Ellen Rae Greenberg & Sam Goldberg

On January 26th, 2011, 27-year-old teacher Ellen Rae Greenberg was found dead in her Philadelphia apartment with 20 stab wounds to her chest, scalp and the back of her neck.

When police arrived on the scene, they quickly concluded that Ellen died by suicide. Her fiancé, Sam Goldberg, told them that Ellen had been fine when he went to the gym at around 4.45pm – but when he returned at 5.30 he couldn’t open the door, and she wasn’t answering his calls or texts. He finally broke the door down at 6.30, and found Ellen’s body right there. The latched front door, and Ellen’s recent struggle with anxiety, were enough for the police: suicide, case closed.

The next day, however, the medical examiner who performed the autopsy came to a very different opinion: that Ellen died by homicide. The severity of her many stab wounds, and their location on her body, led to his conclusion – and many people still believe that Ellen couldn’t have inflicted them herself.

On the first episode of Version of Events, we’ll begin a deep dive into what really happened that day. Did Ellen end her own life – or was she murdered?