Judges hear appeal arguments on Manayunk teacher found dead with 20 stab wounds
Ellen Greenberg's family is fighting to change the manner of the teacher's death from suicide to homicide or undetermined.
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- The family of Ellen Greenberg, a 27-year-old Philadelphia teacher found dead of more than 20 stab wounds inside her locked Manayunk apartment in 2011, is continuing to fight for change.
Appeal arguments took place before Commonwealth Court judges on Tuesday in the case.
Last year, Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Glynnis D. Hill ruled a civil suit filed by the Greenberg family, Joshua and Sandra Greenberg, against the medical examiner's office and Marlon Osbourne, the pathologist who conducted their daughter's autopsy, could proceed to trial.
Greenberg's family and attorneys sued the City of Philadelphia to compel the medical examiner's office to change the manner of the teacher's death from suicide to homicide or undetermined.
Greenberg was discovered by her fiancé in January 2011 inside of their locked apartment at the Venice Lofts on the 4600 block of Flat Rock Road.
Her fiancé made the discovery and called 911. He has never been named a person of interest in the case.
The city's Medical Examiner's Office initially ruled her death a homicide but then later changed it to suicide after information provided by police.
New evidence obtained in a 2021 deposition of a former City of Philadelphia neuropathologist in the medical examiner's office is enough for the office to change the ruling to undetermined or homicide, according to Greenberg's attorney Joe Podraza.
"I think that it is definitive, telling and decides the case. It concludes the case in our favor," said Podraza on Tuesday. "The deposition testimony of Dr. Emery saying that a wound that was preserved by the medical examiner's office is a post-mortem wound, by definition it was inflicted when Ellen was dead. It makes it clear that she could not have self-inflicted all 20, or any of the 20 frankly of those wounds. So I don't know why we continue to fight with the city over this point when it's their own employee who gave us this information."
SEE ALSO: Lawsuit filed against Philadelphia in death of Manayunk teacher
The Greenberg family has filed two lawsuits against the city. In one lawsuit, they are asking the medical examiner to change the ruling from suicide to undetermined or homicide.
The court will likely take several months to respond.
