Dad. DA says the Ellen Greenberg case cannot be prosecuted and labels it ‘inactive’. This is why

The investigation into the brutal death of Ellen Greenberg from twenty stab wounds has again reached a dead end.

The Chester County District Attorney’s Office, the last to have jurisdiction over the 2011 case, issued a statement Friday that read in part: “The office is unable to move forward with criminal charges at this time and is placing the investigation in an inactive status. “

The statement from Chester District Attorney Christopher L. de Barrena-Sarobe said his office and its investigators have tried to move forward the case, which was initially ruled a homicide in January 2011 but was converted to a suicide three months later.

“Chester County investigators attempted to determine if there was sufficient evidence to reopen the investigation,” the statement said. This included reviewing all existing files in the case, as well as taking “additional investigative steps, including but not limited to conducting new interviews and consulting an independent forensic expert.”

Ultimately, however, the investigative team determined that, based on the current state of the evidence, we cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime was committed. This standard of proof – beyond a reasonable doubt – sets the criminal investigation apart from other legal cases or issues surrounding Ms. Greenberg’s death. Because we cannot meet our burden of proof with the information and evidence currently available, we have placed this investigation in an inactive status,” the statement said.

The statement comes almost fourteen years after Ellen Greenberg was found dead of twenty stab wounds in her supposedly locked apartment in Philadelphia on the evening of January 26, 2011.

Reached for comment, Ellen’s mother, Sandee Greenberg, thanked the district attorney’s office for giving advance notice of the public update on the case, calling the office “polite.” But Sandee then criticized the scope and quality of the Chester district attorney’s investigative review.

She said: “Their investigation was very limited in scope. Their forensic expert had no medical background, and a former homicide prosecutor in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office thoroughly investigated Ellen’s murder and came to the opposite conclusion!’

Sandee points to Guy D’Andrea, who told PennLive this about his findings:

D’Andrea described himself as consumed by the case’s conflicting evidence and inconsistent conclusions since his review of the case file in 2016 while working in the district attorney’s office in Philly.

“It’s one of those things, like so much of the other evidence in this case, that leads to more questions. And the more questions without answers makes this case at least an undetermined cause of death,” D’Andrea told PennLive.

Read the story here: Death scene ‘bizarre to say the least’, says key witness in the Ellen Greenberg case

The Chester district attorney’s update on the Greenberg case is the first investigative action into the circumstances of Ellen’s death since the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office, then under current Governor Josh Shapiro, issued a statement in 2022 made a statement defending their work in the case.

The AG’s office held the Greenberg case for more than four years after the Philadelphia district attorney transferred it due to a conflict of interest. During that time, the AG’s office under Shapiro conducted a so-called “exhaustive review,” including “new forensic analysis,” over “four years of work,” the statement said.

Still, the office said it “regrets” that these efforts could not lead to more lockdown. The AG’s office subsequently dismissed the case, citing the “appearance of a conflict of interest,” and the case ultimately ended up before the Chester County District Attorney’s Office.

Ellen’s parents, formerly of Lower Paxton Township, where Ellen grew up, take a starkly different view of the attorney general’s handling of their daughter’s case, accusing Shapiro and his office of trying to investigate the case more then ‘attend’ for four years.

Meanwhile, the Greenbergs say they have spent $700,000 and counted their own money to conduct an independent investigation into Ellen’s death and have gathered significant evidence that contradicts the official ruling of suicide.

The Greenbergs’ crusade for “Justice for Ellen” has produced two civil lawsuits, one of which has now reached the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

The Commonwealth’s highest court agreed to consider whether families like the Greenbergs can legally challenge the manner of death sentences handed down by coroners and medical examiners in Pennsylvania. The outcome of the case could have far-reaching consequences for the executors of the wills, restitution, compensation for victims and other important matters, the Greenbergs’ lawyer said.

There is no timetable for what is called the Supreme Court’s “discretionary review” and decision.

The Greenbergs’ appeal to the state Supreme Court comes after the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled last September that Ellen’s parents, who are also the executors of her estate, had no legal standing to challenge the medical examiner’s suicide ruling to fight. This is despite the fact that the court found Ellen’s death investigation by City of Philadelphia Police Department detectives, the City of Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office and the Medical Examiner’s Office to be “grossly flawed.”

The Greenbergs’ second lawsuit alleges a conspiracy among Philadelphia detectives, medical examiner officials and assistant district attorneys to cover up what the Greenbergs believe was Ellen’s murder. They are seeking unspecified monetary damages. That case is in the pretrial detention and discovery phase.

The freckled teacher who grew up in the Harrisburg area was found in January 2011 slumped on the kitchen floor of the Manayunk apartment she shared with her fiancé.

Ellen had been stabbed twenty times, mostly in the back of her neck, head and chest. A 10-inch kitchen knife protruded from her chest as a snowstorm raged outside.

Ellen, who was receiving medical treatment for anxiety, was found bloodied and lifeless by her fiancé. Her fiancé told the 911 operator that the door to their apartment had been locked from the inside and that he had to break in after Ellen had not answered for a long time. He told the operator that Ellen had “stabbed herself.”

Philadelphia detectives who responded to the fiancée’s 911 call treated the death as a suicide. They did not consider the apartment a crime scene.

The next day, her death was ruled a homicide by the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s office following an autopsy. Pathologist Dr. Marlon Osbourne of Philadelphia mentioned in his statement “multiple stab wounds by an unknown person.”

Yet the newly launched murder investigation was stymied from the start. The apartment where Ellen died, never sealed as a crime scene, was cleaned and disinfected before detectives and their forensic team obtained a search warrant and returned two days later on January 28.

Because there was little evidence, the investigation went nowhere. Then on April 4, 2011, the rug was pulled out from under the probe.

Osbourne, the pathologist who performed the autopsy and initially ruled the death a homicide, amended Ellen’s death certificate and officially changed the manner of death to suicide. Ellen’s death has since been ruled a suicide – despite the evidence gathered through Greenbergs’ continued efforts, which have received significant media attention.

The Greenbergs revealed that they recently sold their home in Harrisburg and moved to Florida full-time. Sandee Greenberg told PennLive that she and her husband made the move largely due to the financial strain of all their spending on the ongoing lawsuits and private investigation into their daughter’s death.

“We hate to leave Harrisburg,” Sandee said at the time. “I love Harrisburg.”

READ PennLive’s three-part special report on the Ellen Greenberg case:

Part One: Ellen Greenberg died by ‘suicide’ with twenty stab wounds. Her parents want to prove that that is impossible

Part Two: The Greenbergs’ private investigator discovers a potential bombshell that Ellen was likely dead when one of her so-called self-inflicted knife wounds was struck—and Philly ME officials knew this.

Part Three: The Greenbergs’ investigation focuses on each of Ellen’s twenty stab wounds, along with her multiple bruises, old and new.