffirmed as a suicide and then Simon got her turn.
With all of the information considered Greenbergs death is best classified as Suicide, Simon concluded, which keeps the case closed for now.
In a statement shared withThe Hollywood Reporter, William Trask, the attorney for the Greenberg family, called Simons review a deeply flawed attempt to justify a predetermined conclusion. Trask said Simons report includes false claims and that the chief medical examiner is ignoring key evidence that contradicts suicide.
Trask further called Simons report an embarrassment to the city and an insult to Ellen and her family.
A noticeably odd part of Simons report is its bibliography (of sorts). A Materials Reviewed section not only includes four (of five) opinions that Greenbergs death was a homicide, it also includes Schwartzmans docuseries as source material. I asked Schwartzman if she found that part to be bizarre.
I think everyone found that to be bizarre, Schwartzman responded, laughing. Its like, Oh, are you just getting up to speed on this case?
Maybe [Simon] needed sort of the CliffsNotes version of the case or something, Schwartzman said. They should use [their microscopes] instead of watching TV.
Trask says he and the Greenbergs will continue through other avenues to get justice for her murder, by any means necessary. Will Schwartzman do the same via bonus episodes of Death in Apartment 603?
Were just tracking this. Its unfolding so quickly. Theres so much that we could track here, so I do hope that a followup I think, look, we had, just as a start last week, 38 million views to the trailer. And the trailer has a lot of the 9-1-1 call on it, a 9-1-1 call that leaves people speechless like one of the sketchiest, strangest, 9-1-1 calls, right? Schwartzman said. So can we elicit some people to come forward and give us new information? That would be wonderful, people close to those involved. But yeah, I think that time and this kind of exposure always tends to inspire people to come forward. So were definitely hoping for a bit more of that, and any kind of unbiased external investigation.










