What Happened To Ellen?

A coroner ruled it a "suicide" but she had 20 stab wounds, including some to the back of her head. Plus: one-time VP hopeful Josh Shapiro is involved here.

True crime one for you. Happy Monday, gang.

You probably know this one as “20 stab wounds and was ruled a suicide.” In fact, down in St. Lucia two weeks ago, we took a little speedboat tour around the island and met this couple where the woman had huge fake breasts. She had been previously married to a MLB player (I’ll withhold the name but he was with the Phillies for a long time), and eventually we got to talking as we cruised the waterways, and she was into true crime and asked me if I had heard of this one. The story knows no geographic bounds.

Basic facts: in 2011, Ellen Greenberg was 27 and a 1st-grade teacher. She was newly-engaged to a guy named Sam Goldberg and lived with him. Her school got dismissed early for a snow day and she seemed excited by that, texting a friend “Thank Goodness!” She and Sam were in the apartment at 3:45pm. He went to the gym in the building at some point, like 4:45pm or so. He was at the gym for 30 minutes, apparently. He came back and couldn’t access the apartment, so he knocked and knocked and sent her some text messages. Finally, purportedly he broke the door down and called 911.

This whole sequence is where it gets interesting, though. I’ll link you the 911 call in a second, but apparently, per this thread, Sam called two people before 911 — his uncle and his cousin, both of whom were lawyers. Seems odd, right? His lawyer uncle is very tight with Josh Shapiro, who was then the Attorney General of PA (or maybe the Assistant AG) and is now the Governor, but was this close to being Kamala’s VP choice. So that’s another wrinkle.

Ellen was deceased inside the apartment. While she had over 20 stab wounds, including some to the neck and head where you would not logically think someone could stab themselves, the ruling flip-flopped on cause of death a few times.