The Death of Ellen Greenberg Part 2: What Language Tells Us That Evidence Cannot Ignore

Date of publication: 12th May 2025 

Deception Detection Lab first posted about the death of Ellen Greenberg on the 10th February 2025. This post is a follow up to that post which can be found here: The Death of Ellen Greenberg. 

The tragic death of Ellen Greenberg in the US in 2011 continues to raise important questions, not only about what happened in her final moments, but how those events were interpreted, processed, and, ultimately, ruled upon. 

Originally ruled a homicide after Ellen was found stabbed more than 20 times in her Philadelphia apartment, her cause of death was controversially changed to suicide in April 2011. That ruling stood for over a decade.

Only in January 2025 was the determination of suicide officially removed, after renewed scrutiny and a growing body of public concern and professional analysis. 

On 2nd February 2025, the MailOnline published the Medical Examiner’s updated view: that Ellen’s death should be ruled as ‘something other than suicide’. Two days later, Court TV delved into the case, revealing significant anomalies, some of which are deeply troubling and would be difficult to reconcile with a suicide narrative. 

One of the most glaring pieces of evidence has been hiding in plain sight: the original 911 call made by Ellen’s fiancé, Samuel Goldberg. It’s barely four minutes long, but for those trained in forensic statement and linguistic analysis, it speaks volumes. 

Here is how the call begins: 

‘Help! I’ve got, I need, I need, uh, I just, I just walked into my apartment, my fiancés on the floor with blood everywhere’. 

At first glance, this seems chaotic and panicked but trained linguistic analysts look beyond surface-level emotion. What’s notable here is priority and structure. The caller begins with his own needs not Ellen’s. 

The repeated use of ‘just’ suggests a need to establish timing, unprompted, a key linguistic cue. According to established Forensic Statement and Linguistic Analysis (FSLA) research, this type of usage has been shown to have over 90% correlation with Guilty Knowledge in Emergency Calls. 

More troubling is how Goldberg describes Ellen’s injuries: 

• ‘She stabbed herself’. 

• ‘She fell on a knife’. 

• ‘There’s a knife sticking out of her heart’. 

• ‘It looks pretty deep’. 

• ‘I mean, it’s a long knife’. 

  
  

The explanations shift. No hypothesis includes the possibility of murder, despite over 20 stab wounds, many of which were in the back of her head and neck. Samuel Goldberg gives multiple causes of death, all self-inflicted in nature. 

Another striking inconsistency: Goldberg says at the start, ‘I just walked into my apartment’, yet he also claims that the door was latched and had to be broken down. The two statements are contradictory, raising questions about the true sequence of events. 

Notably, Samuel never expresses fear that someone else might be in the apartment, again, unexpected if the scene was genuinely shocking or uncertain. 

Forensic Statement and Linguistic Analysis (FSLA) excels at this kind of scrutiny. It evaluates not just what is said, but how it is said—and equally, what is left unsaid. It helps investigators detect deception, assess credibility, and understand psychological distance, all from the language people use under pressure. 

Had FSLA been applied earlier in Ellen’s case, it may have redirected the investigation at a critical time. It could have saved Ellen’s family immense grief, spared public resources, and potentially accelerated justice. 

Conclusion 

The recent reversal by the Philadelphia Medical Examiner rightly brings the case back into the realm of an open investigation. But the linguistic evidence has been telling us all along that something is wrong. 

The inconsistencies, deflections, and distancing language in the 911 call are not consistent with someone discovering a suicide. They align more closely with someone constructing a narrative. 

The graphic evidence confirms our observation: Ellen Greenberg did not take her own life. Our initial blog was right to question the original ruling—and now, with overwhelming linguistic and forensic evidence, we must ask again: 

How was this ever ruled a suicide? RIP Ellen Greenberg. 

MailOnline article: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14372983/My-daughter-Ellen-Greenberg-stabbed-20-times-Cops-said-suicide-face-uncomfortable-truth.html 

Photo Credit: MailOnline 

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All blog subjects are identified, validated and written by the DDL Team.