Death of Caylee Anthony by Casey Anthony and the mysterious death of Ellen Greenberg

After learning that Casey Anthony (who most likely murdered her daughter) is producing a documentary about Caylee, 2, on the 10th anniversary of her acquittal... we decided we had to cover the case of the mother who reported her daughter "missing" a month after killing her. Then we discuss the death of Ellen Greenberg. She was found stabbed to death in her kitchen, yet it's still debated whether this was a suicide or homicide. (Petition to reopen Ellen's case and Facebook page to show your support!)

Sources:
https://www.biography.com/news/casey-anthony-muder-trial-timeline-facts
Hulu Documentary “Casey Anthony: An American Mystery”
https://www.inquirer.com/crime/a/ellen-greenberg-death-suicide-homicide-philadelphia-mystery-20190316.html
https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2021/01/27/exclusive-family-says-new-evidence-suggests-ellen-greenberg-woman-found-stabbed-20-times-was-murdered/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8332995/Parents-27-year-old-teacher-stabbed-dead-say-murder-not-suicide.html?fbclid=IwAR1YjRp4M5F8u6xCqtZeGw4f1QjoAtd6WnFumlFJwaYaoyRId6oib-FQVSo#newcomment
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9193183/Family-Philadelphia-school-teacher-stabbed-20-times-new-evidence-MURDERED.html?fbclid=IwAR39YjDE2KQWzWRryvJPGrM1sVCDfsJ-wmhTC8cahwhKYHBIJgN1etUnEig
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/hngzqn/ellen_greenberg_died_of_27_stab_wounds_two_to_the/ 

Transcript

Liz: [00:00:00] Hey guys. Welcome back to our first alcoholic infused episode of 2021 alcoholic. That's shit. I'm in say alcohol, 
Emily: [00:00:09] I think. Do you guys know by now? But I did dry January. So Liz stood in solidarity with me during these episodes and also didn't drink. So it's been awhile. We're 
Liz: [00:00:18] back and our glasses are full and so are our hearts.
Emily: [00:00:22] Oh my God. Now, to start off this true crime podcast, we'll do recommendation coroner, and I think I'm first, you are now you're going to think this is a cop-out. But my recommendation is I'm sure everyone listening already knows what my favorite murder is. However, if you don't, I would say they're like the original amateur true crime podcasts.
These two women are so funny and they host a true crime podcast and their names are Georgia. And Karen and they actually, I think, inspired us to come up with our own true crime podcasts. 100%. 
Liz: [00:00:55] Yeah. 
Emily: [00:00:56] And the reason why I want to bring it up is because Liz and I, as you guys all know, have an Instagram account, and it's mostly just funny, true crime memes.
And they reposted one of our 
Liz: [00:01:07] mediums. It was such a moment for us. I felt famous. I know me, 
Emily: [00:01:14] but we talk about our true crime account all the time, our Instagram. And now I just want, you guys know if you don't follow it, go follow it because even Georgia 
Liz: [00:01:23] and Karen like it. Exactly. So if they like it, you will obviously it's cool.
All right. 
Emily: [00:01:29] A little self 
Liz: [00:01:30] promotion. What's yours. Um, my recommendation is super random and happened by accident. I was watching something on Hulu today. Yes. And it ended. And the next thing that came on was the show. My strange addiction. Yes. And I forgot how, I guess I'll use the word entertaining that show is.
I mean, it's kind of horrifying, but it is so interesting. Can you 
Emily: [00:01:54] give me like, The top three weirdest addictions you've seen on that show. 
Liz: [00:01:59] Yeah. So, I mean, number one probably is the girl who eats cat hair. No, it's disgusting. Why what's her logic? It started because she wanted to feel closer to her pants.
Now I can't even say this with a straight face. Yeah. And sometimes she likes them, her poor cats and then another good one is the guy who dates inflatable. Like animals. Oh, like not like pool floats, not even inflatable woman, no animals. And he says he has one. That's like his wife and the rest are his, basically his friends.
I, it is bizarre. Do they talk to him? Well, he says things like, Oh, well, why would I talk to a person? When, when I talk to these guys, I'll always get the reaction that I want. So I think he, like, in his head thinks that they answer him. That's really sad. 
Emily: [00:02:46] All right. 
Liz: [00:02:46] What's the third, this woman who is.
Addicted to getting butt injections, but they're like black market, but injections. So her friend has to basically have an intervention with her and tell her to go get an x-ray of her butt because the woman that she had been going to to get her button directions was like indicted for injecting people with stuff from a hardware store.
Like they have no idea what they're getting put into their body. I think 
Emily: [00:03:14] I've seen this woman and she looks weird, right? It's 
Liz: [00:03:17] it's not. Attractive, but that's what the look she wants and she's going far lengths to get it. Wow. Anyways, so if you're bored thrill on an episode of my strange addiction and you'll feel probably a lot better about yourself.
Well, there 
Emily: [00:03:30] you go, guys. My favorite murder and my strange addiction, 
Liz: [00:03:36] really educating ourselves with good quality content here. Screw the news. All right. So 
Emily: [00:03:41] cheers. Cheers.
Liz: [00:03:52] I'm very excited for my story this week. It's one of the most famous, true crime stories out there probably. And I am covering the murder of Caylee, Anthony. I am so happy you're doing this. I know. So this is a sad one. It's also obviously a lengthy ones. Are I tried to make it as short as possible. I could probably do with like three episodes on this, but 
Emily: [00:04:15] it's um, what do we call a crash course on Kaylee, Anthony?
Liz: [00:04:18] Exactly. I have only two references this week. One is biography.com and the other is a Hulu documentary. Called Casey Anthony in American mystery. It's a three episode, little mini series. Okay. So let's start with Kaylee's birth. Kaylee Marie Anthony was born on August 9th, 2005 to her mother, Casey Anthony.
Now something I didn't realize is that. Kaylee's father has never actually known publicly. Oh, in fact, I'm pretty sure Casey's parents don't even know who the father is and there's no speculation. At one point mentioned it was the guy she was dating at the time, but didn't confirm it. And then also once mentioned a friend who had died in a car accident.
So it seems suspicious right off the bat. Yeah. During her pregnancy, Casey apparently denied being pregnant to some people. She didn't really seem like she wanted to become a mother, but at the end of the day, she ended up keeping the baby and she lived with her parents. So Kaylee lived in home with her mother, Casey and her grandparents, George and Cindy Anthony in Orlando, Florida.
Fast forward to June 15th, 2008 it's father's day. Casey apparently gets into some sort of argument with her parents. And then the next day on June 16th, Casey takes her almost three-year-old daughter, Kaylee and leaves her parents' house. According to accounts from her mother, Casey was staying at her boyfriend's place whom they had never met.
Oh no. So then during the next month, Casey's mother, Cindy asks repeatedly. If she can see Kaylee, her granddaughter, but Casey keeps saying no, she's too busy with work. Uh, a work assignment in Tampa and that Kaylee is oftentimes with the nanny. My heart is 
Emily: [00:05:59] breaking right now, this poor 
Liz: [00:06:00] grandmother. So then on July 15th, which is a month after they last saw Casey and Kaylee, George Anthony learned that Casey's car was in a tow yard.
So he went to retrieve it. So that's weird. When he got to the yard, he, and one of the attendants there noticed a really strong odor coming from the trunk. Both of those men later made statements to police saying that they thought the odor was that of a decomposer. And he used to be a cop. Yes.
Fortunately, I don't know what that smells like, but from what I gather, it's not something that's easily confused with it. Different thing. 
Emily: [00:06:38] Yeah. I feel like I would know what it smells like. Like once you smell it, you know, 
Liz: [00:06:42] so Jordan, then the attendant opened the trunk and they just find a bag of trash.
So they just throw it out, but still very suspicious and weird. George takes the car home. And when Cindy learns of the situation, his wife, she ends up tracking down Casey, and then she calls nine one one. She says that she wanted the police to come arrest her 22 year old daughter for what? So there's a few nine one, one calls that happened at Cindy is obviously extremely distraught during the situation, but she first says that she wants her daughter arrested for auto theft.
Uh, but then she eventually tells the operator that her granddaughter hadn't been seen in 31 days, she says, quote, there is something wrong. I found my daughter's car today and it smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car. Oh my God. So this quickly goes from a stolen vehicle investigation to a missing persons case.
Yeah. So of course the police have tons of questions for Casey. So Casey tells the story to the police that she dropped her daughter off at the nanny's house. About a month ago and that the nanny has since refused to give her back. Now, this is obviously a red flag for police because in most child abduction cases, the parents report the child missing immediately, obviously.
And it's been a fucking month and Casey has not reported her daughter missing. Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah. So, I mean, I know we've been told to cut back on the F-bombs by our parents, but this case deserves them. Yeah, fuck that dad. So Casey also tells the police that she is an event planner at universal studios.
So the morning of June 16th, she dropped Kaylee off at the nanny's house before she went to work. She says she went back later that day after work to pick up Kaylee, but no one was home at the nanny's apartment. She also says that she tried to call the nanny repeatedly, but oddly, the phone number was out of service.
She continues at the story of saying that she hung around the apartment, thinking that they might come back at any moment, but when they didn't come back, she went to a few places where she knew the nanny normally took Casey Kaylee. It is so hard to keep their names straight. Yeah, I know. So she checks the park, the local mall, et cetera, but she doesn't find them anywhere.
Obviously. Then she said she didn't want to go back to her parents' house because she was embarrassed and she thought her mom would be really mad at her. So instead she went to her boyfriend's house, which are you really worried about your mom being mad at you when your own child is missing? It makes no sense.
Then the police say, why didn't you call us earlier to which she says that she was afraid that nanny would hurt Kaylee. If she did that, I'm 
Emily: [00:09:17] clenching my 
Liz: [00:09:17] fist some so angry. So then she gives a name for the nanny. Zenaida Fernandez Gonzalez. And she gives a physical description of her and said she's 25 years old.
And she also says that this woman has been watching Kaylee for years. I just I'm shaking my head as I'm reading this because I can't even believe it. Yeah. So at this point, the detective say, okay, take me to her apartment then. And let's confront this woman. So they end up at this apartment complex and Casey points out a specific apartment and says that's where the data lives.
Crazy. So the detectives go up and knock on the door and no one answers. Then they look through the windows and they see that there's no furniture in the apartment and it looks like nobody lives there. After that the detectives go and drop off Casey at her parents' house. And then I think they pick up again the next day.
So at this point, the police are panicked because this little girl has been missing for 30 days and nothing good comes the longer someone's been missing. Of course. So they decided to use the media to get the word out, putting pictures out, et cetera, telling the story. It becomes a national media frenzy.
I remember when it happened well, because Casey is this beautiful young woman. She is saying that her nanny whom she's trusted with her child has kidnapped her. Yeah. And that's a horrifying story for anyone. So obviously people are very much invested in it. Yeah. The detectives go back to the apartment complex to try to get more information on this Zenaida woman.
But the manager there says that that unit that they had checked out has been vacant for months. And that there's also no record of Zenaida Gonzalez ever living in this complex. So red flag number, I don't know, hundred tabs 
Emily: [00:11:02] tabs. We haven't 
Liz: [00:11:03] called out tabs yet, but tabs like the information that Casey is giving to police is not making any sense.
Yeah. The police then head over to universal studios because Casey said that she had confided in two of her coworkers about Kaylee being missing. When they get there, they discover that Casey hasn't worked at universal studios in over two years. So she's lying again. Then I decided to set up sort of a trap for Casey because they want her to have to admit that she's lying.
Yeah. So they pick her up and they bring her to universal studios and then they watch her interact with the guard at the employee entrance. And the guard says we have no record of you don't work here, the balls, the balls to do that. I know 
Emily: [00:11:47] with the police, with 
Liz: [00:11:48] you, and then Casey basically fights with the guy saying, look again, and she gives a supervisor's name and extension, and the guard says those aren't in the system either.
Like, I don't know what you're talking about. Finally, someone lets them in. I think the other person is in on the whole situation. So Casey is leading the detectives down the hallway to allegedly her office. And she's waving at people in the hallway as if she knows them. And then eventually they end up in a dead end of a hallway.
And then she finally admits that she does not work there. What a sociopath. My question is of, did you think that it was going to end. Like I'm just like mind blown. I can't imagine I'm well, first of all, I'm really bad at lying in general. Yeah. But I'm especially about at lying when I know there's no way to get out of it.
Well, she sounds like a sociopath, so yeah. Now the police are like, okay, we know you're lying, but why are you lying to us? And they bring her in for questioning. They ask her where's Kaylee. What happened to her? You have to know something. She says, I don't know anything. I had nothing to do with this. I don't know.
They also confront her about how Zenaida never lived at the apartment that she brought them to. And they also say that they have video footage from the apartment complex and she is not on it ever. And she just keeps insisting that what her story was is true. How frustrating for the detectives? I can't even imagine.
And you're sitting there across the table from this woman who. Should be doing anything she could to find her child. And she's just lying to your face. It's just gotta be extremely unsettling. So now the police actually arrest Casey. Yes. And they charged her with child negligence and also for giving false statements, do law enforcement.
They think that this might actually encourage her to start telling the truth, but it does not. She then gets her one phone call and she calls her mom and she was more pissed than anything else. She's not like she's not upset. She's not crying. She's just saying they're blaming me. And I didn't do anything.
She also asks for her boyfriend's phone number, I guess she didn't have it memorized. Don't blame her. She just seems very unconcerned with the whereabouts of her child. So in hearing this, because obviously all of the phone calls are recorded, the police, then go question the boyfriend, Tony. Yes. And he seems absolutely shocked to know that Kaylee was missing.
Tony. And his roommate will say that Casey used to bring Kaylee over a few times a week. Pretty much whenever Casey would go over there, she would bring her daughter. But recently Kaylee hadn't been coming along. And if they ever asked her where Kaylee was, Casey said she was either with the nanny or with her parents.
Emily: [00:14:30] So you're daughter is missing a whole month. And you don't confide in 
Liz: [00:14:33] your boyfriend? No. In fact, you just lie to them and you lie to your parents. You lie to everyone. Yeah. Yeah. You tell them 
Emily: [00:14:40] that she's there. Oh my God. 
Liz: [00:14:42] All right. So let's get to more of the evidence. As detectives are looking further into the case, they realized that Cindy Anthony had made three, nine one, one calls on the day that she reported Kaylee missing.
The third call that came just before police arrived at the house was the one where Cindy mentioned that there was an odor in the car and it smelled like there was a dead body in it. And the police actually hadn't heard that call since they were already about to be on scene. Yeah. So, all they knew was that there was a missing person and you know, something about a car, but they didn't actually hear that.
So then the, when they're going back, relistening that hear that? So they confiscate the car and immediately, they also realized that the car smells like decomposition. Everyone has the same thought here. So they call in a cadaver dog and the dog alerts them that there had been evidence of a dead body in the trunk.
They also realized that the trunk had been vacuumed and that there was a stain. That could have been the size of a child's body. There were also several human hairs. No, at this point they are like, okay, I think this might not be a missing person case. This might be a murder investigation, obviously. So Casey's parents go to visit her in jail.
And her mom says to Casey, people are telling them that they think Kailey might be dead. Casey's response to this surprise. Surprise. Is what she says when her mother tells her that people think her daughter might be dead. That's horrible. What mother would say that, Oh, your daughter might be dead.
Surprise. Surprise. 
Emily: [00:16:16] What was the grandmother's reaction? 
Liz: [00:16:19] I think she's shocked. It's hard because watching the Hulu series, the mother goes from being against Casey to eventually. Switching sides and defending her. Yeah. Cause you lose your 
Emily: [00:16:33] granddaughter. You don't want to lose your daughter to see that 
Liz: [00:16:36] in cases, the father on the other hand is a different story, but we will get there.
Yeah. Okay. So back to Zenaida, the police do track down a woman named Zenaida Gonzalez and they bring her in for questioning, but this woman was middle aged and not 25, like poor woman. So this woman says she doesn't know Casey or Kaylee, Anthony, and that she has never babysat for them. She's cleared.
Sorry, is isn't ADA. Oh my God. Police are basically thinking that Casey killed her daughter. Then Casey realizes she's going to need a good lawyer. So that's what she does. She hires one. Um, her parents eventually post bail and she goes back to live with them. Nope. Rot in jail, but whatever. Now, a bit of a timeline.
Okay. So on August 27th. So that's about a month and a half after the police got involved, the car evidence comes back and proves that there were human remains in the trunk. Oh my God. On October 14th, Casey was indicted by a grand jury on charges of first degree murder, aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter of a child, and four counts of providing false information to the police.
She pleads not guilty on December 11th. Skeletal remains are found in a wooded area near the Anthony home by a utility worker. Hmm. A few days later on December 19th, authorities announced that the remains were those of kalien. I know all of 
Emily: [00:18:00] this, obviously, but like I'm so sad hearing it. It's 
Liz: [00:18:04] so sad. The bones were in a bag tossed into the woods tight.
So a few months later in April prosecutors declare that they are seeking the death penalty in this case. And then on May 24th, the trial begins and it runs through June 30th. This is what really got me. Cause I don't know if I knew this prior to watching this documentary, but Casey's defense was insane.
So her defense attorney says that Kaley actually just accidentally drowned in the family pool. And she was found by her grandfather and the grandfather yelled at Casey and was like, your mother's never gonna forgive you for this. You're going to go to jail for child abuse. And then he helped get rid of the body.
Does he corroborate? Did I say that right? I think you said it right? No, he actually doesn't even know that this defense is going to be used until he's sitting in the courtroom, listening to it. The lawyer then says, yes, I acknowledge that my client is a liar. But it's because she learned to lie as a child, after being sexually assaulted by her father.
I remember this, then they showed a clip of George, but he was just staring down at the floor. George is then called to the stand by the prosecution to help rectify the situation. Yeah. He denies his granddaughter drowned in the family pool. He denies hiding the body and he denies sexually abusing his child.
So then the defense puts George back on the stand. And as if this guy hasn't been put through enough, they bring up a suicide attempt that happened a few months back. Was this after Kaley? Yeah. So he breaks down on the stand. He's like hysterically crying and he says that he couldn't function after Caylee's body was found.
That's totally normal. But the defense says that he attempted suicide because he felt so guilty after helping to cover up Kaylee's death. This poor man. Alright. So back to the prosecution, they use the car evidence. So the evidence that there was a dead body in the trunk of the car, the human hair. Um, they also found a large amount of chloroform in the trunk of the car, and then they searched the computer from the Anthony's home and they found a search for how to make chloroform.
They also bring up that there was duct tape on the skull that was found. So clearly someone chloroform the child and put duct tape over their mouth. That is horrific. So the jury deliberates for almost 11 hours and they come up with the following results. Casey is not guilty of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter of a child, but she is guilty of four misdemeanor counts of providing false evidence to police.
So she sentenced to four years in jail and find a thousand dollars. However, she had already been in jail for three years at this point. So that time counted towards her sentence, and then she got time for good behavior. So she was only in jail for 10 days after this. 
Emily: [00:21:11] Do you have any insight into why the jury did that?
Cause 
Liz: [00:21:14] it seems pretty fucking crazy. So they do interview some of the jurors in the documentary. And it was interesting because the one guy was saying, I'm not saying, I think she's innocent. I'm just saying that the prosecution didn't prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. And all of the evidence was circumstantial.
He also said that he got like thousands of death threats after. That's not all 
Emily: [00:21:35] circumstantial, like there's a body. 
Liz: [00:21:38] I know, but since it was so decomposed, they actually couldn't say what the cause of death was. So didn't 
Emily: [00:21:43] report her daughter missing 
Liz: [00:21:44] for 39. No, I mean, a logical person you would think would put two and two together, but I don't know.
Maybe if you're in that situation where you're getting drilled into your head, that like you need all this evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt, you don't know Casey now apparently like lives in Florida. Her mom still talks to her. Her dad refuses. Don't blame him. Interestingly, they're still married.
Yeah, that's really weird. I was shocked at that, but the dad said, I w I wouldn't let the situation break us. Like I've already been put through so much. Oh, I just can't. I feel so bad for this guy. So that's kind of where the story ends. Except I read a TMZ article that said there's a new documentary in the works about this case.
I'm guessing the executive producer is 
Emily: [00:22:34] Casey Anthony. Yes. Oh, nobody wants to see that. 
Liz: [00:22:38] Apparently is like ready. I'm doing air quotes. Ready to tell her side of the story of what happened. A K 
Emily: [00:22:45] make money off of 
Liz: [00:22:47] her murdering her child. Right. Isn't that insane? So I have stuffed at, are you done? I'm done.
Yeah. One, 
Emily: [00:22:55] she was sleeping with her defense 
Liz: [00:22:56] attorney. She claimed she was doing it because she had no money. So that's how she was paying for honey, honey. 
Emily: [00:23:03] No, I don't even know if that's legal also. So did you hear Zanny 
Liz: [00:23:07] the nanny? Yeah. So when she came up with the name Zenaida she told everyone that she goes by Zanny the nanny.
And at first I was like, that's just a really weird thing to make up. But the dad does say at the end of the documentary that he thinks Casey was actually giving Kaley drugs. To make her tired because he said Kaylee would always be really, really sleepy for like, she would see for like 11, 12 hours. And she would have like dark circles under her eyes.
He thought that she was being drugged by her mother. And one of the ways she might have been doing that was by giving her Xanax. So Zanny is a street term for Xanax. So I mean, if that's true, that is such a fucked up like inside joke with herself, but she made, 
Emily: [00:23:49] so yeah, whenever she would tell people, Oh, don't worry.
Kaylee's with Zanny the nanny. It really meant, Oh, I gave her Xanax she's passed out at home. So yeah. The dad thinks that she like her daughter overdosed or she ran out Xanax or did, what was it? 
Liz: [00:24:03] Chloroform. Chloroform. I mean, you're, you know, you're, I guess you could be trying to just like knock someone out, but.
Either way, this is your child and she's not even three years old. Also 
Emily: [00:24:12] the fact that she was partying all the time when her daughter was missing. Oh yeah. 
Liz: [00:24:17] There's photos of her dancing at clubs and all this stuff. So basically the consensus is she killed her daughter because she never really wanted to be a mother.
And then she could live the carefree life that she really wanted. I'm going to cry. And the fact that she just got off, basically. And now she's making a documentary. I know infuriating, but 
Emily: [00:24:40] Liz, I'm going to cheers to that 
Liz: [00:24:44] juice.
listen, I 
Emily: [00:24:55] just took a break and we ate a ton of sour 
Liz: [00:24:58] straws. Are there actually sour belts. There's a difference between sour straws and sour belts. 
Emily: [00:25:03] I'm sorry. You're right. So now that we close the lid on that my sources include the Inquirer, Philadelphia, CBS local, the daily mail, and obviously 
Liz: [00:25:16] Reddit. I love Reddit.
I love. Let me just emphasize, sorry about that. Moving on. So we're sponsored. No, I'm kidding. No, 
Emily: [00:25:31] of course Liz and I don't have any sponsors. All right. So it is January 26, 2011. And Ellen Greenburg. Is he 27 year old elementary school teacher in Philly. Because it's January in the Northeast, there's a snow storm and school's dismissed early.
So she returns to her apartment that she shares with her fiance named Samuel Goldberg. He's a TV producer and him and Ellen were together that day until about 4:45 PM. When then he then leaves to go the gym that's in their apartment 
Liz: [00:26:07] complex. So like in the basement or something. Or maybe in another building, but like very close.
Yeah, 
Emily: [00:26:13] exactly. But he leaves the apartment. He comes back a half hour later and he realizes he's been locked out. And it says that the lock was one of those locks that you have, uh, at a hotel, you know? Um, there's a name. 
Liz: [00:26:26] I know what you're talking about, but I don't know the name for it. Yeah. 
Emily: [00:26:29] I, I guess I deleted my notes, everyone.
You, when you go to hotel, you know, it's like kind of 
Liz: [00:26:34] like a flap. Yeah. You flip it. Yeah. You can like open the door for something and just like talk through a little bit. Liz is using your 
Emily: [00:26:41] hands, which is Sonics. We're on a podcast, but yeah, you could open the door, but only a little then the lock stops.
Right? Okay. So he knows that someone's inside the permit, but he can't get it. And so he's calling through the door, he's banging on it, he's texting her for about an hour. And then he goes down to the doorman and he says, can you break down the door? And the doorman says, no, That's against policy. Yeah. Then he goes up and he ends up breaking down the door himself.
I 
Liz: [00:27:08] probably would also do that. Yeah. That's 
Emily: [00:27:11] of course they clearly something's wrong. Right. So he gets inside and he finds his fiance, Ellen bleeding, sitting up straight on the kitchen floor. 
Liz: [00:27:21] Okay. 
Emily: [00:27:22] So he sees her is dying fiance, and then he calls his parents. And then he hangs up and he calls his uncle who is an attorney.
Liz: [00:27:33] Interesting move. And then he calls nine one, one. Okay. The, I don't love the sequence of that. Yeah. 
Emily: [00:27:41] And you, and I always say, Oh, you can judge how someone's going to react, but I'm sorry, if you see your fiance dying, you do not call your parents. You call nine one one. 
Liz: [00:27:50] Yeah. But what you say on that nine 11 call fair game.
Exactly. But you should call them 
Emily: [00:27:56] first. So I even, I turned around to my boyfriend while I was doing the notes and I said, Quick question. This is the middle of the Workday. I quick question for you. He liked cause it's going to be about something and like about her apartment. And I say, you go to the gym, you come back, I'm stabbed on the floor.
Who do you call your dad or the police? And he said, the police, unless I killed you, then I'd call my dad. Ah, ha. So I said, right answer. So now the fiance's on the phone with the police and the dispatcher says. Perform CPR on her. And he says, quote, do I have to, 
Liz: [00:28:34] which is weird. I don't mean to laugh at that, but like what 
Emily: [00:28:37] I mean also if you see her bleeding and she's just like completely, I don't know, it was just like fucked up.
You're probably like be freaking out, like, yeah. And then also he, he says later, Oh, there's a knife in her. I realized there's a knife in our chest. And then he goes, She must've fallen on it. Hm. Also, according to the nine one, one dispatcher, he just kept repeating. I just went to the gym and came back and found her like this.
Liz: [00:28:59] Like, here's why I wasn't the one to do this, but 
Emily: [00:29:02] Liz, we always say don't judge someone based on their nine one one call. Now 
Liz: [00:29:06] I 
Emily: [00:29:06] literally just said that. So I am passing judgment on him, not calling nine one one faster. So obviously after he calls nine one one, the police arrived and she is pronounced dead from 20 stab wounds, found the back of her neck 
Liz: [00:29:19] and her best stabbing deaths really freak me out.
Yeah, 
Emily: [00:29:24] well, this is only going to get worse for you. Great. So an autopsy is done, which concluded the 20 stab wounds, but it said that the wounds would range from NEX. She had about 10 tiny shallowed wounds to two on the back of her neck that were three inches deep, which is. Really deep to stop somebody.
So the medical examiner also found 11 bruises in quote, various stages of resolution on her right arm, her abdomen, and her right leg. So at the end of the autopsy, her doctor declares her death, a homicide. However, that's an issue because this goes against what the police were saying. The police after they got to the apartment and investigated it.
And I was using air quotes. They ruled her death, a suicide. They said, yes, she was stabbed a ton. However, and I looked this up and it's true. Some people do kill them. I was that way. 
Liz: [00:30:21] I was just going to say, I've feel like I've never heard of that as a way of killing yourself. 
Emily: [00:30:26] Well, you and I don't really cover suicides.
True. And I looked it up one, man, stabbed himself 90 times sometimes if you're in a manic episode or just, that 
Liz: [00:30:36] is how some people go out oily, not what I would choose. So the police 
Emily: [00:30:40] said, yes, she was stabbed. However her door was locked. So there is no intruder from what we can tell, she had no defensive wounds.
The knife has been tested and only her fingerprints are on it. There's surveillance, cameras everywhere. And nobody came into the apartment. There's a little patio outside her window. And there was no footprints in the snow because there's a snow storm. So nobody came in through the window and lastly neighbors were home and nobody heard anything.
Liz: [00:31:08] I have questions, but I 
Emily: [00:31:09] will hold them since the medical examiner said this was a homicide, but the police said it was a suicide. The police have to open up an investigation because that's what the medical examiner rolled. However, the issue is though the police already went to the scene of the crime and they didn't treat it 
Liz: [00:31:25] as a hobby.
Right. So they may have missed some things if they were just treating it as a suicide. Right. 
Emily: [00:31:31] Exactly. For instance, everyone said, Oh, you know, it also looked like a suicide because everything took place in the kitchen. There wasn't a fight. You know, none of the furniture was knocked around. The blood was all in one place.
It was very clean. Hmm. Interesting. However, If you treat it as a homicide would think, Oh, somebody murder her and then cleaned up. Let's do a luminol test to see if there's any like soap or bleach, but they didn't 
Liz: [00:31:59] do that. Okay. 
Emily: [00:32:01] Yep. Off the bat. Now they're improperly investigating this and it's like, you'd even do a luminol test also.
The demon search outside the building. So it's like someone could have murdered her. They could have thrown evidence into the trashcan windows, like crime scenes, probably more than that one tiny apartment. You should search the building and they just didn't do that. The trash was picked up. I lost all this evidence.
Liz: [00:32:22] Yeah, that sounds a little irresponsible. 
Emily: [00:32:26] Oh, and then the worst part is the fiance. His uncle and cousin went to the crime scene the next day and told the police, Oh, we have to go in and get a suit for the grieving fiance to go to her funeral. And then they proceeded to take. The fiance's laptop. Ellen's personal laptop, her work laptop and her cell phone.
Liz: [00:32:49] Oh my God. Those things should have been in police custody already. Oh, don't worry. They were. But three 
Emily: [00:32:55] days later, do you want to ask me your questions before I keep going? 
Liz: [00:33:00] Yeah. So my first question is, are they able to tell. By the broken door, if that lock was actually locked or not. So 
Emily: [00:33:08] I was going to bring that up later, but I'll just say it now, the fiance saying he broke down the door because the door is locked, but.
He's the only one who saw it. And two, if you go on YouTube, you actually can find ways to unlock and lock those types of locks from the outside. So everyone said, Oh, it's impossible, but turns out it's not, which makes me very worrisome because those are the hotel locks. Oh 
Liz: [00:33:30] God, please don't go Google that.
Anyway. So, I mean, just like something to keep in mind. My other question was, how do you stab yourself in the back of the neck? I guess it's possible 
Emily: [00:33:39] from what I can tell, if someone wants to commit suicide, that's something that they can do. Okay, fine. So I know we can't wrap our heads around it, but it's been done before.
Although let me say, I don't think this was a suicide. I'm just giving you all the facts here. Right? Right. The police say this is a suicide. The medical examiner says it's a homicide. The police decide to dig a little more. However, they focus on Ellen's backstory, which is not the important thing to focus on.
But of course, these are things that make them sway back to suicide. Two months before Ellen's death. She began to display a very huge change in her personality. Her best friend said she went from being the happiest girl in the world to someone who's just ridden with anxiety. Her parents were worried about her.
They begged her to go see a psychiatrist because she had so much anxiety and she never would talk about why. And she was a teacher. And not to say that they don't have a ton of anxiety. Like obviously their job is stressful. But she just kept brushing it off and saying, no it's work. It's nothing else.
But then when they asked the teachers at the school, they said there was nothing at school that would have made her anxious. Like we thought it was something outside of school. She also asked her parents, she said, can I quit my job and move back home with you guys a few days 
Liz: [00:34:54] before her death, that is a bad sign tabs tabs.
Emily: [00:34:59] And her parents said you can, but what's going on? And she said, it's nothing. It's just stress. And they, again, begged her to go see somebody. And that's when she started seeing her psychiatrist. So Ellen she's exhibiting these behaviors between friends and family. She sees a psychiatrist to get help, and she goes to three different sessions and she is prescribed Klonopin and Ambien.
Now a few things to note her psychiatry come forward and said she had severe anxiety. She never showed any signs of depression. And she also never showed any issues with her fiance. She spoke very highly of him. Interesting. Also a side note Ambien, one of its side effects is increase chance of depression.
Liz: [00:35:49] I mean, I'm thinking of those drug commercials where they're listing all the side effects and one is suicidal thoughts. Yeah, 
Emily: [00:35:56] exactly. So I feel like I'm throwing a lot of. Info you guys, but now you understand that the police, I don't agree with the way they looked at the scene, but they initially thought it was a suicide.
And then they found out all this backup information. So on January 29th, 2011, a spokesperson went on camera and said, yes, this was, you know, declared a homicide, but we're actually going to go back to the suicide angle and we're going to look deeper into her mental 
Liz: [00:36:25] issues. That just makes me so angry.
Emily: [00:36:28] Which is so sad that they 
Liz: [00:36:29] would announce that too. I know that's what they're, they're publicly saying, no, this was a self-inflicted issue. So 
Emily: [00:36:37] then they keep going down that path and then they take her computer. Cause they finally get it back from her fiance and his family. And they said that between December 18th and January 10th, she was Googling different terms for suicide.
And it was things like suicide methods, quick suicide and painless suicide. 
Liz: [00:36:56] A few things there, stabbing yourself to death is not a painless suicide. Yeah. And also what if the boyfriend was doing it on her computer for this very reason? Exactly. 
Emily: [00:37:08] Exactly. So after all this evidence, all the sudden the medical examiner who ruled her death, a homicide switched her story and said, I agree, it's actually a suicide.
What.  and she said, Ellen stabbed herself to death. That her first stab wound was tour, uh, to the back of her neck and, uh, hit her spinal cord. And she hit a place in her spinal cord that would have made her essentially numb. So she couldn't feel pain. And that's why she kept stabbing herself because she couldn't feel it 
Liz: [00:37:42] that's a twist I wasn't expecting.
Um, well, 
Emily: [00:37:46] but then I think one of the most depressing things is. When the coroner or sorry, medical expert changed it to a suicide. And they officially announced that the case was closed. They didn't tell the parents, the parents actually found out through the press. 
Liz: [00:38:04] Wow. That is so messed up. 
Emily: [00:38:06] Obviously it's terrible for her, but my heart is also breaking for her parents.
So after months of this, essentially emotional back and forth for the parents. They decide to launch their own investigation because they want to find out what happened to their daughter, Ellen. So they hired several PIs and experts and. Like people who were former detectives, they essentially hired everybody to look into this case.
And what I love is that so many of these people that didn't charge the parents, people were just coming out of the woodwork and they want to investigate it for free because they want to know what happened to her. Just as much as the parents did. So one investigator said that the, the lack of defensive wounds didn't necessarily support suicide because he's had cases where the attack happened.
So swiftly it's called a blitz attack that. You're in shock that you won't necessarily fight back. 
Liz: [00:38:58] I could totally see that. 
Emily: [00:38:59] Exactly. Another investigator noticed that images of the crime scene that she was bleeding out of her nose, but the blood ran horizontally across her face. 
Liz: [00:39:12] Yeah, that seems unnatural.
Emily: [00:39:14] So blood spatter analysis has essentially been debunked, so sorry for those Dexter vans out there, but. You can't really tell that much from blood splatter. However, you can tell something from gravity. So the thought is if she was, if she'd stabbed herself and then sat down and then just died on the spot.
Her blood would be flowing vertically. However, it was going horizontally, which means that she was down on her side to her back or something. And then someone must have lifted her back up. Does that 
Liz: [00:39:46] make sense? Yeah. No, that makes total sense. It's just really creepy, not huge evidence, 
Emily: [00:39:50] but that's, again, just a weird anomaly of this case.
Also people disputed the fact that she. Essentially injured herself by hitting her spine and that she couldn't feel pain. And that's why she had so many more stab wounds. And the other theory out there was that she was stabbed in the spinal cord and she was paralyzed from it. So that's why there's no defensive wounds.
And that's why nobody heard anything. Cause she couldn't fight back. That's 
Liz: [00:40:16] what I was going to ask. When you mentioned that. When she hit that nerve or whatever, that she couldn't feel anything anymore. I was wondering if she was actually paralyzed eggs. Exactly good eyelids. 
Emily: [00:40:27] So the medical examiner wrote on the original autopsy that the medical examiner had a neuro pathologist named Dr.
Lucy Roque examined the spinal cord and Dr. Lucy produced a report that said that Ellen was, couldn't feel pain after that. However, when the PIs want to get their hands on this report, they couldn't find it. And they kept digging and essentially the report never existed. And when they questioned the old neuro pathologist, she essentially said she didn't remember the case.
And she doesn't think she wrote up a report on it. Meaning that the medical examiner, it seems like made something up or got something wrong, but essentially no neuropathologist came in and concluded that she went 
Liz: [00:41:14] numb. Yeah, that's really suspicious. 
Emily: [00:41:17] And this is weird. I don't know if this is normal. I guess it is a part of her spine was actually stored and is still around so years after this incident occurred, a private company came in and got hold of her spine and tested it to see which nerve was hit.
And they concluded that the nerve that was hit when she was stabbed was actually the nerve that would have made her paralyzed. 
Liz: [00:41:43] Wow. 
Emily: [00:41:44] Exactly. So the medical examiner said this test was already done, turns out it was never done. And then when they finally tested her spine, they found out that the medical examiner neuro pathologist were wrong.
And I think this is the most damning thing back to her search engine and how she was searching painless ways to commit suicide. The parents got a hold of her computer and they had the FBI do a forensic evaluation and they didn't find any of this evidence of these so-called searches. What exactly. So now with this new evidence of the search results, essentially being fabricated, the Greenberg family is urging the Philadelphia attorney general Josh Shapiro to reopen the case and they have a petition.
And it already has 27,000 signatures. Mine included, and 16,000 people are in the justice for Ellen Facebook page, which aims to support her parents to push her case, to be reopened. 
Liz: [00:42:50] That's amazing. This has just happened 
Emily: [00:42:52] like two weeks ago, so we don't know. I'm really hoping they reopened the case. 
Liz: [00:42:57] They absolutely should.
I'm so happy to have a petition and I can't wait to sign it now. 
Emily: [00:43:01] I just want to go to Reddit and see what Reddit users 
Liz: [00:43:04] think. Of course. 
Emily: [00:43:06] So about 25% think that it was a suicide and about 75% think it was the fiance. Now the fiance, he is 38. He is a married father of two living New York. He got married essentially a year after her.
His fiance died and he lost communication with her parents. The last time they talk was when he emailed them to let them know that he was getting 
Liz: [00:43:30] remarried a year after your girlfriend died is pretty quick to be getting engaged or married. 
Emily: [00:43:36] I agree. And I don't want to throw him under the bus. Because, you know, who are we to speculate?
However, I have a few more bullets I'm going to go through that essentially throws me under the bus. 
Liz: [00:43:46] Okay. Cause also I think we, we are here to speculate. Yeah. Yeah. 
Emily: [00:43:53] That should be our tagline. So I want to go back to the fact that he called his dad and then his uncle was an attorney before calling the police and that does not 
Liz: [00:44:03] look good.
No. He's 
Emily: [00:44:06] the only one who can say that the door was locked. We truly don't know if that's true. He also told police that the security guard was with him when he found the body, but that just wasn't true. 
Liz: [00:44:16] Oh, that's weird 
Emily: [00:44:17] too. He also had his family steal his dead fiance, his laptop and phone. No one ever speculated that he abused her, but then why did she have bruises 
Liz: [00:44:27] all over her body?
I was going to mention that. Yeah, 
Emily: [00:44:30] her father was also concerned with his daughter's behavior regarding the fiance. And he said that quote, everything was I'll have to check with Sam. I'll have to see what Sam says. No 
Liz: [00:44:41] good. Which 
Emily: [00:44:42] it's speculation, but, uh, Also the fact that a couple of weeks before her death, she told her parents she wanted to quit her job and come home, which was essentially only a few months before she was supposed to get married.
Like she was living with her fiance and she wanted to move out and move. 
Liz: [00:44:59] Yeah, I got, I feel like that's gotta be the biggest red flag. I mean, I don't know. What do you think my gut says. He did it. I agree. I find it hard to believe that she'd be able to inflict that many stab wounds on herself. I know you said people have done it before, but I still can't wrap my head around it.
And it just seems very suspicious. And her behavior prior doesn't make me think that she's committing suicide. It makes me think. She's like scared of her current life. Yeah. And even if it 
Emily: [00:45:26] wasn't the fiance, the fact that the police didn't properly investigate the scene, the fact that essentially the metal color port was fabricated saying that she was numb.
And whereas we're now learning that she would have been paralyzed and the search engine, the fact that none of that's real and she didn't try to Google how to kill herself. Unlike Casey, Anthony, who did, 
Liz: [00:45:49] who Googled chloroform. So 
Emily: [00:45:51] it's just really sad that the police completely botched it and luscious hope that this case gets 
Liz: [00:45:56] reopened.
Yeah. I'm like fingers crossed over here that this gets reopened because there's some unfinished business. We will keep everyone 
Emily: [00:46:04] posted we'll post on our Instagram account. If anything changes since this 
Liz: [00:46:09] airs. Well, this was a fascinating story. I actually don't think I've ever heard of this. Oh, crap. One last 
Emily: [00:46:14] thing.
I'm sorry. I'm dragging on. This was recommended by a fan named Julie. She reached out to us. So shout out to Julie. We 
Liz: [00:46:22] appreciate you. Thanks, Julie. This was a very interesting one. Should we end on a cheers? Less than on a cheers. Cause we already harass people to follow us on Instagram. Bye everybody. Bye .