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Body Bags: Behind the Locked Door · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:09
Speaker 1: Bodybacks with Joseph Scott Morgan. There's a well worn adage
0:20
Speaker 1: that talks about death by a thousand cuts. It implies
0:26
Speaker 1: that it's slow and it's painful, something that no one
0:30
Speaker 1: would ever want to endure. For years I handle cases
0:35
Speaker 1: involved in sharp instruments. I have to say that, in
0:39
Speaker 1: all of my years as a death investigator, I don't
0:42
Speaker 1: believe I've ever encountered a case involving this many stab
0:48
Speaker 1: wounds and so many unanswered questions. I'm talking about twenty,
0:55
Speaker 1: not a thousand, but twenty cuts, a case of Ellen Greenberg.
1:01
Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Body Backs today.
1:09
Speaker 1: I'm joined by my friend Jackie Howard, who's the executive
1:13
Speaker 1: producer of Crime Stories. Would Nancy Grace, Jackie, won't you
1:16
Speaker 1: tell us about this case? Joe Ellen Greenberg was a
1:19
Speaker 1: bride to be. She had just sent out the saved
1:22
Speaker 1: to dates for her upcoming wedding. By all accounts, she
1:24
Speaker 1: was excited about this wedding. Her fiance and living boyfriend
1:30
Speaker 1: went to the gym in their apartment complex. He came
1:33
Speaker 1: back up and found the door locked. At that time,
1:36
Speaker 1: he began beating on the door, calling texting, but Ellen
1:40
Speaker 1: did not answer. He tried to get into the door.
1:42
Speaker 1: The fiance finally manages to break the door down, and
1:46
Speaker 1: I'm sure most people are thinking, why didn't he just
1:48
Speaker 1: use a key? The door had a lock on it,
1:51
Speaker 1: like you have at an hotel that has a bar
1:54
Speaker 1: that swings across the opening of the door to make
1:57
Speaker 1: it impossible to open the door from the outside even
2:01
Speaker 1: if you have a key. So he's trying to get in.
2:04
Speaker 1: Ellen does not answer. He finally manages to break the
2:07
Speaker 1: door down. Once he gets inside, he finds Ellen Greenberg
2:10
Speaker 1: on the floor. She has been stabbed multiple times twenty
2:14
Speaker 1: as you said, and the knife is still embedded in
2:18
Speaker 1: her chest. Nine one woman was called service personnel come
2:21
Speaker 1: and as the determination of what happened to Ellen Greenberg
2:25
Speaker 1: has made and it's determined to be a suicide. You know, Jackie,
2:29
Speaker 1: we're talking about a young woman, healthy, fitwoman. She's a
2:33
Speaker 1: school teacher, has got her entire life ahead of her.
2:38
Speaker 1: Seemingly she's enjoying life, like you'd mentioned, she's excited about
2:43
Speaker 1: her upcoming nuptials. You know, she's taking the time to
2:46
Speaker 1: send out Save the date cars. She's been living this
2:49
Speaker 1: guy for a while, they're making plans, and he goes
2:52
Speaker 1: the gym and comes back, and after he breaks the
2:55
Speaker 1: door down, he finds her on the floor suffering from
3:00
Speaker 1: this many wounds. I gotta tell you, Jackie, over the
3:04
Speaker 1: course of my career, I don't ever recall working a
3:09
Speaker 1: case where I had an individual that had self inflicted
3:14
Speaker 1: sharp force injuries at this number. I mean, this is
3:19
Speaker 1: almost an unimaginable number that we're talking about twenty because
3:23
Speaker 1: you know, you begin to think, how can anyone endure
3:26
Speaker 1: that level of pain? I mean, we all know what
3:28
Speaker 1: it's like to cut ourselves, cut ourselves on a piece
3:31
Speaker 1: of paper even and its stings. Can you imagine driving
3:35
Speaker 1: a knife blade into your body this many times? And
3:39
Speaker 1: this is a curious thing. The knife wounds are not
3:43
Speaker 1: simply what you might think, just like into the abdomen
3:47
Speaker 1: or maybe a single time into the chest. We're talking
3:49
Speaker 1: about multiple injuries on not just the chest, but also
3:53
Speaker 1: on the back. Now, how does that work. I'm trying
3:57
Speaker 1: to understand this, and in to her neck as well.
4:01
Speaker 1: And one of the things that was discovered at autopsy
4:04
Speaker 1: was the fact that the knife had actually penetrated the
4:09
Speaker 1: cervical spinal column. Right, it about the C one or
4:12
Speaker 1: C two level and had actually actually penetrated and touched
4:18
Speaker 1: and brushed up against the spinal cord. Now, this is
4:22
Speaker 1: almost an unimaginable feat and I don't know that there's
4:24
Speaker 1: any way that you can kind of do the arithmetic
4:28
Speaker 1: on here to make it come out right. Let me
4:31
Speaker 1: jump in here and get just a little explanation for folks.
4:34
Speaker 1: Described for me where exactly the C one and C
4:38
Speaker 1: two area is. If folks will at home, just think
4:41
Speaker 1: about the first cervical vertebra that you have is commonly
4:45
Speaker 1: it's got an interesting name. A lot of people aren't
4:48
Speaker 1: aware of it. The very first cervical vertebra that we
4:50
Speaker 1: have is actually called the Atlas. And just imagine you
4:54
Speaker 1: know from mythology, that gigantic man that's holding up the earth.
4:58
Speaker 1: I'm sure that many people have seen this. Atlas was
5:01
Speaker 1: his name, and that, you know, I think that early
5:04
Speaker 1: anatomous they felt like, well, that's that's a great representation.
5:07
Speaker 1: People can understand that I need it. I'm kind of
5:09
Speaker 1: a simple minded fellow. So if I'm thinking about something
5:12
Speaker 1: holding something up, I'm thinking about that C one that's
5:16
Speaker 1: that first cervical vertebra that's actually supporting the head, all right,
5:21
Speaker 1: and everything that we do, all of our actions are
5:24
Speaker 1: dictated by our head and our brain. So it's a
5:27
Speaker 1: critical area. As a matter of fact. It's so critical
5:29
Speaker 1: that when you look at that area C one, C two,
5:32
Speaker 1: and C three, that's where our brain stem kind of
5:35
Speaker 1: comes down. It's it's the gateway to our autonomic nervous system.
5:40
Speaker 1: And what folks don't understand that that's that's what controls
5:43
Speaker 1: our respirations, that's what controls our heartbeat. It's the hub
5:47
Speaker 1: of everything kind of the primal brain, those things that
5:50
Speaker 1: occur without us thinking about it. You're talking directly at
5:53
Speaker 1: the base of the skull at the back of the neck. Yeah,
5:57
Speaker 1: we're right at the base of the skull in this
6:00
Speaker 1: particular case, Jackie. And that's one of the things that's
6:03
Speaker 1: so troubling. Now, I'll put it to you this way.
6:06
Speaker 1: If you were let's just put it in the context of, say,
6:09
Speaker 1: if you were a professional killer, if you were looking
6:13
Speaker 1: to take someone out, Okay, that is a primary area
6:17
Speaker 1: where you're almost guaranteed, say if you're firing a gun
6:20
Speaker 1: for a kill shot, because you know that you're going
6:23
Speaker 1: to take them out in that split second of time,
6:27
Speaker 1: and the fact that she had this injury there is significant.
6:30
Speaker 1: It's very significant because you think about this and you say, well,
6:34
Speaker 1: how in the world could anybody recover from that type
6:39
Speaker 1: of injury to go on and continue to stab himself. Remember,
6:43
Speaker 1: that's only one of twenty stab wounds that she sustained one.
6:49
Speaker 1: And in addition to that stab wound that we've just
6:53
Speaker 1: reflected upon, she's also got a real nasty gash on
6:58
Speaker 1: the back of her head. It's kind of a if
7:01
Speaker 1: you'll think of a half moon or a quarter moon.
7:04
Speaker 1: It's kind of elliptical in shape, kind of an odd,
7:09
Speaker 1: an odd injury, and it appears, according to what the
7:12
Speaker 1: autopsy report was saying, that the edges what we call
7:16
Speaker 1: the margins of that injury are clean, which more than
7:20
Speaker 1: likely indicates that this was generated by an edged weapon. So,
7:25
Speaker 1: you know, you think about how can someone endure this
7:28
Speaker 1: kind of trauma? And upon further examination of Ellen's body,
7:32
Speaker 1: when you begin to look at her arms and her legs,
7:36
Speaker 1: there are other, I don't know, contusions, little bruises that
7:40
Speaker 1: are on her body. Now the pathologist says that they're
7:43
Speaker 1: resolving in nature, so he doesn't go into great detail
7:47
Speaker 1: relative to how distant they might be in the past
7:52
Speaker 1: or how recent they are. But there's one major thing
7:55
Speaker 1: that is left out in this autopsy report that I've
7:58
Speaker 1: discovered that in cases I've been involved in, is essential
8:02
Speaker 1: relative to someone's ability to handle a weapon or handle
8:07
Speaker 1: a knife in this particular case, and that is arm length.
8:11
Speaker 1: You know, just think about it. We all don't have
8:13
Speaker 1: the same length arms, do well. You know, you think
8:16
Speaker 1: about the measurement from your shoulder to your elbow, and
8:18
Speaker 1: from your elbow to your wrist, and from your wrist
8:20
Speaker 1: to the tips of your fingers. All of that equates
8:24
Speaker 1: into this thought of what is your ability to wield
8:28
Speaker 1: a knife in order to self inflict an injury? And
8:32
Speaker 1: you have to look at the injuries that Ellen had
8:35
Speaker 1: on her body. How is it that you can take
8:38
Speaker 1: a knife and literally drive it into your own back
8:42
Speaker 1: And you have to think, well, maybe you could do
8:45
Speaker 1: that once, maybe you could do it twice, But then
8:47
Speaker 1: you think all of the pain associated because once you've
8:50
Speaker 1: driven it into those areas, once you have made contact
8:54
Speaker 1: with your skin, you've cut through nerves, you've cut through
8:57
Speaker 1: the muscle, and you have literally gone to bone at
9:00
Speaker 1: that point. How much pain is associated with you're gonna
9:02
Speaker 1: tell me, you're gonna do that over and over and
9:05
Speaker 1: over again. I don't think so. I mean, the individual
9:09
Speaker 1: that would be capable of self inflicting this kind of
9:13
Speaker 1: injury would, in my estimation at least, have to be
9:18
Speaker 1: a raving psychotic. And there is no indication, no indication whatsoever,
9:24
Speaker 1: that Ellen Greenberg suffered from any kind of acute psychoses whatsoever.
9:29
Speaker 1: I mean, this poor young lady. She had anxiety. Who
9:33
Speaker 1: in the world doesn't have anxiety? She had trouble sleeping
9:35
Speaker 1: at night. Well, she was taking clinas apam. Do you
9:40
Speaker 1: realize how many people in our population take clinaise apam?
9:44
Speaker 1: And there is no association between clinas apam and psychotic
9:48
Speaker 1: behavior that I've been able to find in the literature.
9:50
Speaker 1: Everybody has trouble sleeping every now and then. She's got
9:53
Speaker 1: a lot on her she's teaching in public schools, she's
9:56
Speaker 1: you know, planning a wedding, and so in that sense,
10:00
Speaker 1: there's no evidence to indicate that she's in it some
10:03
Speaker 1: kind of frenzied mental state where she could inflict these
10:08
Speaker 1: kind of insults to her body, and not just these
10:11
Speaker 1: kinds of insults, but to continue to do it over
10:14
Speaker 1: and over and over again till finally she takes this
10:18
Speaker 1: single edged serrated knife, now that's a state knife, just
10:22
Speaker 1: so that you were clear, and buries it in her
10:25
Speaker 1: chest where they find it at the scene. And just
10:30
Speaker 1: so people can visualize this, if you have access to
10:33
Speaker 1: a dollar bill, take that dollar bill out. Okay, look
10:38
Speaker 1: at it. I mean look at the face of it.
10:40
Speaker 1: From the left side of it to just pass George
10:43
Speaker 1: Washington's head, that's ten centimeters. That's how deep this knife
10:48
Speaker 1: was buried in her. So you think about that and
10:51
Speaker 1: think about all of the pain associated with that. It
10:55
Speaker 1: really is a headscratcher. Jackie joh I want to take
10:57
Speaker 1: a step back to something that you mentioned a minute ago.
11:00
Speaker 1: I hadn't never thought of arm length in relation to
11:04
Speaker 1: this case, although obviously it is a very important part.
11:08
Speaker 1: But what I was thinking about was flexibility. I mean,
11:11
Speaker 1: I'm very lucky to be able to scratch the back
11:14
Speaker 1: of my neck when it you know, or the back
11:15
Speaker 1: of my shoulder blades when I have an itch, let alone,
11:19
Speaker 1: to be able to hurt myself, to stab myself in
11:22
Speaker 1: the back. Is it possible that despite your arm length,
11:26
Speaker 1: that your flexibility gives you the capability to create these
11:30
Speaker 1: kinds of injuries. Jackie, I gotta say, that's an excellent question.
11:34
Speaker 1: You begin to think about this and it's like, okay,
11:37
Speaker 1: you know, if you are that flexible, all right, Let's
11:39
Speaker 1: say she's in tip top physical shape. Maybe she does yoga,
11:43
Speaker 1: she can stretch, she can be in I mean, she'd
11:45
Speaker 1: probably do a lot better than my old body could do.
11:50
Speaker 1: And you think about doing this maybe once to be
11:53
Speaker 1: able to manipulate a knife in everybody at home kind
11:56
Speaker 1: of think about how you would have to hold a
11:59
Speaker 1: knife or to inflict this injury. So you would have
12:02
Speaker 1: to turn the knife so that the tip is facing
12:06
Speaker 1: your face, the tip of it you're looking down, the
12:08
Speaker 1: long axis of the blade, blade edge is probably up,
12:13
Speaker 1: and then you would have to take it and as
12:17
Speaker 1: as your elbow bins, drive it into your shoulder blades,
12:22
Speaker 1: down your back near your spinal column, into the back
12:24
Speaker 1: of your head. Even if you try to do this
12:27
Speaker 1: into the back of your head, that's hard to do.
12:31
Speaker 1: You would have to be tremendously flexible. And the one
12:34
Speaker 1: thing that folks might not understand or grasp all the
12:39
Speaker 1: while that you're doing this. Every time you make another
12:43
Speaker 1: little cut, another little nick in your body, your pain
12:47
Speaker 1: center is screaming, screaming, over and over again. You know,
12:54
Speaker 1: don't do this. Your body's trying to don't do it.
12:56
Speaker 1: Don't do it. Is too much pain associated with don't
12:58
Speaker 1: do it. But yet you can tinue to do it.
13:00
Speaker 1: And you are able to be this nimble and this
13:04
Speaker 1: flexible in order to facilitate this over and over and
13:08
Speaker 1: over and over again. It's absolutely mind blowing. That's why
13:15
Speaker 1: myself and a lot of other colleagues of mine that
13:18
Speaker 1: have taken a look at this case that are forensics folks,
13:22
Speaker 1: we don't understand how plausible this could be that someone
13:28
Speaker 1: could actually do this and self inflict these insults to
13:32
Speaker 1: their body. But you know, there's really no clear answers
13:36
Speaker 1: to this case. One of the fascinating things is this,
13:41
Speaker 1: when the autopsy was completed, it was determined that she
13:45
Speaker 1: had stabbed herself, according to the m in several vital areas,
13:51
Speaker 1: I mean areas in her body that would absolutely lead
13:57
Speaker 1: lead to death. She's got both sides of her chest
14:02
Speaker 1: cavity and her lungs are filled with blood. Okay, so
14:06
Speaker 1: that means that somewhere along the way, her ability to
14:10
Speaker 1: respire has been compromised, So her chest cavity is filling
14:14
Speaker 1: up with blood, and that's compromising the lungs ability to
14:19
Speaker 1: inhalate and exhalate. Also, interestingly enough, in your heart, your
14:25
Speaker 1: heart actually sits in a little sack that's called pericardium,
14:30
Speaker 1: pericardial sack that's been nicked. Well, not only has it
14:35
Speaker 1: been nicked, the aorta has been nicked, and that's the
14:38
Speaker 1: major vessel that comes off of the heart that supplies
14:42
Speaker 1: that supplies the rest of the the body with oxygenated blood.
14:44
Speaker 1: That pericardial sack around the heart, it's becoming engrossed with
14:48
Speaker 1: blood as well, so the heart's laboring to beat. All
14:52
Speaker 1: of this time. Not to mention, you've got this spinal
14:56
Speaker 1: insult that has taken place with a knife, and all
14:58
Speaker 1: the while you're telling me that even though she is
15:01
Speaker 1: this physically compromised, she's still capable of carrying out these
15:07
Speaker 1: self inflicted insults to her body. I just I can't
15:10
Speaker 1: see it happening. I don't understand how it's even possible.
15:37
Speaker 1: Just suppose for a second that you just take your hand,
15:39
Speaker 1: an empty hand and you move it about your body
15:42
Speaker 1: twenty times. Think about that that requires a certain amount
15:45
Speaker 1: of energy in order to facilitate this. You begin to
15:48
Speaker 1: think about this poor young woman, Ellen Greenberg. She's holding
15:53
Speaker 1: a knife in her hand, a serrated edge knife, nonetheless,
15:57
Speaker 1: And what they're trying to tell us is that as
15:59
Speaker 1: she's hold in this knife, she is inflicting all of
16:03
Speaker 1: these injuries to her body, compromising her lungs, her heart,
16:08
Speaker 1: and potentially her brain. And yet she's able to keep
16:11
Speaker 1: up this pace with a lack of oxygenated blood. Remember,
16:15
Speaker 1: what the pathologist is saying in the autopsy report is
16:18
Speaker 1: that steadily her chest cavity, her chest cavity on both sides,
16:23
Speaker 1: is filling up with blood. Her paricardium, which actually encases
16:27
Speaker 1: the heart, is filling up with blood. They even make
16:30
Speaker 1: note of a superficial subrachnoid hemorrhage in her brain, which
16:35
Speaker 1: is putting pressure on her brain all the while, And
16:38
Speaker 1: they expect us to believe that she could facilitate inflicting
16:42
Speaker 1: all of these injuries upon herself while all the while
16:46
Speaker 1: just so slowly depriving herself of much needed oxygenated blood.
16:51
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, I'm just not buying it. I
16:53
Speaker 1: don't see how it's physically possible for her to have
16:57
Speaker 1: done this in her apartment. They're all alone. How is
17:01
Speaker 1: this possible that she could have done it? And you
17:04
Speaker 1: know what, it's not like she wandered over the entire
17:06
Speaker 1: apartment while she's doing it. Everything that occurred appears to
17:10
Speaker 1: have occurred in one spot, and that's in her kitchen. Joe.
17:13
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the forensics itself. We've talked about the
17:16
Speaker 1: body and the wounds that she had, but let's talk
17:19
Speaker 1: about the forensics of the room itself. We know that
17:22
Speaker 1: the door was broken, we know that Ellen was found
17:26
Speaker 1: with the knife still in her body. She was found
17:29
Speaker 1: in a seated position, which I think most people find odd.
17:35
Speaker 1: What strikes you about this scene? I think the fact
17:39
Speaker 1: that she is seated in an upright position. It almost
17:43
Speaker 1: seems unnatural, doesn't it. And the fact that this boyfriend
17:49
Speaker 1: that discovered her, he would have made note of that
17:52
Speaker 1: at that time, that she was in this position with
17:55
Speaker 1: a knife in her chest, and didn't lay her to
17:57
Speaker 1: the floor. You know, they gave him a corrective to
18:01
Speaker 1: start CPR on her. But he's saying, she's got a
18:04
Speaker 1: knife in her chest. Can you imagine this? And it
18:07
Speaker 1: should It was probably a horror show in this environment.
18:10
Speaker 1: There's probably blood all over the floor, it's all over
18:13
Speaker 1: her obviously it's going to be on her hands and
18:16
Speaker 1: this knife. I've actually seen the pictures of the knife.
18:18
Speaker 1: The blood is just encrusted around the handle of the
18:23
Speaker 1: knife as well as on the surface of the blade
18:26
Speaker 1: as well. They had to remove it at autopsy, So
18:29
Speaker 1: you begin to think about this, it seems almost unnatural.
18:32
Speaker 1: But one of the really curious things about this, Jackie,
18:36
Speaker 1: is that we know that gravity is a constant force
18:41
Speaker 1: in the universe. It impacts our bodies everywhere we go.
18:46
Speaker 1: One of the interesting things that was noted about Ellen's
18:48
Speaker 1: body is that she actually had a streak of blood
18:53
Speaker 1: that was coming out of her ear. That get this
18:58
Speaker 1: was traveling from front to back, so that if if
19:03
Speaker 1: it's it would violate the laws of nature. It's almost
19:07
Speaker 1: as if she had sustained an injury while laying back.
19:12
Speaker 1: The blood came out of her ear and dripped down
19:15
Speaker 1: to the floor, and then she sat up and left
19:18
Speaker 1: this blood stained mark on her ear. And that's that's
19:23
Speaker 1: just not possible. It almost implies that some way in
19:27
Speaker 1: some way her body may have been manipulated. And that's
19:30
Speaker 1: why it's so key that when they arrived at the scene,
19:35
Speaker 1: what exactly did they find relative to her body and
19:39
Speaker 1: the remainder of the scene. You know, what, how long
19:42
Speaker 1: had she been down? Because the timeline here is crucial
19:46
Speaker 1: to what degree had postmortem changes begin to take place
19:50
Speaker 1: in Ellen's body? Well? Was the temperature of her body
19:53
Speaker 1: when the investigators first got there? Was she and ryder mortis?
19:58
Speaker 1: Because that takes a very specific amount of time to
20:01
Speaker 1: set in. Did she have lybra morris where blood had settled?
20:05
Speaker 1: Remember she was in a seated position, all right, So
20:08
Speaker 1: that would indicate that if she had lybra mortis in
20:12
Speaker 1: her body, that is settling a blood where the skin
20:15
Speaker 1: actually changes color because of congestion dependent congestion we call it,
20:20
Speaker 1: it would have settled to the backs of her legs
20:23
Speaker 1: and her buttocks would have been touching the floor, and
20:26
Speaker 1: so you would it would be really really purple, livacious
20:29
Speaker 1: as they call it. So I'd be very interested to
20:32
Speaker 1: know was there any lybra mortis on her shoulder blades
20:36
Speaker 1: or on her lower back That would indicate that at
20:38
Speaker 1: some point in time she'd been laying on her back.
20:40
Speaker 1: So all of this is key, it just doesn't necessarily
20:44
Speaker 1: marry up. So let's talk a little bit more about
20:47
Speaker 1: the room itself. The door was locked, there was one
20:51
Speaker 1: way in or out. Ellen did not live on the
20:54
Speaker 1: ground floor, so there was a very small balcony, but
20:57
Speaker 1: it was not like a balcony that you would go
20:59
Speaker 1: out side and sit and you know, hang out with
21:02
Speaker 1: friends and talk or have dinner. It's a very small balcony.
21:05
Speaker 1: There's only one way in or out of this room,
21:09
Speaker 1: and the door is locked. Jackie, that's a good point.
21:12
Speaker 1: I've always imagined this, this uh, this apartment to look
21:16
Speaker 1: somewhat like, uh maybe an extended stay suite that you
21:21
Speaker 1: would find out on the road in a hotel. And
21:23
Speaker 1: the one thing it has in common is one of
21:26
Speaker 1: these interior swing locks. I'm sure that many people that
21:30
Speaker 1: are listening have had access to these. You know, it's
21:33
Speaker 1: got the one little bar that's attached to the door itself,
21:36
Speaker 1: and then it's got this kind of gate that swings
21:38
Speaker 1: over that one little bar, and if you try to
21:41
Speaker 1: open the door, even after the dead bolt is off
21:45
Speaker 1: and you kind of that that little bar catches on
21:47
Speaker 1: that handle on that swing, and it prevents it from
21:50
Speaker 1: opening any further. That was physically in place, according to
21:55
Speaker 1: the boyfriend, when he came to enter the apartment. As
21:57
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, he reports getting rather upset. Whether
22:01
Speaker 1: he's texting her, you know, he's saying, look, don't you know,
22:03
Speaker 1: don't be playing around, or whatever it was that he
22:06
Speaker 1: had stated, let me in, let me in. I don't
22:08
Speaker 1: know what's going on, And of course he eventually had
22:11
Speaker 1: to force his way into the apartment. How is this possible?
22:15
Speaker 1: Would the swing lock that this would have been in place,
22:19
Speaker 1: he could not have gotten in. And we've got a
22:22
Speaker 1: woman that is essentially seated in the kitchen that has
22:26
Speaker 1: sustained twenty stab wounds. But to my account, it would
22:29
Speaker 1: seem that it's not possible for her to have self
22:32
Speaker 1: inflicted these wounds. Jackie, I just don't see how that's plausible.
22:36
Speaker 1: There's only one way into this place. You've got a
22:39
Speaker 1: single entrance in an interior hallway. I don't see anybody
22:44
Speaker 1: leaping off of that balcony down out of this multi
22:48
Speaker 1: story building. I think that they probably wind up breaking
22:51
Speaker 1: their ankles or breaking their leg How is it possible
22:54
Speaker 1: that someone could have come and gone without them being seen. Jackie.
23:18
Speaker 1: I don't know that there's necessarily any clear answers in
23:21
Speaker 1: the case involving Ellen Greenberg's death, but I can tell
23:26
Speaker 1: you this, I know that there's somebody out there that
23:28
Speaker 1: does want one answers, and that's her mom and dad,
23:31
Speaker 1: because for ten years now they've been searching for someone
23:36
Speaker 1: to tell them definitively what happened on that day that
23:40
Speaker 1: their daughter passed away. Joe, You're absolutely right. The Greenbergs
23:44
Speaker 1: have been fighting for a very long time now to
23:46
Speaker 1: get this ruling of suicide changed. They have been to court,
23:52
Speaker 1: they have filed motions, they have done depositions, and we
23:56
Speaker 1: know that in those depositions there were some things brought
23:59
Speaker 1: up that really raises questions about further this finding is accurate.
24:06
Speaker 1: What were those Joe? The most significant thing, Jackie, is that,
24:09
Speaker 1: upon further reflection, there was another pathologist who was working
24:16
Speaker 1: for the Medical Examiner, the same medical Examiner's office that
24:20
Speaker 1: did Ellen's exam. Let's just going to blow you away.
24:24
Speaker 1: Remember that that injury that we talked about that was
24:27
Speaker 1: involving the C one, C two, and C three cervical spawn. Well,
24:33
Speaker 1: when this mythologist looked at this, she saw something very interesting,
24:38
Speaker 1: the fact that when this knife entered that area, that
24:41
Speaker 1: critical area that literally dictates the quality of life that
24:47
Speaker 1: we're going to have. During the course of a deposition,
24:50
Speaker 1: she revealed that it was her opinion that this insult
24:57
Speaker 1: this injury that Ellen sustained to the back her neck,
25:00
Speaker 1: to their spinal column. She stated that there was no hemorrhage.
25:05
Speaker 1: There was no hemorrhage in that specific area. And you
25:08
Speaker 1: have to factor that with this. The head and the
25:12
Speaker 1: neck are arguably the most vascular areas in our body,
25:17
Speaker 1: and what that means is that there is more blood
25:20
Speaker 1: supply probably going to that area of the human body
25:23
Speaker 1: because the brain requires so much oxygen. So you're going
25:27
Speaker 1: to tell me that you're going to insert a knife
25:29
Speaker 1: into this area and there is no significant hemorrhage surrounding
25:34
Speaker 1: the spinal column. Well, the thing that she came up
25:38
Speaker 1: with this other pathologist that did this examination was that, yeah,
25:44
Speaker 1: she got stabbed in that area, but because there was
25:47
Speaker 1: no hemorrhage, she doesn't believe that this happened in life.
25:52
Speaker 1: She thinks that it was post mortem. That means that
25:54
Speaker 1: it occurred after death because as we know, if you
25:58
Speaker 1: sustain a bump, a contusion, a bruise, If you sustain
26:05
Speaker 1: a laceration, an incised wound with an edged weapon or
26:09
Speaker 1: a gunshot wound, and you're alive at the time that
26:11
Speaker 1: you sustain those injuries to your body, you're going to bleed.
26:15
Speaker 1: Ellen Greenberg, according to this pathologist, didn't bleed in that
26:19
Speaker 1: specific area, And that specific area is key to this Jackie.
26:23
Speaker 1: It's key because in most people that would be an
26:27
Speaker 1: area that would be so affected by this type of
26:31
Speaker 1: injury that it would shut you down. We had talked
26:34
Speaker 1: about already. That's that's where the autonomic nervous system kind
26:38
Speaker 1: of roots out of. It comes up out of that
26:41
Speaker 1: the base of the spinal cord right there. It's critical
26:46
Speaker 1: to everything that we do, so any the slightest little
26:49
Speaker 1: insult in that area, the slightest little injury, can be
26:52
Speaker 1: very impactful. And the fact that there was no hemorrhage
26:55
Speaker 1: in there, according to this pathologist, indicates that this injury
27:00
Speaker 1: may very well have occurred after Ellen had passed away.
27:04
Speaker 1: So that leaves us with a big question, doesn't it.
27:07
Speaker 1: How can a young woman who has reportedly been stabbing
27:13
Speaker 1: herself over and over and over again, according to the
27:16
Speaker 1: medical examiner, how can she sustain an injury like this
27:20
Speaker 1: to her neck after she's deceased? How is that even
27:24
Speaker 1: physically possible. I've been around a lot of dead bodies
27:27
Speaker 1: in my life, and Jackie, over the course of my career,
27:30
Speaker 1: thousands of them, and I have never seen someone that
27:33
Speaker 1: is deceased just self inflicting injury. So that that begs
27:37
Speaker 1: the question, how did this occur? And by whose hand?
27:41
Speaker 1: And so that's that's the kind of question that the
27:44
Speaker 1: family has asked, and that's the kind of question that
27:48
Speaker 1: the family deserves an answer to. But you know what's
27:51
Speaker 1: really sad about this, Jackie, is the fact that this mythologist,
27:55
Speaker 1: she never files a report here the family is there
28:00
Speaker 1: asking for answers. I'd say that this is a pretty
28:04
Speaker 1: big answer. This is a big piece of information from
28:07
Speaker 1: an investigative standpoint that the family should have known immediately.
28:11
Speaker 1: It took a deposition in order to pull this dat out.
28:16
Speaker 1: So Joe I am by no means, I'm not even
28:20
Speaker 1: a forensics beginner. I don't even have to go that
28:23
Speaker 1: far because all I have to look at, and I
28:26
Speaker 1: think most lay people all they have to look at
28:29
Speaker 1: is the fact that Ellen Greenberg had twenty stab wounds
28:36
Speaker 1: that were supposedly self inflicted. And I'm standing here on
28:41
Speaker 1: the outside looking in, going there is no way that
28:46
Speaker 1: you can stab yourself twenty times and it be considered
28:50
Speaker 1: a suicide. So explain it to me, Joe, how this
28:54
Speaker 1: could have been ruled a suicide? To begin with, Let
28:57
Speaker 1: me correct jump something there in Jackie, this case was
29:00
Speaker 1: not originally ruled a suicide. In the first iteration of
29:05
Speaker 1: this thing that the m had come out and said
29:08
Speaker 1: that they thought that it was a homicide. So what
29:11
Speaker 1: changed along the continuum here to make them suddenly doing
29:16
Speaker 1: about face, say oh, well, it's it's not a homicide.
29:19
Speaker 1: This is obviously a suicide. Obviously a suicide, Okay, obviously
29:24
Speaker 1: no equivocation. This is a suicide, a suicide involving twenty
29:29
Speaker 1: self inflicted stab wounds. That that's obvious that this is
29:34
Speaker 1: a suicide. And you know, it defies I think on
29:38
Speaker 1: many levels logic that this could in fact be be
29:44
Speaker 1: a suicide because we're talking about a young woman who
29:48
Speaker 1: has not expressed any kind of what psychiatrists referred to
29:52
Speaker 1: as suicidal ideation. And yeah, I know that people do
29:55
Speaker 1: on occasion take their lives and they haven't sent up
29:59
Speaker 1: any signal. But in this particular case, she seems as
30:03
Speaker 1: though that she was rather stable in the world that
30:07
Speaker 1: she was existing in. And yeah, she has suffered from anxiety,
30:10
Speaker 1: but she wasn't stark, raving mad where she would take
30:14
Speaker 1: where she would take a steak knife and plunge it
30:17
Speaker 1: into her body twenty times. It it doesn't, It doesn't balance.
30:23
Speaker 1: This equation doesn't balance at the end. What's of striking
30:27
Speaker 1: about this case is that not only was she in
30:30
Speaker 1: a lock apartment and the boyfriend had to make his
30:33
Speaker 1: way through this gate lock on the door, and that
30:37
Speaker 1: she had blood streaming out of her ear that's consistent
30:40
Speaker 1: with her laying on her back, And that she has
30:43
Speaker 1: taken a steak knife and plunged it into her body
30:46
Speaker 1: twenty times, and then to boot leaves the knife embedded
30:50
Speaker 1: in her own chest. It gets it gets a bit
30:54
Speaker 1: more murky because you know, initially, as as I've stated,
30:58
Speaker 1: the pathologist had actually originally ruled this as in fact
31:04
Speaker 1: a homicide, but then they did an about face and
31:07
Speaker 1: changed it to suicide. One other odd thing is that
31:11
Speaker 1: out of all the people in the world that the
31:15
Speaker 1: medical examiner could have referred this case too. They referred
31:21
Speaker 1: this case for further examination by one of the most
31:25
Speaker 1: renowned neuropathologist in American history, and that's doctor Lucy Rourke,
31:32
Speaker 1: who's up in Philadelphia. The pathologist claims that doctor Lucy
31:38
Speaker 1: Rourke actually examined ellen spinal cord. Well, guess what. Doctor
31:44
Speaker 1: Rourke says that she never was involved in this case,
31:49
Speaker 1: and this, of all cases, is one that you would
31:52
Speaker 1: want to have a neuropathology consult on because of the
31:55
Speaker 1: injury to the spinal cord. She says she never saw
31:58
Speaker 1: the case. So that adds another layer. And I think
32:01
Speaker 1: that now we can begin to see why the parents
32:03
Speaker 1: would be so suspicious about this case, why they have
32:06
Speaker 1: so many questions that have remained after a decade unanswered,
32:10
Speaker 1: or at least the answers that they've been given are
32:12
Speaker 1: not satisfactory. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks