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E036: Ellen Greenberg
1.5k Plays5 years ago
Every single job has a fair amount of stress, even teaching. But are those stresses enough to make a seemingly happy 27-year-old commit suicide or did the police miss something at the scene of the crime?
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction and COVID-19 Contextualization
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back, sleuthounds. I hope that you've had a great week so far. But if you're like me, you live for Thursdays when a new episode drops. I'm so thankful for each of you and that out of all the podcasts out there, you decided to spend time with us. So I'm not sure how life is in your part of the world, but life in Kentucky is still upside down. We're getting more and more new cases of COVID-19 daily, and I fear that we may be losing what little ground we had gained on the virus. But I have my fingers crossed that things turn around and go back to normal again soon.
00:00:28
Speaker
If you're new to coffee and cases, please know that our podcast has changed slightly as our world is adjusting to a global pandemic. While we're being asked to keep our distance from others, to stay inside when possible, and to not gather in large groups, we ask that you bear with us while our podcast changes just a little as well. Until we can return to normal, take care of yourselves. I know it's hard,
Impact of COVID-19 on Podcast Format and Society
00:00:49
Speaker
but try to see the end goal. Know that things may look different than they did before. More people will be on edge because we get nervous when we face the unknown, but continue to love one another.
00:00:58
Speaker
Do what's best for others and not what's best for you. Be the golden citizen you wish others would be. Then, we will all be happier tomorrow. Thank you for bearing with us and for understanding. We care about you. Stay together,
Job Stress and Anxiety: A Focus on Teachers
00:01:11
Speaker
united in the human spirit, even if not physically. Stay safe. Now, on to this week's episode. I think every single working American knows what it's like to have stress and anxiety related to their job.
00:01:22
Speaker
Police officers, I'm sure, replay arrest made or crime scenes investigated as they try to sleep at night. Doctors struggle with accepting that they lost a patient that day. We all lose sleep over our jobs, period. And I mean, why wouldn't we? If you think about it, we probably spend more waking time at work than we do at home.
00:01:40
Speaker
If you aren't in the education field or love someone that is, you really don't understand what it's like to be a teacher. The media and movies seem to portray us all in a false light, though we're all smiles and our room constantly looks like a Pinterest board that we leave right when the bell rings and spend our summers tanning by the pool. What they don't show is that you actually ran out of your room at 310 to make it for best duty by 315, sometimes pushing kids out the door as they tell you about their day or ran about a boy who ghosted them on Snapchat.
00:02:08
Speaker
As you watch dozens of kids as they load the bus, you call the dance team captain to tell them to have everyone stretched and reviewing sidelines when you walk in the gym at 3.30. Bus duty ends at 3.30 and you run to the gym but you get stopped by your co-teacher and they need you to look over a quiz their student fixed. You stop for a second and promise to look over it at practice. You finally make it to the gym. The girls are actually practicing so you run to the bathroom to change into athletic wear.
00:02:31
Speaker
You spend the next two hours teaching new technique and cleaning a routine for the pep rally you plan for Friday. By now it's six because you wait until everyone's mom rolls into the parking lot and you still need to make copies, but you're tired and you want to go home. This means
Teachers' Expanding Responsibilities
00:02:45
Speaker
that you'll have to get up extra early so that you can get to school in time to make copies before your morning duty. You get home at seven and you grade essays until you fall asleep on the couch.
00:02:54
Speaker
Your alarm rings at 5 am. You have to leave by 6 to make it to work by 7. That gives you 20 minutes to make copies before morning duty starts. You pray the copier works for you. You leave your copies running when the 720 bell rings, even though you know other teachers hate when people do that, but you don't have time. You pass your principal on the way to the bus dock. You hope he doesn't mind that you're stepping out at 720 instead of 719. You step outside on the bus dock as students start pouring off the bus.
00:03:21
Speaker
You're met with high fives and hugs, sleepy smiles and enthusiastic waves. You sigh with relief when you see students that have been absent for a week. You worry about them. You know they don't have the best home life. 745 rolls around and you run to the library to grab your copies, and you're running in the door as your principal starts the Pledge of Allegiance. Your day goes well. Only one kid cuts at you. You only confiscated one jewel. But everyone put their phones up today, so that's a win.
00:03:45
Speaker
The
Introduction to Ellen Greenberg's Case
00:03:46
Speaker
escape room you planned for a test review was a success. And even though you're sweaty from running all over the room checking answers, and your room looks like a tornado happened inside your four walls, the kids had a blast. You sweep the floor and use your small vacuum to clean some before the janitors make it to your room, because their job is hard enough.
00:04:02
Speaker
and you repeat the process of running to bus duty and dance practice and faculty meetings. When you decide to become a teacher, no one tells you that you will bring extra food so kids can have snacks throughout the day. No one tells you that you will give your lunch away some days because Timmy didn't bring lunch money or food yet again. No one tells you that you will have your co-teacher run out and buy a new backpack because someone has a bad home life and her bag is filled with cockroaches.
00:04:26
Speaker
No one tells you that you'll keep a drawer full of pads and tampons for your students because they never seem to have one. No one tells you that you'll have tears streaming down your face as a kid tells you their dad died over the weekend. No one tells you that kids will hug you like you're the only person in the world that loves them because you really might be.
00:04:42
Speaker
No one tells you that you sit up every night worrying about the student you haven't seen in a few days or crying over the kid that called you a bad name. No one tells you that your new students will cry on the last day of school because goodbyes are so hard and somehow you formed a happy, crazy, fun, dysfunctional family with each of your class periods. No one tells you that you spend your own money and all summer making your room feel like home and that you spend days training or doing professional development.
00:05:08
Speaker
So when a teacher says they're stressed, believe them. They wear so many hats. Our story
Ellen Greenberg's Last Day and Investigation Doubts
00:05:14
Speaker
today is about a stressed teacher, but was she stressed enough to kill herself? Kill herself by stabbing her head, chest, and neck 20 times. The police seem to think so, but the facts seem to point to homicide. This is the story of Ellen Greenberg.
00:05:43
Speaker
So.
00:06:03
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases, where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold. My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron. We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the cases will take those tips to law enforcement.
00:06:19
Speaker
So justice and closure can be brought to these families. With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, because as we all know, conversation helps to keep the missing person in the public consciousness, helping keep their memories alive. So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week.
00:06:40
Speaker
Before I begin our show today, I want to yet again remind you guys about the challenge that Allison and I have going on. So far, you guys have been absolutely amazing. We got to those 15 comments really quickly last time, and so this time we decided to make it a little bit more challenging, and if you are a longtime listener, you know that we've been...
00:06:59
Speaker
trying to achieve this goal for a really long time. We want to reach 150 ratings on iTunes. I checked yesterday and I think if it's still correct we currently have 101 ratings including several new written comments. You all know how much we love those. Their little rays of sunshine in the messy world that we live in today. But for those listeners out there,
00:07:21
Speaker
that don't know what is going on. It only takes a split second if you're listening to us on iTunes and you love what you're hearing, click that 5 star rating and even leave us a few words to let us know that you like the podcast. We have listeners from all over the world, so while this is a big ask for us, we know that you guys can do it.
00:07:41
Speaker
Obviously it's taking a little longer, but when we get to those 150 ratings, Allison and I will do another bonus episode. Just make sure that you're following us on social media, Coffee and Case's podcast on Facebook, or at Coffee Case's podcast on Instagram, or listen in each week and we'll let you know when that bonus episode's going to air. So for real, now let's get on to the show.
00:08:03
Speaker
As you all know or at least get tell from the intro, Allison and I are both teachers and we teach at a pretty amazing school if I'm being honest. We teach high school so that's totally different from the world of our victim today, Ellen Greenberg, who taught first grade. Now while I often joke that high school students are baby stuck in giant bodies, I really can't imagine teaching first grade where your classroom is literally filled with babies.
00:08:28
Speaker
and you have to keep those babies all day. There really is no class change. Elementary school teachers amaze me because I really and truly feel that they, more so than other teachers, play so many different roles in their students' lives. They're a mom or dad, when they're crying, they're a doctor when they have a boo-boo, they're a therapist when somebody hurts their feelings, they're a friend when they have no one else to play with, so I can only imagine how much harder it is to leave your job at the door each night.
00:08:55
Speaker
I'm sure that Ellen's day started like any other. It was January and the promise of snow hung in the air. There's something about snow in school. It's like the kids can smell the snow or they can sense it in the air. The halls are always filled with excitement and when those flakes start falling outside your window, it's over. The excitement cannot be contained.
00:09:14
Speaker
It was January 26, 2011 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the snow had started to fall at Juanita Park Academy. So much so, that school was scheduled for early release. Ellen and a teacher friend called each child's parent to ensure that they had a way home. In high school, this really isn't an issue. The admin placed a one call, the kids text or call their parents as needed, and that's really where it ends. But I remember when I substituted,
00:09:41
Speaker
and I totally felt the anxiety of snow days when school was called off. The very first time it happened to me I was a substitute teacher in a kindergarten class and I was completely overwhelmed as I ran around frantically trying to make sure that each kid was picked up by the correct person or got onto the right bus. This was a really small school so parents were actually allowed in the hallways to pick up their kids at the end of the day and it was so nerve-wracking.
00:10:09
Speaker
Ellen and her friend finally got all the students where they needed to be and they headed home for the day. All right, Sleuth Hounds, as I mentioned several times, teaching can be stressful and nobody really prepares you for that stress or can really convey that stress when you decide that you want to become a teacher. But once you get into it, you're like, holy moly, this can be super stressful at times.
00:10:32
Speaker
and 27-year-old Ellen had started to feel that stress and anxiety. Her father recommended that she see a therapist and so Ellen went and was placed on a couple different anxiety medicines that winter. By her third visit, her therapist cited that she had seen significant improvement in Ellen in just three short visits and listed her as 75% better.
00:10:54
Speaker
Ellen had recently gotten gaged and I'm actually gonna leave his name out of the podcast. I originally wrote it with his name in there but I give like a pretty in-depth theory about what I think happened to Ellen and I don't really want to be detrimental to his character because he was never listed as a suspect.
00:11:13
Speaker
So when she leaves work that day, she returns to their Venice loft apartment that she shared with her fiance. I watched a lot of videos about Ellen and what happened to her in an interview with Dr. Oz. Her parents went into great detail about what Ellen was doing the day that she died.
00:11:31
Speaker
After Ellen left work, she stopped by a local gas station to fill her car up. She had just talked to her mom about plans she'd been making with a friend for that week. They chatted about her save the day cards that had just came in the mail. She got to the apartment, she lounged around for a bit, and then her fiance told her that he was going to go to the gym that was located on property. So she decided then to start making a fruit salad.
00:11:57
Speaker
Now, if you paid attention in the intro, you know that the police believe that Ellen committed suicide, and it is very unordinary for someone who is suicidal to make long-term plans, like i.e. planning a trip with a friend, planning a wedding, etc. So pay close attention to the events that follow and see what you think.
00:12:17
Speaker
Her fiance goes to the gym around like 3.45 ish. Ellen probably walks him to the door and locks it behind him. I identify with this people. Since moving into the new house, I've actually gotten better about some things. Like I don't freak out quite as bad when I have to take the trash out at nighttime. But in this house, we have a finished basement and I've never had that before. And you better believe I run.
00:12:44
Speaker
up those steps when I turn the lights off. I call my mom when I have to be down here during the day when Anthony isn't at home. I obsess with making sure this door is locked down here. I think part of it right now is that we have no furniture down here and it's just like a little creepy because it's just like stacks of boxes and it kind of freaks me out.
00:13:02
Speaker
and I've actually been more paranoid since I started researching this story I guess because I can really like empathize with Ellen since I'm also a teacher but it's like super creeped me out and today when I was doing last minute edits
00:13:19
Speaker
and I heard the basement door creak open and I freaked out like it was like right after Anthony left and I called him and I was like have you left and of course he already had and so then I had to get a knife because I'm gonna stab somebody if you're in my house trying to murder me and I walked down the steps and it was my cat that had pushed the door open but I mean this story freaked me out though
00:13:46
Speaker
So to me it makes perfect sense that Ellen locks the door and she actually locks the door according to police from the inside. So time for me to be honest I was super confused by what that meant.
Autopsy Revelations and Investigation Inconsistencies
00:14:04
Speaker
So I started like googling it obviously but apparently their apartment door had a lock like a hotel door that you could like latch over
00:14:15
Speaker
and it was like on the inside of the apartment. That way someone, even if they had your key, couldn't get in if you didn't want them in. So the fiance, who I keep wanting to call Ryan, and I promise you his name is nowhere near Ryan, gets back to the apartment at around 4 45. He knocks on the door because it's locked. You know, he tries it, it's locked. So he knocks on the door. He waits. Nobody comes to the door. And then he starts trying to reach Ellen by phone.
00:14:44
Speaker
According to the article, a locked room mystery, the fiancé tries for some time to reach Ellen. Like, he is persistent. He sends her several text messages and that article kind of outlines some of the text messages that he sent. It says he banged on the door but got no response, so he tried to reach Ellen using his phone. He says, hello?
00:15:08
Speaker
Open the door. What are you doing? I'm getting mad. Hello? You better have an excuse. What the F? You have no idea.
00:15:20
Speaker
Okay, so he has way more patience than Anthony, who by this point would have literally knocked this door down, but he keeps his head and he goes to the lobby to seek help. He speaks to the only security guard on duty that night. He presses this man to help him break the lock, but the security guard tells him that it's against their policy and he won't help him.
00:15:44
Speaker
So the fiance goes back to the apartment and when he finds that the door is still locked and no one answers, he busts the door in. Y'all, I am not a patient person. You can ask Anthony. It is something that I struggle with and I try to be better about it, but like I just can't help it.
00:16:03
Speaker
Like the other day, I had a ton of groceries in the back of the car and I called in before I turned onto our street, like the street before our street in our subdivision. And I was like, hey, can you come on out and help me with the groceries? And he said, yeah, sure. So I thought he would be on the porch when I got home, but he wasn't. And so with my arm full of groceries, I went up to the front and rang the doorbell so that he would know I was there.
00:16:32
Speaker
and he didn't answer it and then i sat the groceries down and opened the door and i was like um hello where were you and i guess i got a little snappy because that happens sometimes but like i just don't have patience and i work on it but i'm not good at it
00:16:49
Speaker
I would have literally been fuming. I would have already started sassing Anthony as soon as I busted that door down and I'm sure that her fiance was mad. I can hear him calling out for Ellen asking what the heck she was doing that she couldn't come and open the door only to have his heart stop when he walked into the kitchen to see her leaning against the cabinets unresponsive and blood everywhere. He calls 911 at 6 33 p.m.
00:17:18
Speaker
and he is instructed to start CPR until he notices there's a knife in her chest and then the 911 operator tells him to stop. Alright, so, sleuthounds. I hope that like me, you found that last statement really weird. How could you not have noticed a huge knife sticking out of your fiance's chest? That's just weird to me.
00:17:43
Speaker
Also, the fact that this dude is big enough to smash through a door that is locked like a hotel seems weird to me as well. Like, I don't think that would be an easy thing to do. Like, I think that would be really hard. Maybe he's just super strong. I mean, he works out, so maybe he's just a big dude.
00:18:00
Speaker
Police arrive on the scene and according to the same article I cited above inside the apartment police found no signs of an intruder or that Ellen tried to run away. Her body was in the kitchen just inside the front door with her head neck and shoulders propped up against the corner cabinet and her legs out in front of her and her left hand was a nearly pristine white towel. Okay people
Family's Pursuit of Truth and Legal Action
00:18:24
Speaker
that means it was super clean yet she was just stabbed.
00:18:28
Speaker
and stabbed, if you remember from the intro, 20 times at that. There was no blood spilled beyond the kitchen. The knife was tested and showed only Ellen's DNA. The Venice loft had surveillance cameras at the main entrance, but none in the hallways leading up to the apartment. Neighbors told police that aside from the fiance banging on the door, there were no sounds of a disturbance, so they didn't hear anything like inside the apartment.
00:18:55
Speaker
So we know that the front door was locked and that the fiance had to bust the door down. So naturally police checked the couple's six floor balcony. Thankfully it had snowed. Remember school had been let out early. So police thought, surely the killer left, but came in and left through this balcony. But there were no footprints in the snow. The snow was perfectly neat.
00:19:18
Speaker
There was nothing. This leads police to believe that Ellen committed suicide. Homicide Sergeant Tim Cooney would say, quote, everything happened, pretty much happened right where she was. The rest of the apartment was pretty unremarkable, end quote. But what is remarkable though, is the fact that Ellen was stabbed 20 times, people, 20 times. 10 of those being in the back of the head and neck. Okay, first of all,
00:19:47
Speaker
It is extremely rare that when someone commits suicide, they do so by stabbing themselves. Okay, that is rare. Like Dr. Oz gave a percentage and it was, I don't remember exactly, but a low percent. Okay, so we're talking rare.
00:20:04
Speaker
So it's even more rare that they would stab themselves 20 times. Police said Ellen's death was treated as a suicide that night for several reasons. One, the apartment door had been locked until the fiance busted it in.
00:20:20
Speaker
Two, he had remained on the scene and was cooperative. Three, there were no signs of an intruder. And four, there were no defensive wounds on Ellen's body that police could right away identify. Sleuthounds. This just doesn't add up. And let me tell you, the oddities don't stop here. According to that same article, a locked room mystery, the day after Ellen's death,
00:20:51
Speaker
began her autopsy in the morgue. Okay, the person doing her autopsy labeled her wounds with letters beginning with the letter A and stopping at the letter T. He noted eight wounds on her chest. They ranged from punctures just like 0.2 centimeters deep to a four inch final plunge where the knife was still embedded in her chest.
00:21:18
Speaker
four inches. She had a two inch stab wound on her stomach, a two and a half inch long gash across her scalp. There were 10 wounds from nicks to three inch deep stabs on the back of Ellen's neck. There were also 11 bruises and quote various stages of resolution on Ellen's right arm, abdomen, and right leg. At the end of the autopsy,
00:21:48
Speaker
It's basically determined that the manner of death is homicide. Okay, I feel like we have all been saying this from the beginning. This is clearly homicide. So immediately my brain is bouncing around. Okay, so we know that no one exited the home through the balcony because the snow was undisturbed. Windows would basically be impossible, right? They're out of the question because they're on the sixth floor.
00:22:13
Speaker
So perhaps someone was hiding in the apartment because, you know, the door was locked from the inside so somebody could have been hiding there. But then where did they go? Because the snow was undisturbed and the door was locked so they didn't get out, right? I can see why police initially thought suicide. No one left the apartment.
00:22:37
Speaker
But any rational person I think would immediately switch gears to homicide when you consider how many times Ellen was stabbed. Twenty times. But police stuck with the suicide thing despite what her autopsy report said.
00:22:53
Speaker
My first thought goes straight to the fiance for several reasons. Okay, so there were no cameras in the hallway of the apartment building. So how do we know that he stayed outside in the hall for that hour before he went down to the security guard banging on the door?
00:23:10
Speaker
Nowhere did I find that their neighbor said he was outside that long. Plus, if my neighbor was screaming and pounding on the door for an hour, I would either A, go outside and see what was happening, or B, call the police because they're being loud. So, in my mind, he had plenty of time to go work out, go back in the apartment, stab his fiance to death,
00:23:32
Speaker
and then leave. Remember, she had bruises in various stages of healing. Bruises on her legs, her arm, her abdomen, all over. So when I saw the pictures that I saw online, and I'll be sure to post those for you guys, before I even read it, I immediately thought domestic violence. So maybe this was a fight gone bad between Ellen and the man she was supposed to marry. Also, he would have had access to get into the apartment
00:24:01
Speaker
lock the door from the inside with that latch and pull it enough to make it appear that he bursts into the apartment. Ellen's parents end up actually hiring a private detective and he said that if someone were to have busted the door open there would have been wood on the floor or screws and that is not noted by police at all. So maybe he just tried to make it appear he forced the door open.
00:24:28
Speaker
There was no sign of a struggle because why would she really be scared if her fiance just came up to her after working out? I'm sure he was a lot bigger than her. I mean she is tiny like smaller than me. So we he would have easily overpowered her. She was holding a nearly clean white towel and that looks like to me someone staged the crime scene. They cleaned it and then staged it. Amy Schwartz who taught at school with Ellen
00:24:57
Speaker
said that Ellen had some tough kids in her class, but that she seemed more stressed than other teachers so that it went deeper than just like dealing with a couple of rough kids. Around this time, Ellen asked her parents if she could move back home with them in Harrisburg. They thought it was really weird, you know, because she was due to be married in August. It's January.
00:25:19
Speaker
but their daughter assured them that it was nothing to do with her fiance that she just wanted to move home. Her dad says at no time did she complain about anybody or anything except that she wanted to come home.
00:25:31
Speaker
according to her autopsy she was stabbed with two different knives a smooth one and a serrated blade police have only ever been able to find one knife but yes let's label this a suicide like that makes no sense if it's a suicide like she's not gonna hide the other knife like i don't understand how we ruled this a suicide
00:25:52
Speaker
Sleuth Islands, I wanna make it clear, as I stated before, her fiance was never named a suspect and was never questioned. That's just my brain kinda working through everything that we've talked about.
00:26:04
Speaker
It's just weird. We know that Ellen was seeing a therapist and was on medications to help with stress. You know, we talk a lot about this type of thing on coffee and cases, but for some reason, just because she saw a therapist and was on anxiety medicine, police could not move past suicide. They used that as fuel to their fire. She had to want to kill herself because she saw a therapist, people.
00:26:28
Speaker
It's the 21st century. When are we going to normalize mental health? Just because someone sees a therapist and is on anxiety medication does not make them immediately suicidal. How about we look at the facts and let the facts decide how we should handle the case?
00:26:49
Speaker
Anyway, police say that she was anxious. She was found in a locked apartment with no evidence of a struggle. No other person's DNA was on the knife. Detectives believed the shallow punctures on her body. So remember that some of the wounds were only like 0.2 centimeters deep.
00:27:06
Speaker
were like test or hesitation wounds that she made on herself as she was considering stabbing herself to death. She had no marks on her body that indicated she fought her attacker. According to McName, the neuropathologist who conducted the exam told police that the spinal cord
00:27:26
Speaker
injury so the stab wound to the back of the neck hit her spinal cord but it wasn't completely severed. They claim that Ellen was most likely numb at this point thus allowing her like allowing herself to stab herself repeatedly basically.
00:27:45
Speaker
What they did not mention though is the fact she was stabbed through her clothes. And most professionals agree that if someone commits suicide by stabbing, they usually don't do it through their clothes. They're gonna like pull their shirt up or whatever. Ellen's parents did not think any of this was adding up to suicide either and neither did their private investigator. It seemed like the reports kept turning up more questions than answers.
00:28:10
Speaker
According to the article, this teacher's death was ruled a suicide, but her parents, citing 20 stab wounds, say she was murdered. Quote, Ellen's parents actually put legal action behind their claims on Tuesday, so this was a while ago. The Greensburgs officially filed paperwork to sue the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office and the pathologist who conducted the autopsy, asking that their daughter's case of death be changed to homicide or, at the very least, undetermined. End quote.
00:28:39
Speaker
This lawsuit alleged that the medical examiner's ruling was inaccurate and that there was a lot since there were multiple stab wounds in her death. They even went as far to do a 3D reenactment of the scene in order to support their case. People have, I mean like people from everywhere just agree that this is in no way a suicide.
00:29:08
Speaker
One person said,
Call for Justice and Mental Health Awareness
00:29:10
Speaker
quote, it is impossible that she could have inflicted all 20 wounds. And I think it's telling Lee demonstrated in the recreation in quote, I mean, a lot of people claim that the wounds to the back of the neck.
00:29:23
Speaker
would have basically made her a vegetable. Like she would not have been able to move, so there's no way that she would have been able to go on stabbing herself. Her parents stated on the Dr. Oz show that it was not until the first article I cited, Ellen's case gained attention.
00:29:39
Speaker
Since that time, they have ran with that as they try to get justice for their daughter. So anytime people are willing to listen to Ellen's story, her parents are willing to tell it because they just want to know what happened to their kid. I later read that the judge ruled her case a homicide, so things are opening back up in the case of Ellen Greenberg.
00:30:02
Speaker
As a teacher, I push my students to look past skin color, sexual orientation, mental health status, popularity, and so many more things to find the true value in a person. Most of the time, it's easy for them to stop gauging value by the brands their classmates wear and to start gauging value by a person's heart.
00:30:21
Speaker
I tell them every day that your current circumstances do not define you. Your home life might be bad. You might struggle to get up and get dressed in the morning, but that does not define who you are. What defines you is how you handle those situations. So if you need to see a therapist to be able to cope with the stress in your life, do it. And good for you for having the courage to seek help. I don't understand why the police pushed so hard for Ellen's case to be listed as a suicide.
00:30:49
Speaker
I don't know why they automatically assumed that just because she was on anxiety medication, she was suicidal. I think this case shows how we need to look past any stereotype we may carry and examine the facts. There has to be someone out there that knows something about this case. Maybe that person's you. If so, please contact the local authorities because Ellen's parents deserve to know what happened to their daughter.
00:31:14
Speaker
And honestly, Sleuthhounds, Ellen deserves everyone to know the true story of what happened to her. Again, please like and join our Facebook page, Coffee and cases podcast to continue the conversation and see images related to this episode. As always follow us on Twitter at cases coffee on Instagram at coffee cases podcast, or you can always email us suggestions.
00:31:38
Speaker
to Coffee and Cases podcast at gmail.com. Please tell your friends about our podcast so more people can be reached to possibly help bring some closure to these families. Don't forget to rate our show and leave us a comment as well. We hope to hear from you soon. Stay together. Stay safe. We'll see you next week.