Sandee Greenberg doesn’t recall the precise day she last conversed with her late daughter Ellen’s fiancé, Sam Goldberg, but the words she exchanged with him remain vivid in her memory.

“Sam, you know,” Sandee, now 69, said to him during a conversation she recounted from her Florida residence in an exclusive interview. “We are certain this wasn’t a suicide.”

On the other end of the call, she described the response as “complete silence.”

Their discussions had persisted intermittently for two years following the tragic death of first-grade teacher Ellen on January 26, 2011.

However, those conversations ceased when Goldberg, now 43, reportedly informed the Greenbergs that he was “moving forward with his life” and planning to remarry.

The Greenbergs have not moved on. On Wednesday they learned that federal prosecutors are to re-open the case into the investigation of Ellen’s death. The manner of death, that key factor, will not be reinterrogated.

The couple spoke to the Daily Mail last October, just days after the city of Philadelphia reaffirmed their controversial finding that Ellen killed herself inside the apartment she shared with Goldberg – stabbing herself 20 times. Unsurprisingly Sandee and her husband Josh, 76, remained deeply angry and utterly convinced that their daughter was murdered.

And much of their bitterness was directed at Goldberg.

Sandee (left) and Josh (right) spoke to the Daily Mail just days after the city of Philadelphia reaffirmed their controversial finding that Ellen killed herself inside the apartment she shared with Goldberg

They are deeply angry and utterly convinced that their daughter Ellen (pictured) was murdered

Speaking to Goldberg outside his home in Manhattan days earlier, the Daily Mail asked if he felt he had been ‘screwed over’ by recent coverage of the case.

‘Yeah I have been. It’s awful and it sucks,’ he said.

Today, he has been married to wife Caroline Shnay for 11 years and they have two children.

He said that things have been ‘awful’ because of a narrative that portrays his relationship with Ellen as toxic and his account of the day of her death questionable.

Josh’s response to that was blunt: ‘Baloney. He went on with his life. I guess Ellen maybe wasn’t good enough for him. He comes from a very wealthy family, and she wasn’t good enough for him.

‘We have never pointed a finger or accused anybody. That’s not what we want. We want an unbiased investigation by an unbiased leader,’ said Josh, a retired dentist.

Goldberg told police that he had found the 27-year-old first-grade teacher dead after shouldering open the locked door of the Manayunk, Philadelphia, apartment they shared.

Ellen had suffered more than 20 stab wounds, including ten to the back of her head and neck. A ten-inch kitchen knife was lodged in her chest.

The manner of death was initially ruled homicide. Three weeks later, the Medical Examiner changed it to suicide.

For many, that remains an inconceivable finding. Certainly, it is one that the Greenbergs vehemently reject.

Sandee said: ‘Changing the manner of death from homicide to suicide stopped us from being able to grieve.’

The phone calls between Ellen’s parents and Goldberg (right) had continued, periodically, for two years after first-grade teacher Ellen’s (left) brutal death on January 26, 2011 

Speaking outside his home in Manhattan last week, Goldberg (pictured in October 2025) told the Daily Mail that he felt ‘screwed over’ by the extensive coverage of Ellen’s case

She had suffered more than 20 stab wounds (illustrated in a diagram), including ten to the back of her head and neck. A 10-inch kitchen knife was lodged in her chest

Sandee said: ‘Changing the manner of death from homicide to suicide stopped us from being able to grieve’

Pictured: Sandee shows the Daily Mail old photographs of her daughter

Instead, they have fought, through the courts and through the media, to have the case re-opened.

They have hired a host of their own experts who support their assertion that Ellen was murdered and launched a petition signed by more than 170,000 people to have her case investigated as a homicide.

Last February, they had what seemed a significant breakthrough, when the city agreed to review Ellen’s death as part of a settlement in a case brought by the Greenbergs against city officials.

But, in October, they were dealt a hammer blow when Philadelphia’s Chief Medical Examiner Dr Lindsay Simon – who was not involved with the original investigation – returned her report and reaffirmed: ‘With all of this information considered… the manner of Ellen Greenberg’s death is best classified as “Suicide.”‘

The matter was signed into the court record during a brief, remote, hearing on Tuesday October 14, which was, Sandee said, ‘Over before it began.’

When they sat down with the Daily Mail, Sandee and Josh were still struggling to process the finding which they described as a ‘gut punch’ – though they vowed to continue fighting.

But, after so many years, it was tempting to wonder if they have finally reached a point where they have to accept the fight is over? Have friends or loved ones ever counseled them to do so?

Josh said: ‘No – not friends and not people who knew Ellen. The only incident I can think of is one of the friends of Sam’s parents meeting a friend of ours and she said, “What are the Greenbergs doing trying to ruin another family?”

‘And our friend said, “They just want to protect their daughter.”‘

‘We have never pointed a finger or accused anybody. That’s not what we want. We want an unbiased investigation by an unbiased leader,’ said Josh (right, with Ellen, left)

Though they vow to continue fighting, they have yet to sit down with their lawyers to consider just what avenues remain open to them. (Pictured: Sandee, left, and Ellen, right)

Pictured: Sandee shows the Daily Mail memorabilia of Ellen

Sandee and Josh are still struggling to process the finding which they described to the Daily Mail as a ‘gut punch’

Both Sandee and Josh reject the official narrative, now reasserted in Dr Simon’s report, in which Ellen, who had recently started seeing a psychiatrist for anxiety, felt so overwhelmed by the work stress she had shared with friends, that she took her own life in the most brutal fashion.

Josh claimed: ‘Somebody abused my daughter. We have evidence in the form of wounds at different stages of healing.’

Josh was referring to the multiple bruises, in varying stages of recovery, found on Ellen’s arms, legs, neck and torso at autopsy. Several of the experts hired by the Greenbergs described them as evidence of being restrained and of repeated beatings.

Dr Simon, however, concluded that they were, ‘not consistent with those sustained from intentional infliction by another.’

Rather, she stated: ‘The distribution is consistent with incidental contact sustained during activities of daily living, including her work as a first-grade teacher.’

Equally, Dr Simon found no evidence to support the notion that Ellen’s relationship with Goldberg was anything other than ‘wonderful.’

Josh has dismissed Dr Simon’s findings as ‘ridiculous.’

‘Ellen hated pain,’ Josh said. ‘She could never have done that to herself.’

As awful as it is for her parents to consider Ellen’s final moments, they have, according to her father, a horribly clear image of what happened to her that January day.

He alleged: ‘Ellen died of strangulation, a gash on the head and being restrained. And the scene was staged.’

Sandee and Josh reject the official narrative, now reasserted in Dr Simon’s report, in which Ellen, who had recently started seeing a psychiatrist for anxiety, felt so overwhelmed by the work stress she had shared with friends, that she took her own life in the most brutal fashion

Josh claimed: ‘Somebody abused my daughter. We have evidence in the form of wounds at different stages of healing’

‘Ellen hated pain,’ Josh said. ‘She could never have done that to herself’

But, even if the manner of death is changed, do they truly believe that after all these years anyone would be held accountable for Ellen’s death?

Sandee said: ‘In a perfect world yes, but I know this is not a perfect world.’

The truth, Josh admitted, is that he does not really believe their fight can be won. It is a feeling that puts him at odds with his wife who believes very firmly that it can be.

He said: ‘It makes it a tougher fight; it makes it more challenging…but I have a mission. I’m Ellen’s father, still. And that’s what keeps me going.

‘We could have walked away [and] not spent a hell of a lot of money and used it to buy a bigger house or another car or something. We’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. We’re not getting it back. But we don’t want to do that.

‘I know she’s watching and saying, “Daddy way to go!”‘ A smile fleets across Josh’s face at the thought, but his voice cracks.

She would surely be cheering on  Wednesday’s development. 

Ellen visits them, Sandee said, in the tinkle of wind chimes, in butterflies and in pennies that turn up unexpectedly. She saves them in a jar, now brimful.

‘I think she’s proud of us,’ Sandee said. ‘She’s every bit as proud of us as we are of her. She was just robbed of living a wonderful life. We won’t give up.’