More than two years after the Chester County District Attorney’s Office was responsible for re-examining In the case of Ellen Greenberg – whose death by 20 stab wounds in 2011 was ruled a homicide and then a suicide by Philadelphia authorities – he announced Friday that “based on the current state of the evidence” , he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime had been committed. engaged.

“Because we cannot meet our burden of proof with the information and evidence currently available, we have placed this investigation in an inactive status,” an emailed press release said. “There is no statute of limitations on criminal homicides in Pennsylvania, and because investigations may take new directions, we will not close the case.”

Joseph Podraza Jr., the attorney for Greenberg’s parents, Joshua and Sandra Greenberg of Harrisburg, said in an emailed statement that they remain steadfast in their belief that Ellen Greenberg was murdered and called the investigation from the Chester County Prosecutor’s Office of “extremely limited and constrained.”

“The Bureau has told us that it has failed to investigate the fundamental questions we have raised that establish Ellen’s murder, and that this evidence remains uncontested,” Podraza said. “Despite these unfortunate limitations and constraints, we appreciate the professional courtesy of the District Attorney who spoke with the family and candidly acknowledged all of these limitations and constraints.”

A civil suit filed by Greenberg’s parents over whether they had the right to challenge the ruling of suicide on their daughter’s death certificate was taken up on appeal this year by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and remains pending. The Greenbergs also have a second civil suit pending seeking damages from the city and several people involved in the investigation into their daughter’s death.

In its press release, the Chester County District Attorney’s Office, led by District Attorney Christopher DeBarrena-Sarobe, noted that the standard of proof for a criminal investigation — beyond a reasonable doubt — is “different from other matters or legal issues surrounding Ms. Greenberg’s death.

Greenberg, then a 27-year-old first-grade teacher, was discovered by her fiancé, Samuel Goldberg, in the kitchen of their locked Manayunk apartment with 20 stab wounds to her body and a 10-inch knife lodged in her chest on January 26. 2011.

Investigators at the scene treated his death as a suicide because the apartment door — which Goldberg said he broke — was locked from the inside, there were no signs of an intruder and Greenberg did not. had no defensive wounds. the police said.

But the next morning, the Philadelphia medical examiner’s office found a total of 20 stab wounds on Greenberg’s body — including 10 to the back of his neck — as well as 11 bruises in various stages of healing, and ruled his death as a homicide.

Police publicly disputed the findings and the ME’s office later changed the decision to suicide, without any explanation to Greenberg’s parents.

In the years since, the Greenbergs have retained experts who have raised questions about the suicide ruling and the investigation of the case, as was first detailed in a report. Investigator’s report 2019.

When the Greenbergs’ former lawyer, Larry Krasner, became Philadelphia’s district attorney in 2018, they reached out to see if he would reopen the investigation into their daughter’s death.

Given his conflict of interest, Krasner’s office referred the matter to the state attorney general’s office, which was then led by current governor Josh Shapiro. After more than a year, the attorney general’s office said it found evidence supporting the suicide and closed its investigation.

In 2019, the Greenbergs sued the Philadelphia ME’s office and the pathologist who conducted the investigation. autopsy, seeking to have the circumstances of their daughter’s death changed to homicide or undetermined, given the new information and forensic experts they obtained.

As a result of this civil suit, additional details and files on the case and the unusual investigation into it was revealed. In 2021, Podraza gave this information to the Attorney General’s office, which was still headed by Shapiro, but the office upheld the suicide ruling.

The following year, theories began circulating online about possible connections between Shapiro and members of Greenberg’s fiancé’s family. Although the attorney general’s office said no conflict existed, it referred the case to the Philadelphia district attorney’s office because of “the appearance of a conflict.”

Unable to take on the case due to Krasner’s own conflict of interest, the Philadelphia DA’s office then referred him to the Chester County DA’s office, where it remains so since August 2022.

According to the office’s press release, detectives “pursued additional investigative measures, including, but not limited to, conducting further interviews and consulting with an independent forensic expert.”

In his statement, Podraza said the expert consulted by the office had an undergraduate degree in entomology (study of insects) and a master’s degree in criminal justice, but no training in medicine or forensic pathology.

The Chester County District Attorney’s Office said its detectives also conducted a review of previous investigations by the Philadelphia Police Department and the AG’s office.

But the validity of the police investigation has already been called into question by the Commonwealth Court, which called it “deeply flawed” in a 2023 decision.

This court heard the case on appeal after the city challenged the first civil action filed by the Greenbergs in 2019. The city argued that the Greenbergs did not have standing to seek an amendment to their daughter’s death certificate . In his 2-1 decision last yearThe Commonwealth Court said it had “no choice under the law” but to grant the city’s appeal to prevent a civil suit from going to trial.

But the Greenbergs and Podraza appealed the decision to the Commonwealth Court, and in July the Pennsylvania Supreme Court – the state’s highest court – agreed to hear the case. The court will not rule on the circumstances of Greenberg’s death, but will consider whether his parents have standing to challenge the stated circumstances of death.

The date for the proceedings before the Supreme Court has not yet been set, but they are expected to take place next year.

A second civil suit filed by the Greenbergs against members of the ME’s office, the police department and the district attorney’s office, seeking damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress, is still pending in the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia.

“We now look forward to a future trial in which a full and frank examination of the fundamental issues surrounding Ellen’s murder can be conducted publicly before an independent judge and jury of our peers,” Podraza said.