The Court of Public Opinion: Ellen Greenberg Mystery Solved?

A friend of mine here in Israel came to me recently and said that he wanted to ask me about an internationally famous and ongoing court case that’s connected to his extended family in the USA. As a former public defender in Chicago, I’ve legally scrutinized the investigations of thousands of criminal cases and been lead counsel in more than 600 felony trials, so I told my friend I’d be happy to offer whatever insight I could.

He was talking about the death of Ellen Greenberg, which has attracted extensive mainstream and social media attention since it occurred approximately 14 years ago in Philadelphia. Although I’m not aware of any precise formula to predict which cases become media sensations and which ones don’t, this one definitely has a few elements that typically pique the public interest: the victim was young and beautiful; her manner of death was bloody and shocking; and the mystery of exactly what happened has not been decisively answered by any of the law enforcement agencies or elite experts who have investigated thus far (a list that I’m told includes the Philadelphia Police Department, the Pennsylvania State Police, the FBI, internationally renowned medical examiners Cyril Wecht and Henry Lee, and then-Attorney General/current Governor of Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro).

To summarize the essential facts, Ellen died as the result of 20 stab wounds — 10 of which were to her neck and upper back — that all occurred in a single incident that happened while she was alone inside her locked apartment. Multiple, extensive, interagency investigations found no signs of forced entry nor any traces of intruders in the apartment, and at the time Ellen’s wounds were inflicted, her fiancé (my friend’s cousin Samuel Goldberg) had a rock-solid alibi that he was not there: he was in the fitness room of their building for an extended workout session, and his time in the gym as well as his time getting there and back in the corridors and elevators were all captured on time-stamped, unaltered security video.

Upon making the determination that nobody else besides Ellen was present when the stabbings occurred, her death was classified as a suicide by the police; however, that was contradicted the very next day by the medical examiner’s office, who initially ruled the case a homicide. The difference is obviously significant, and is arguably the single most important aspect the investigation sought to resolve. Unfortunately, that has never happened to the satisfaction of Ellen’s family, nor has there been a consensus among the authorities. The ruling has changed several times, and has been frustratingly categorized as “suspicious” and “unresolved” at various times throughout the ensuing litigation that continues to this day.

As I listened to my friend describe the anguish that both families have gone through, he separated several strands of their torment: the loss of Ellen’s life; the stark reluctance among some in the family to accept that she could have killed herself at all, let alone in such a horrific way; the clouds of suspicion still gathered above Sam that he may somehow be a murderer who has escaped justice; the lack of faith in numerous aspects of the investigation; the dissection of their trauma for social media entertainment that often delves into wild speculation; a sadly predictable dose of antisemitism as the religiously-observant Goldberg family was baselessly accused of manipulating the evidence and compromising politicians with campaign donations; and to some extent, the fact that Sam became a sort of widower at the exact moment his life should have been coming into full bloom.

Without realizing it at the time, in the midst of my friend’s laments he dropped a few private facts that seem to me to be the essential keys to the entire case: on the day of her death, Ellen found herself with an unexpected afternoon off from her work as a schoolteacher. Wanting to catch up on some much-needed rest, she had at least one glass of wine, and decided to take a nap. When she didn’t fall asleep right away, she apparently thought she could get a little help by taking a sleeping pill. The brand my friend mentioned was Ambien, and at the moment that word escaped his mouth, my heart skipped a beat.

Ambien is one brand name of the drug zolpidem. To be sure, the directions across all its brand names are quite clear: do not mix with alcohol. However, many of us who are criminal defense attorneys, myself included, have had at least one case where the mixture of alcohol and sleeping pills was involved. Quick internet searches will provide many examples of people combining a drink and a pill, among which Ambien seems to be the most popular by far, leading to very strange behavioral results. According to the US National Institutes of Health, “Patients taking zolpidem should be monitored for adverse reactions, and zolpidem should be considered as a potential contributing factor in instances of uncharacteristic, seemingly motiveless violence when accompanied by combinations of psychosis, amnesia, and confusion.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3505131/

The case I had in Chicago was after my days as a public defender, when I had moved into private practice with an elite AmLaw 100 firm. A highly respected neurosurgeon in Chicago had finished a 48-hour shift and gone home to rest, but was unable to get past the mental images that were stuck in his head from his ultimately unsuccessful attempts to save a child who had been in a car crash. After a glass of red wine and an Ambien, he settled in on his couch for some sleep, and that’s the last thing he remembered. According to witnesses and security footage, what actually happened was that the doctor stripped completely naked and began roaming around his condo building until he found an unlocked door, whereupon he entered a neighbor’s apartment and found his way into the bedroom of a couple who were themselves asleep, only to be awakened by this complete stranger, a man standing nude above them in a nearly catatonic state making bestial noises. A fistfight ensued, which the doctor won decisively, but after which he did not flee; he just stood facing a wall mirror, shadow-boxing himself until the police arrived and cuffed him.

Other cases are easy to find too; from rock stars who combined substances for airplane rides and terrorized the people in the cabin, to average folks who mixed their poisons and got behind the wheel, only to pick up DUIs they absolutely swear they can’t remember. Tragically, the NIH article I cite above also links to a 2012 article in the National Library of Medicine that describes two cases of “Zolpidem Associated Homicide”, and goes on to list four factors that put a person at “increased risk of zolpidem-associated psychotic or delirious reactions”, one of which, ominously for Ellen, is simply being female.

I told all of this to my friend, trying my best to give him an objective, professional opinion about what the evidence was really saying: the most likely scenario for what happened was that Ellen mixed alcohol and Ambien, and that combination of substances acted in concert with her unique neurochemistry to cause the worst possible adverse reaction. Most likely, she stabbed herself in a psychotic fit of unmotivated violence. Both the toxicology report and the post-mortem examination of the stab wounds could corroborate my theory, because either the drugs were present or not, and the evidence of the stab wounds would show that several were not deep, would not have been fatal themselves, are dispersed in an otherwise random pattern rather than being defensive wounds or a few specific suicidal cuts, and were in places on her body that someone who is thrashing around could reach in the throes of a fit of madness.

It’s just my opinion, I said, but in that scenario, your cousin Sam is really innocent. And against a classification of suicide, Ellen is too: to the extent that suicide is traditionally thought of as an act of specific intent, she undoubtedly didn’t have that and thus doesn’t meet the criteria. I told him that in my opinion, the proper classification for her death would be negligent homicide of herself, for failing to follow the Ambien directions and subsequently paying the ultimate price for her disregard. In all the years I knew and worked with and against members of law enforcement, it’s true that many of them made mistakes, and some were abhorrently biased, but many are extremely professionally competent. Ellen’s was a case they would have undoubtedly tried to solve to the best of their abilities. If multiple agencies all agree that she was alone when it happened, then I have faith in that conclusion. Logically, the only question remaining is ‘Why?’, not ‘Who?’

Sadly but understandably, like many people with an emotional stake in a given mystery, my friend has rejected my hypothesis on the basis of it being just too difficult to accept. But I often read pieces on various platforms where people go to great lengths to paint Sam as a murderer, or the police as corrupt, and it boils my blood that those narratives never address the most likely scenario, until I remember that the general public just might not know about what Ellen ingested. And I’m not suggesting there could be claims against the company that makes Ambien, or anyone else for that matter. It’s just that Ellen has gone to her eternal rest, and Sam is still fighting for his reputation, and only the truth can ensure they both get what they deserve.