Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Behind the Locked Door

Transcript

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