Death in Apartment 603: What Happened to Ellen Greenberg?

What Is the Series About?

Death in Apartment 603: What Happened to Ellen Greenberg? is a three-part Hulu documentary series directed by Nancy Schwartzman and released on September 29, 2025. It examines the deeply contested death of 27-year-old Philadelphia schoolteacher Ellen Rae Greenberg, who was found dead in her Manayunk apartment on January 26, 2011, bearing 20 stab wounds — yet whose death is officially classified as a suicide. The series revisits the physical evidence, the disputed autopsy findings, and the Greenberg family's decade-long campaign to have the ruling overturned, placing it squarely within the tradition of true crime documentaries that challenge official conclusions.

The Case

On the evening of January 26, 2011, Ellen Greenberg's fiancé, Sam Goldberg, told investigators he returned to the couple's apartment in the Manayunk section of Philadelphia and discovered her unresponsive in the kitchen. Greenberg, who was 27 years old and worked as an elementary school teacher, had sustained 20 stab wounds — a number and pattern that forensic experts, journalists, and the public have repeatedly described as inconsistent with a self-inflicted death.

Authorities initially opened a homicide investigation. However, in the weeks following Greenberg's death, the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office reclassified the manner of death as suicide. That decision ignited a controversy that has not subsided in the fourteen years since.

No perpetrator has ever been charged or convicted in connection with Ellen Greenberg's death. Sam Goldberg, as the person who reported finding her, has been part of the public narrative surrounding the case, but he has not been named as a defendant in any criminal proceeding based on available reporting.

The Greenberg family refused to accept the suicide determination and spent years pressing for a re-examination. Their persistence yielded a significant development in early 2025: the pathologist who conducted the original autopsy signed an affidavit stating he had revised his professional opinion and no longer believed the death was consistent with suicide. The family also secured a legal settlement that compelled the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office to reopen its review of the case — a rare and consequential concession.

The resolution of that reopened review, however, did not provide the outcome the family sought. In October 2025, Philadelphia Chief Medical Examiner Lindsay Simon issued new findings that once again classified Ellen Greenberg's death as a suicide. The ruling renewed the fierce debate over the case and coincided almost exactly with the docuseries' streaming release, ensuring the series arrived in a moment of active, live controversy rather than as a retrospective on a closed matter.

Production

The series was directed by Nancy Schwartzman, whose previous work has focused on gender-based violence and systemic failures in institutions. The three-part format allows the documentary to move methodically through the case history: the night of January 26, 2011; the forensic disputes at the heart of the suicide classification; and the family's legal and investigative efforts over more than a decade.

The Hollywood Reporter noted that Schwartzman engaged directly with the 2025 developments, including the pathologist's affidavit and the subsequent re-review by the Medical Examiner's Office — giving the series a rare sense of contemporaneity. Rather than simply reconstructing events from the past, Death in Apartment 603 was produced against the backdrop of an ongoing official process, which shaped its tone and structure. The series is produced in association with ABC News Studios, lending institutional credibility to its investigative framing.

The docuseries carries the IMDb title ID tt37542748 and is listed on Hulu as the primary streaming home in the United States.

Reception

The series holds an IMDb user rating of 6.6 out of 10, based on 841 ratings at the time of publication — a score that reflects a divided audience, some of whom find the case compelling and the series well-made, and others who may approach the suicide-vs.-homicide debate with skepticism toward docuseries that challenge official rulings.

Critical coverage emphasized the emotional weight of the material. Reviewers highlighted the disturbing nature of the wound evidence, the long institutional failure to resolve the case to the family's satisfaction, and the competence with which Schwartzman presents a genuinely unresolved forensic puzzle without tipping into sensationalism. The timing of the October 2025 Medical Examiner ruling — arriving just days after the series launched — generated substantial additional press coverage and social media discussion, functioning almost as an involuntary plot development that extended the docuseries' cultural moment.

The central controversy the series surfaces is straightforward but unresolved: how a death involving 20 stab wounds can be officially classified as self-inflicted. Critics of the ruling, including the family, their legal representatives, and now the original autopsy pathologist, argue that the wound count, location, and pattern are not consistent with suicide by stabbing. Defenders of the Medical Examiner's determination maintain that the evidence, when taken in full context, supports the suicide classification.

The Case Today

As of late 2025, Ellen Greenberg's death remains officially classified as a suicide following Chief Medical Examiner Lindsay Simon's October 2025 review. No criminal charges have been filed against anyone in connection with her death. The Greenberg family has not publicly indicated whether they will pursue further legal avenues following the latest ruling.

The docuseries arrives as the most high-profile national treatment of a case that has been covered by local Philadelphia media and true crime communities for years but had not previously received a major streaming platform's full documentary production. Whether Death in Apartment 603 will generate enough public pressure to prompt further legal or legislative action remains to be seen — but the pattern of similar docuseries suggests that audience attention sustained over months can, in some cases, move institutional actors. For now, the question the series poses in its title — What Happened to Ellen Greenberg? — remains officially answered in a way that her family and many viewers refuse to accept.