Where Is Ellen Greenberg’s Fiancé Now? All About Sam Goldberg’s Life Today

Ellen Greenberg and Sam Goldberg were engaged before her stabbing death in January 2011.

On Jan. 26, 2011, Goldberg found Ellen, a Philadelphia teacher, covered in blood in their apartment after he had left to go to the gym in their building during a blizzard. First responders pronounced the 27-year-old dead at the scene: She had suffered 20 stab wounds, including to her head and the back of her neck, and had a 10-inch knife sticking out of chest.

Ellen’s death was initially ruled a homicide, but in April 2011, her manner of death was changed to a suicide, effectively ending the possibility of any criminal investigation into her killer. Ellen’s parents, Joshua and Sandee Greenberg, have been fighting ever since to change her manner of death back to homicide or to “undetermined” — and to find out what really happened to their daughter.

Their quest for answers is at the center of the Hulu docuseries Death in Apartment 603: What Happened to Ellen Greenberg?, which premiered on Sept. 29 on Hulu.

Here’s everything to know about Ellen Greenberg’s death and where her fiancé Sam Goldberg is now.

He met Ellen on a blind date

Goldberg was an associate director for NBC Sports when he met Ellen, per his LinkedIn. After speaking for about a month, Goldberg flew Ellen down to Charleston, S.C., where he was on a work trip. When she came back to Philadelphia, they were a committed couple.

Sandee described him as “very charming, very charismatic [and] very respectful.”

He proposed to Ellen about three years into their relationship

Goldberg proposed to Ellen in June 2010 after they’d been together for about three years.

Ellen’s loved ones noticed some changes in her behavior after she and Goldberg began dating. Her best friend Alyson Stern recalled Ellen spending more time with Goldberg and his family and seeing less of her own friends, noting that Ellen was “closed off” about her wedding plans.

Meanwhile, her colleagues noticed that she almost never wore her engagement ring, but that Ellen just told them she didn’t feel like wearing it because it rolled around her finger.

He found Ellen dead in their home in January 2011

Ellen returned from work early on Jan. 26, 2011, after a blizzard closed Philadelphia schools. Ellen’s colleagues recalled in the docuseries that she was “on edge” that day, which she told them was because report cards were going out soon.

Guy D’Andrea, former Philadelphia assistant district attorney, said in the docuseries that Goldberg went to the building’s gym at about 4:50 p.m. and returned to their apartment at 5:28 p.m. to find their door latched shut from the inside. Over the next hour, he repeatedly texted Ellen and asked the building’s concierge to let him into the unit. At around 6:30 p.m., Goldberg broke down the apartment door, found Ellen covered in blood and called 911.

“Help! I need an ambulance immediately,” Goldberg told the dispatcher. “I just came home, and my fiancée is on the floor, covered in blood. I see her now, just on the floor with blood. She’s not responding.”

Goldberg then listened to the dispatcher’s instructions to remove Ellen’s shirt and cried out, “Oh my God, she stabbed herself!”

When the dispatcher asked where Ellen had stabbed herself, he replied, “She fell on a knife, I don’t know … there’s a knife sticking out of her heart.”

First responders arrived at 6:40 p.m. and photographed the scene, in which Ellen was slumped against kitchen cabinets with a 10-inch knife sticking out of her chest. She had 20 stab wounds to her abdomen, chest, head and back of her neck, plus several bruises all over her body that were in varying stages of healing.

At that time, police called Ellen’s death a suicide in an incident report. The next morning, Goldberg’s uncle removed all of Ellen’s electronic devices from the apartment. The apartment was then cleaned by crime scene cleaners, compromising it, per D’Andrea.

Two days after Ellen’s death, medical examiner Dr. Marlon Osbourne instead listed Ellen’s manner of death as homicide. Goldberg’s uncle turned Ellen’s laptop and devices over to police after her death was ruled a homicide.

Ellen’s death was changed from murder to suicide

On April 4, 2011, Osbourne changed Ellen’s manner of death to suicide after a meeting with the Philadelphia Police Department, according to the docuseries.

However, there were significant errors in the medical examiner’s report, including that the concierge was with Goldberg when he broke down the apartment door, per the Greenbergs’ attorney Joe Podraza. Surveillance footage obtained by Podraza and the Greenbergs’ legal team showed that Goldberg was alone when he broke down the door of the apartment.

There were also disputes about Ellen’s wounds. D’Andrea, who reviewed the case from 2015 until 2017, found that two of Ellen’s wounds may have been inflicted after she was already dead and that she’d have been incapable of stabbing herself after piercing her spinal column. Additionally, he claimed that the bar on the door could be locked by an assailant exiting the apartment.

Over the years, the Greenbergs filed lawsuits against the City of Philadelphia, former Chief Medical Examiner Sam Gulino and others. On Feb. 3, 2025, the City of Philadelphia settled the suits. The settlement included a monetary payment, agreeing to re-evaluate Ellen’s manner of death and Osbourne signing a sworn affidavit declaring he did not believe she died by suicide.

In June 2025, D’Andrea told PEOPLE, “No one can say this is conclusively a suicide. At this point, at a minimum, because of how botched this was, this should be undetermined.”

He only spoke publicly about Ellen’s death once

Goldberg has only spoken out about Ellen’s death publicly once. He has never been a suspect or charged with a crime.

“When Ellen took her own life it left me bewildered. She was a wonderful and a kind person who had everything to live for,” he said in a statement to CNN in December 2024. “When she died a part of me died with her. Unimaginably, in the years that have passed I have had to endure the unimaginable passing of my future wife and the pathetic and despicable attempts to desecrate my reputation and her privacy by creating a narrative that embraces lies, distortions and falsehoods in order to avoid the truth.”

He continued, “Mental illness is very real and has many victims. I hope and pray that you never lose someone you love like I did to a terrible disease and then be accused by ignorant and misinformed people of causing her death.”

Where is Sam Goldberg now?

According to Sandee, Goldberg “moved on in his life, he’s married, he has children.” According to his LinkedIn, Goldberg is now a freelance senior producer.

Joel Hahn, a TV producer who works with Goldberg, told docuseries cameras that Goldberg is “a really nice guy.” However, after Ellen’s death, no one in their workplace was quite sure how to behave around Goldberg.

“It made it awkward for a lot of people, but we don’t know anything,” he said. “He’s not been charged with anything, but there are people who scared to work around him. They’re very nervous.”

Goldberg doesn’t communicate with the Greenbergs at all, Sandee said in the docuseries.

“There is absolutely no contact or connection with him,” she said. “I don’t think about him, and I feel that we have a God that I believe in, and we have a justice system that isn’t exactly perfect, but that’s not for me to reckon with.”

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 or go to 988lifeline.org.