Mystery and Murder: Analysis by Dr. Phil · Dr. Phil McGraw

Suicide or Murder? The Mysterious Death of Ellen Greenberg

·43 min·5 clips

The episode opens on January 26, 2011, when 27-year-old Ellen Greenberg’s parents got the call that their daughter was dead. Ellen was found in her kitchen. She had been stabbed 20 times, including wounds to the back of her neck and head. The death was ruled a suicide, and that ruling becomes the main target of the episode’s scrutiny. Ellen’s parents are portrayed as people who never accepted the explanation and who spent years trying to change the cause of death to undetermined. They filed lawsuits. They hired experts. They paid for forensic testing they say law enforcement refused to do. The episode frames that effort as an ongoing fight rather than a closed case. It keeps circling back to the physical evidence. The wounds are presented as difficult to square with a simple self-inflicted explanation, and the episode also notes 30 bruises on Ellen’s body. It does not neatly explain those bruises, leaving them as part of the unresolved question. The show stresses that no person of interest and no suspect has been named. That keeps the case in the category of an open investigation rather than a public accusation. The episode then turns to the medical and psychological reasoning used to support the suicide finding. It notes that Ellen was receiving psychiatric care for anxiety and had increased energy, per the report, to act on anxious thoughts, along with work stress related to grades she needed to submit. Those factors were used to support the suicide ruling. The episode pushes back on that reasoning. It argues that a medical examiner should consult a psychiatrist when making a psychological determination and notes that Dr. Berman said Ellen was not suicidal. From there, the episode grows more skeptical of the official explanation. It questions the idea that anxiety can be treated as a suicide motive and says the wounds are not deep enough to be lethal in the way claimed. It also points to other injuries it believes deserve more attention. The episode’s tone is openly doubtful of the original conclusion. It suggests the ruling has left major questions hanging rather than answered. The episode also includes the significance of the early 2025 affidavit, in which the original medical examiner says he no longer believes the evidence supports the suicide finding. That change is presented as a brief moment of hope for the family, though not a full resolution. The result is a case built around contradiction, persistence, and the gap between what was ruled and what the parents believe the evidence shows.

As heard by us

A disputed death case centered on the Greenbergs' long push to challenge a suicide ruling.

The episode follows Ellen Greenberg's death as a case her parents have spent years trying to reopen. It recounts that on January 26, 2011, the 27-year-old schoolteacher was found in her kitchen after being stabbed 20 times, with her death ruled a suicide.

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Why you'd press play

When a suicide ruling does not fit the wounds, you want this one.

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