Transcript
In the consult, we discuss cases involving violence, sexual violence, abduction, and murder. Sometimes the cases we discuss involve children. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to the consult. I'm Julia Cowley, retired FBI agent and profiler, and I'm joined by my colleagues. Angela Surcer. Susan Kussler Drew. And Bob Drew. Angela, Susan, and Bob are also retired FBI profilers, and we work together in the FBI's behavioral analysis unit. Today, we're continuing our analysis of the death of Ellen Greenberg, which occurred on 01/26/2011 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In addition to our usual listener discretion, I want to note that we discuss suicide extensively in this case analysis, so please listen with care. Okay. I wanna do a brief recap of the case. So Ellen, who was an elementary school teacher, had come home early that day due to a snowstorm that caused schools to dismiss early. Around 04:45PM, her fiance, Sam Goldberg, left their apartment to work out in the complex's gym. When he returned roughly thirty minutes later, he found the swing bar lock on the door latched from the inside. Unable to get in, Sam ultimately broke through the door and discovered Ellen on the kitchen floor with a knife embedded in her chest. On scene investigators quickly ruled the death a suicide and did not secure a search warrant for the apartment that night. However, the following day, the medical examiner classified Ellen's death as a homicide after identifying twenty stab wounds to her chest, abdomen, and the back of her neck. Police returned on January 28 to conduct a search warrant, but by then, the scene had already been professionally cleaned by a crime scene cleanup company. After the medical examiner initially ruled Ellen's death a homicide, investigators informed him that their investigation was ongoing. In response, he reviewed Ellen's psychiatric records, consulted a neuropathologist who determined that her spinal cord had not been damaged by the knife wound, and received information from police that the concierge was present with Sam when the door was broken down. Additionally, he was told that only Ellen's DNA was found on the knife. He also considered that the couple lived on a high floor with no evidence of entry through the balcony and no signs of a struggle and no indication that anything had been stolen. Based on these factors, he changed the manner of death to suicide. In our previous episodes, we've discussed the crime scene and the autopsy findings. So if you haven't listened to those, please go back and listen to parts one and two. And today, we're going to begin by listening to a nine one one call and analyzing that. I just wanna remind listeners that we also have a Patreon. So if you'd like early and ad free access to our episodes, you can visit patreon.com/theconsultpod. And there's also a Facebook Facebook fan page called unsubbs, which was created by fans for fans of the consult. So I'm gonna play the 911 call. And this recording was provided to me by Gavin Fish who has the website, GavinFish.com. He also has a YouTube channel. He has covered Ellen's case extensively. He got permission from the plaintiffs in the civil matter to provide me with the recording and allow me to play it on the show. And this recording was produced as part of discovery in the case administrators of the estate of Eleanor Greenberg versus members of the Philadelphia medical examiner's office and others. So I wanna thank them for allowing us to use this recording. This call was placed by Ellen's fiance, Sam Goldberg, at approximately 06:30PM right after he finds her. No. That's perfect. No. But I I need I need I just I just walked the right part of life. Gia is on the floor with blood everywhere. What is the address? 4601 Flat Rock Road. Please call for help. 46014601 now. 01 Flat Rock Road. Road. Is this a house or apartment? Oh, no. This is apartment. It's an apartment. What apartment number? Please hurry, please. She bleeding from? She I don't know. I can't tell. She's You have to calm yourself down in order to get you some help. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. She I don't know. I I'm looking at her right now. She I don't I can't see anything. She didn't there's nothing broken. She'd bleed You don't know where she's bleeding from? Can't see what's coming from? It's I think her head. I think she hit her head, I think. But it's up everywhere. Okay. It's everywhere. I think she might have fallen. Do you know what happened? She may have slipped. There's blood on the on the table. Her her face is a little purple. Okay. Hold on for rescue for her. Stay on the phone. Philadelphia Fire Department eight four two. What's the address? No. 4601 Flat Rock Road, please, Harry. Forty six zero one Flat Rock? Yes. What's wrong? My my I just my I went downstairs to go work out. I came back up. The door was latched. My fiancee's inside. She wasn't she wasn't answering. So after about a half hour, I decided to break it down. I see her now just on the floor with blood. Like, she's not she's not responding. Okay. Is she breathing? I Look at her chest. I need you to calm down, and I need you to look at her chest. It's really I don't think she I really don't think she is. Listen to me. Someone's on the way. Look at her chest. Is she flat on her back? She's on her back. Do I bring her look at her chest and tell me if it's going up and down, up and down. I don't see her moving. Okay. Do you know how to do CPR? I don't. Okay. I could tell you what to do, okay, until they get there. I want you to keep her full. Oh my god. Hello? Yeah. Hi. Okay. Willing to do CPR with me over the phone so they can I I have to? Right? Okay. To get her fed on her back, bear her chest. Okay? You wanna rip her shirt off. Okay? You make the seal down by her side. Oh my god. Ally, please. Listen. Listen. You can't freak out, sir, because you're trying to kill her. TriNet. Her shirt won't come off. It's a zipper. Rip it. Oh my god. She stabbed herself. Where? She fell on a knife. Oh, no. Her knife's sticking out. Her what? There's a knife sticking out of her heart. Oh, she stabbed herself? I I guess so. I don't know where she fell on it. I don't know. Okay. Well, don't touch it. Okay. So I'm just gonna let her down here now. I mean, what do I do? No. I mean, you can't if the nices in her chest, it's gonna be kinda hard for you to do CPR at this time. Oh, no. Oh my goodness. Okay. Felicia, shop reader. Two seven seven. Is someone coming here? Yes. They are. You said 4601 Flatrock. Right? Yes. Okay. Someone's on the way. And the knife is still inside? With her what? The knife is still inside of her? Yes. I didn't take it out. Was it her chest or what area is it inside? Chest. It's like it looks like it's right. It looks like it's right in her heart. Okay. Someone's on the way out there. Okay? Just get Oh my god. Oh my god. How old is she? She's 27. 20 seven. And there's no sign of life at all? No. No. Please don't be what? Venture under her arm and tell me she responds to pain. She's Ellie. She's not it's not her arm and her hands are still warm. I don't know what that means, but there's blood everywhere. I mean I know, but you can't. And the knife is still inside of her. How far? Can you see how far it went in? It looks pretty deep. Okay. It looks three, and it's a long knife. Don't touch any yeah. Don't touch anything. Okay? I'm not touching anything. It's a I can't believe this. No way. It was just you there with her? Yeah. We're the only ones here. And she ran in the door. You said latched it shut? No. No. I I I went downstairs to work out, and I when I came back up, the door was latched. Like, it was, you know, it wasn't like it was, you know, it was, like, locked from the inside. And I'm yelling, and I saw it was so I'm yelling and yelling. Into? No. No. No. No. No. So there's no sign of a break in? No. No sign of a break in at all. I mean, there will be when you get here because I had to break the latch, but to get in. Okay. 4601 Flat Rock, and this is a house. Right? It's an apartment. 5 Rock Apartment Okay. That'll help. Pharmacy Oh my god. Oh my god. Alright. Thank you. Mhmm. Bye. So initial observations about this call, it certainly is strange, but 911 calls often come from people in distress who are taken out of their element. This isn't a routine situation. But what stood out to me initially was Sam's apparent hesitancy to help Ellen. Doesn't rush to her. I mean, according to the information he provided on the call, he didn't know she wasn't still alive. And he doesn't even, according to him, in the context of the call, even know about the chest wound or the the knife sticking out of her chest. Yet, he makes entrance, sees her lying some distance away in the kitchen, and he calls 911 and does not rush over. I mean, just instinctively and see if she's still alive, what her condition is, any of that that is just the expected response when you see someone, particularly a loved one, in an apparent state of injury and distress. Very odd. I agree. And until prompted by the operator, he seems to keep a distance from her. In most of the cases that we see, innocent people who discover a loved one dead, It's usually followed by an immediate attempt to help, you know, rushing toward the victim to check for signs of life. I mean, just in the last case, we covered on this show, the murder of Sherry Black, her husband who did not kill her, rushed to her, pulled the scissors out of her and covered her with his coat. That said, not everyone reacts the same way. Some innocent people may freeze due to the shock or trauma, while others may seem oddly calm, which can be misinterpreted as suspicious. However, generally, the instinct to assist is very strong. You know, guilty people often display hesitation or an unusual lack of urgency and may avoid touching the victim entirely to distance themselves from the scene. I think, you know, as you said, Juliet, there are a million different variations on people's responses, and it depends as much on, what they see, what their personality is, what the situation was between these two people. But on sort of a basic commentary on what would be expected when you see a loved one who is, as far as you know, not dead or at least you you haven't confirmed that, is severely injured. And, again, according to the nine one one call, that is what mister Goldberg believes. Or he's calling for an ambulance. He doesn't know that she's dead. And I would say that everything from a from a child falling to this situation here to everything in between, the expected response and I'm not saying this is 100 true, but the expected response is that the person does not consider evidence. These things don't even occur to the average person. They are thinking about what can I do to mitigate this injury and provide as much comfort and care and aid to their loved one? And it doesn't even really even have to be a loved one. This extends to people who are responding to injured people in general, but especially someone that they're personally connected to and have an intimate relationship with or familial relationship. Not responding, standing by the door and placing a phone call, and, you know, not immediately attempting to provide aid is an unusual response. It's one that we don't expect, and it is the point of some suspicion. Especially when even the nine one one operator is suggesting that aid be provided. There's hesitance. He says, I I have to. Right? Maybe he doesn't know how to do CPR, but that just shows that there's a lack of desire to try to help. It's just a very unusual reaction, and I don't think it's a stretch to say that. Or I think if the average layperson listens to this thing, it would strike them as odd that there is this type of response. I agree. Completely unexpected and no attempt to approach her. But what I do think is interesting is that the nine one one operator asked Sam, you don't know where she's bleeding from? And he says, I think her head, I think she hit her head. As we noted in previous episodes, it didn't appear. Investigators at the scene noticed the wounds on the back of her head while the knife in her chest was immediately apparent to them. Yet Sam doesn't notice the knife, but tells dispatch that he believes that she's injured in her head. It could be leakage or nothing at all. I found this to be a very interesting 911 call. There are a few things in here that are classic when you're talking about statement analysis, classic examples of what you would look for. To me, it seemed like, at first, it seemed somewhat genuine. He's trying to figure out you know, he's in distress trying to figure it out, but, again, he's not helping her. But once it switches over to where he's actually talking to the fire department. That's where I find it interesting. Okay. So she says she's gonna hold on. I'm gonna switch it over to rescue. So she does, and rescue says, yes. What's wrong? Or, you know, whatever. This is a loose transcript I'm working from. And he says, my my I just my I went downstairs to go work out. I came back. The door was latched. My fiancee's inside. She wasn't she wasn't answering. So after about a half hour, I decided to break it down. I see her now just on the floor with blood, like she's she's not responding. Now that's a classic example of extraneous information that's given before anything about his fiance. He's telling his story at this point, and it seems like an attempt for him to get on record. What he has rehearsed is going to be what he says. Again, this is statement analysis. So, obviously, this is not considered proof, but it certainly leads you in a direction to think, why is he saying all of this? Why is he giving me this whole lowdown? Anytime you have extraneous information, there's always a reason behind it. And in this particular scenario, I think it's because he's setting the stage for this is what I'm saying happened, and I want you to believe him. And the initial question is what's wrong? Yes. Well, what's wrong is I found her on the floor bleeding, unresponsive. Not, Oh, I went downstairs to go work out. I came back, the door was latched. That's not what's wrong. He doesn't answer the question. He puts forth, as you said, Angela, this story leading up to finding her. And so it becomes okay. What's his priority? His priority is to get that story out first as opposed to what actually happened to her. There has been some research on 911 calls and behavioral indicators that either suggest the caller is being deceptive or perhaps maybe involved. I wanna emphasize this research is controversial. It's actually very controversial because it's limited in scope and should never be used as definitive proof. But while the studies don't always align on specific behaviors, what they have found and consistently they have found that deceptive callers often provide extraneous information not pertinent to the emergency. And think about other 911 calls that you've heard, legitimate 911 calls. There might be some panic on the other end. There might be some distress on the other end. That is typical, understandably so. Anything outside of the plea to get someone there fast is answered briefly, and they go right back to you gotta get someone here. Maybe kind of cryptic things like she's not responding. She you gotta get somebody here. They blurt out the address. And then once they know that an ambulance is rolling, the dispatcher is able to get a little more detail. As far as what they were doing, it doesn't make much difference to them when they have someone who is in need of immediate medical attention. There might be some comment that has to do with something they did, but it's not followed up in detail about, well, I was down working out. You generally don't hear somebody recounting the last hours or the last hour of their activities. None of that. Even to get anything aside from you'd have to get somebody here, she might be dying or whatever, you know, whatever it has to do with describing the situation immediately in front of them. It's not an easy task to get that information because their mind is just completely focused on getting some help for the person in front of them. Angela couldn't agree more. The details about the context in which he came to find her flow very easily far as his other statements or comments that were not prompted and just sort of they're kind of conversational. Only when asked does he describe it all the injuries. And he changes that description. Initially, when he's talking with the 911 it's, I'm looking at her right now. I don't I can't see anything. She doesn't there's nothing broken. You know? And we know from the description of what they saw on scene that she's lying on her back. She's got her head and shoulders resting up against the cabinet. She's still clothed. So that's what he mentions first. Maybe she she slipped, which, again, I can understand that. But then after he's transferred over to the operator and he goes in that detail, and she says she's specifically saying, look at her chest. Is it going up and down? And he says, I don't see her moving. In going through the transcript, the operator asked him four times to look at her chest. And then it's not until he gets, you know, supposedly maybe closer to her because fire is telling him to get closer and taking her clothes off. Then he goes, oh my god. She stabbed herself. Not, oh my god, there's a knife in her chest, as if he had not seen that before. His first description of that is she stabbed herself, which, given that she has no past history of suicide ideation, etcetera, is kind of an odd thing to say. Then he says, she fell on a knife. Then he says, there's a knife sticking out. There's a knife sticking out of her heart. And then he says and and then 911 does say, oh, she stabbed herself? And he says, well, I guess I guess so. I don't know. Or she fell on it. I don't know. That first thing out just really stood out like that's his first go to response in a critical situation. I totally agree with that. That's classic as well. I mean, if you were in a training exercise, it couldn't be any more classic than the way that was put. Oh my god. She stabbed herself. But to him, he's telling his story, so he's gonna get that in there at some point, you know, that she did it to herself to try to take the focus away from him. Well, I do wanna play devil's advocate because analyzing 911 calls can be tricky. And there's a case, the murder of Betsy Faria, and her husband Russell found her. And she was stabbed to death, and he told the 911 my wife killed herself. And when asked what was wrong, he said something along the line. She's got a knife in her neck. She's cut her arms. So he clearly saw the severity of her injuries, but his immediate assumption was suicide. And yet in the end, Russell didn't kill his wife. She was murdered by a supposed friend. What you don't see in Russell's call is distancing himself from her injuries. Basically, he seems like he doesn't wanna you know, he doesn't wanna assist, but he's right there with her body. She's asking him, look at her chest. Every indication that he should be seeing a knife there. But at this point, he should have seen a knife there. So the fact that he's not mentioning it could be another means of distancing himself from the situation. Maybe subconsciously, he doesn't wanna mention it because he knows he did it. But then after a certain point, when she tells him he has to do CPR, he's gotta come clean and say, you know, the knife's in her chest. Clearly, I'm gonna have to mention it now. And, Angela, on top of that, after she says you can't move the knife, you can't do CPR with a knife inside of her, the operator asking, can you see how far it went? And he goes, it looks pretty deep. It looks three, and he stops, which is kind of interesting. And then it's a long knife. So, again I know. Why would he estimate length if didn't know which knife was inside of her is Right. Was something that but also just a it's a long he's he's gonna start estimating, then he stops himself. It's a long knife. One, how does he know that? Two, if it's a long knife, long knives typically have long handles. And, again, that gets back to why did he not see it when he's first asked by the first operator. And and it takes several bits of questioning before he finally says, oh, yeah. There's a long knife sticking out of the left side of her chest. But I'm not sure. But when the initial part of the call is, I'm not sure what's wrong. There's a lot of blood everywhere. Maybe she hit her head. Maybe she did this. I'm not sure what's going on. Oh, there's a really long knife in the left side of her chest. The last thing I wanted to comment on too was that and, again, I know everybody's different. Julia did a good job of qualifying this at the beginning. But his affect to me just doesn't seem appropriate. There was kind of a flatness to it and more like he's kinda going through the motions, and he knows he needs to be. There was something about his whole presentation that really bothered me on top of the words that he was using. In reference to the knife, I think you see him try to maintain and I'm not saying this is conscious. I believe it to be an unconscious defensive thing on his part is that he tries to maintain a physical distance, tries to describe himself as being physically distant from this that he couldn't possibly know about it or see it. Even when he's right there, and as Angela said, anything noticeable, well, you know, there's this, which should have been obvious. If you were close to her, that should be obvious. But only when he is told by the again, this is only from prompting from the dispatcher where he is forced to make physical contact with her body, and it's unavoidable that he would see the knife. Only then does he have this eureka moment of, oh, there's a knife in her chest. And then immediately, she must have stabbed herself, which again is distancing on his part in that, okay. You've got me physically close here. I am now in close physical proximity to this knife, but I'm immediately going to say put an obstacle in your observation that there's me, there's a knife, there's the victim, and that she must have stabbed herself. Again, I think that's just distant distancing himself. He is directed to be right in contact with her. He's directed to be in physical contact with the very area where the knife is protruding right to the end. Only when he had he's displacing clothing to begin following directions on CPR does he say that he sees the knife. Well, he was directed to do that. He didn't displace any clothing. She tells him to take the shirt off. Yeah. But he doesn't actually remove any clothing. But well, then he is when he sees or that's when he reports seeing the knife and then immediately attributes to the victim, which having not known what happened, it is a deductive reasoning to say, there's no one in the house. I don't see anyone else. I didn't do it. So she must have either fallen on the knife. Now I'm thinking up scenarios of how that knife got there. And the one thing I'm not gonna say is that anyone put it there because anyone includes me. So I'm gonna bring up she stabbed herself or she fell on a knife and accidentally killed herself. Put yourself in his place when you're coming to your apartment where you know the last time you saw your fiance, she was in that apartment alone. And according to you, the door was not locked. Now you come back and it's locked. And, eventually, you you force the door open, and then you see her on the floor. Would it not be a reasonable possibility that someone had come through that front door and assaulted her and may still be on premises? But that was never considered. But he is thinking about scenarios, and each one he comes up with is attributing the injury to the victim herself. The fact that you said that he doesn't even think, gee, is there someone else in here who locked the door? He actually tells her there's nobody here but us. He doesn't say, I looked. I checked. There's nobody in the apartment. He knows there's nobody else in that apartment. Right. He's not certain about what happened to her, but he's very certain no one else did this to her and that there's no one else in the apartment. Well, that's the thing. It took I mean He says, no. No. No. No. House wasn't broken into. No sign of a break in. You know? Nobody else here but being her. And never says that he checked the premises. Right. If he said, when I first saw her, I thought that the person must still be in there and lock them into the place. It gives him more credibility if he said, before I even went over to her, I wanted to make sure that this guy wasn't still on premises. And that was the delay in running to see if she was okay for the safety of both of us at that point. But that's never a consideration. He doesn't bring it up. He doesn't bring it up in subsequent statements, yet he doesn't rush to the aid of the victim. And that would be one viable reason why the door was locked after he left would be that someone entered in a door that, as far as he knew, was was left unlocked and then locked it so they wouldn't be disturbed doing what it is they're gonna do. None of that. And that and I'm saying that is tangential. He was thinking in terms of scenarios, and that one never came up. If you found someone injured alone and you all as far as you know, they're alone, they're seriously injured, That wouldn't even be something that occurred to you, let alone something you'd wanna you'd wanna check out. And I think it's kinda interesting because in nine one one, you know, the fire person just goes, so wait. You're the only one It was just you there with her? You know, like, the light bulb goes off in the dispatcher's head, and he goes, yeah. We're the only ones here. And she ran in and latched the door shut? No. No. No. No. That's not what happened because she's trying to put it together too. How is this woman winding up with a knife in her chest and he's the only guy there? And then he goes, no. No. And then as Angela pointed out earlier, we get a little more extraneous material. No. Went downstairs to work out. When I came back up, door was latched. It wasn't like you know, it it was, like, locked from the inside, and I'm yelling, no. No. No. It it was the house broken into? No. No. No sign of a break in. No. And then says, well, there will be when you guys get here because I broke it in. But, again, nowhere in that section does he say, yeah. I know there's no one else here. I checked, and I didn't see any signs of a of a break. You know, there's that kind of thing would have been because at that point, I think things are clicking on the law enforcement side of things or the fire department side of things going, hey. What might have just happened? You know? And he readily just comes right out without nope. We're the only ones here. I think that's a a great point, Susan. Sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off. But, No. That's that's you break and the way Bob described it, which is what helped me think about this. If you think about your partner, spouse, whatever, you've left them, you've gone down to work out, you come back, the door's locked, takes you a while to get in, you know, what the heck's going on? Finally, you get in there and you see your spouse on the floor and a lot of blood. If you're not involved, and I don't think it's just from a law enforcement perspective either, you're gonna go, holy crap. What just you know, what what's wrong with her? What just happened? Is this guy still in the house? Is this person who's in here? Who did this? And if the door's locked, are they in here still? And you would think you're not only concerned about her, but also concerned about your own safety because you might be in the same room with a murderer. But he doesn't even look. He's confident. He is in there alone with her. Yeah. And even if his first thoughts were she either fell in an eye or stabbed herself because the door was locked, he doesn't even consider it a possibility that someone else could have been in there when dispatch brings it up to him. Was there a break in? He is certain there wasn't, and he sticks to that. I would think you would at least think, I don't know. I didn't think of that, but I haven't looked. I don't know. That could be a possibility because that is a possibility. It's a real possibility. Somebody could have been hiding in a back bedroom. They came in there. She let them in, maybe locked the door and killed her. And then they hear him banging on the door. There's no way to get out because they can't go out the balcony. And they're hiding in there hoping they get a chance to escape when he leaves the area. But that's just not a consideration at all. I mean, I agree with all that. But I think he's so set in his story. Sue was saying the nine one one operator is trying to piece together logically what happened and coming up with logically what would happen in this scenario. So she even thinks she must have been outside. She got attacked. She ran back in, latched the door, and, you know, that's what happened or somebody was in there. And he's saying, no. No. No. No. Because he knows that's not what happened. So he's confident about it. And everything he does here, he even says one thing I wanted to hit on from before when he said she fell on a knife. Oh, no. Her knife sticking out. Her knife. So even with the knife, it's not his. He's doing everything he can to to deflect any attention that he has anything to do with this, and it's to a fault. When you're trying to piece together what happened, and you're still in that process when you place a 911 call because you've gotta get help there, and you're trying to piece it together, there's not this level of certainty about anything. So, you know, how did I get there? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, could someone be here? Yeah. I don't know. Because you don't know. You're coming into something completely unexpected. You don't know the circumstances of it. And you don't claim to because you're you're on the phone with a professional who is asking questions for you to consider and and do a an investigation, if you will, of these possibilities. He is certain there's nobody in that house because that the story that he wants to tell doesn't include someone being in the house. He wants them to know, I pushed the door open. It couldn't have been somebody else. I'm the one who pushed the door open, and there's nobody here. He couldn't possibly know unless he had said, I I I checked. There's nobody here that I could find. That's if he even had that presence of mind instead of rushing to the side of his loved one and checking her status and seeing what he could do to mitigate that what had happened to her, to provide aid, and to do whatever he's told to do to either improve or at least maintain her condition until paramedics arrive, or EMTs, or what have you. But he doesn't do any of that. He has a bunch of details that he's gone over in his mind, and you can readily get those. I was at the gym. The door was locked. I'm the one who pushed it open. There's nobody here. She must have fallen under the knife or stabbed herself in the chest. All of these things, those are part of the story he wants to tell. But some of the expected uncertainty or some of the information that he would be seeking immediately, he doesn't provide. And unless prompted, he doesn't really investigate. The entire content of this call is very unexpected for someone in the situation that mister Goldberg found himself. Yeah. There's lots of great leakage in here. And when you're talking about liars in general, they may have a story ready, but you're you're still gonna get leakage from them because they can't anticipate every question and answer every question that you have because they have a cover story, especially when this happened recently. He's coming up with this story. It's not like he's planned it for or he doesn't appear as if he's planned it for days. So he's being peppered with questions by a nine one one operator, and so he has to come up with a general cover story. And he you don't have time to think up details for that. So when she's asking questions, you can see the leakage in there. He doesn't know that answer because he didn't think about it. So he's coming up with little bits of the story as he goes along. He's got his general story. He's sticking to it. No. No. No. That's not what happened. And part of that could be that he knows that's not what happened because of what really did happen. He knows no. No. No. No. That's not how it happened. Nobody got in the house. I did. The door was never latched, so she didn't do it. I mean, honestly, he shouldn't be answering any of these questions because he wasn't there. He was supposedly wasn't even in he was downstairs working out. How would he even have a clue what happened? I don't know what happened. That's what I mean. That type of thing, I don't know. And and, like, a even a panic. I don't know. I I you know, stop asking me these questions. I I can't answer them. I don't know. That, I've heard a lot on 911 calls, on legitimate 911 calls, is that the official is going to ask more questions than the caller can answer. And at times, they even say that to them. Okay. I'm just trying to piece together information for the responding unit. You know, that's why I'm asking these questions. Just bear with me. Oftentimes, you hear repeated, I don't know. I don't know. Just get somebody here. And there's none of that, except in the very beginning, like you said, you hear what sounds like panic. But very quickly, that kinda subsides. And then you have someone who wants to fill in the questions with the answers that he wants to give you and the impression that he wants to make. Panic is a or emotional distress is a very hard thing to fame for a prolonged period of time, Unless you are actually truly panicked and horrified, then it it comes naturally because it it's an emotional response. It's a physical response. Biochemically, your body is responding to this extremely tense and traumatic situation. And so it it it flows, and it doesn't it doesn't subside over the course of two minutes on the phone. But if you're feigning it, it is exhausting to keep doing that, and it is a difficult thing to pretend. I think too if it hadn't occurred to him when she gets when the 911 gets to the point of, well, wait a minute. Is it just you there? She's thinking, is there somebody else in the house? And for that person that had panicked when they first saw their loved one on the floor and and they're trying to get help for them, then when she says, is it just you there? Had that not been thought through about oh, no. I wait a minute. I didn't check the other rooms. You know? I mean, that would have been more of a Or even I think so. Why why are you I think so. What why are you asking? Do you think they're still here? You know? Is there somebody still that that kind of a thing that if it hadn't occurred to the person who first came in and found somebody, that when they're prompted then by 911, there might have been some additional panic there thinking, gee. Is this person still in the house? On this premise of him already kinda knowing the scenario, this plays well because then when there is a response and they do show up and it's not immediately evident apparently that there are all these stab wounds in the back of the head in addition to what they can readily observe from the front and with her still clothed, that have someone with a obvious stab wound to the chest and nothing else seems to be disturbed, and it appears that there's a lock that's been forced on the front door. It had been locked from the inside. Then all of this plays right into the verbal staging, if that's what's going on here, that has or the where the groundwork has already been laid. And so it's not and at that time, they don't have the not been able to listen to the recording of the 911 call, and there also hasn't been an autopsy report. So based on what they and there's nothing else disturbed in the home. There's no sign of a of a break in. Apparently, there was no sign of any kind of a dispute or anything within the home. And so the fact that from very early on that there's an assumption that it is a suicide kinda plays right into that. Before they have had they I'm just wondering when they had come on scene, had they realized how many times she'd been stabbed in the chest, how many times she'd been stabbed in the head. If there's something, wouldn't have been triggered to say, you know, this just doesn't look like she fell on something here or stabbed herself. That maybe it it would have created a little bit more suspicion on the part of the initial response from law enforcement. Unfortunately, it didn't. Unfortunately, for sure. Angela, did you have any specific areas of leakage you wanted to point out? I do have a couple of other small things to mention from a statement analysis perspective sort of towards the end of the call. Well, actually, before, when we were talking about she fell on a knife, oh, no. Her knife's sticking out. There's a knife sticking out of her heart. So with the use of possessive pronouns, like mine, yours, his, hers, ours, anything like that, that's something to pay attention to because they directly indicate ownership or connection to something. So, again, we talked about the fact that this was him using this in an attempt to direct directly indicate that she owned the knife, that it was not his. So unless you know, this is his house too. So it's assumed that everything in the house is actually both of theirs. Unless, you know, in some places, you might have I have a special mug that I usually use to drink my coffee. Maybe she has a special knife, but that that was something the pronouns there were interesting that he mentioned her name. And I don't again, Bob mentioned I don't know if it these things, sometimes they're subconsciously mentioned. But in any case, it seems like he's attempting directly indicate ownership and connection of the the knife to the victim. He's emotionally distancing himself from that. The other thing I wanted to mention was the use of emphasis. Closer to the end of the call, Sam says no. No sign of a break in at all. So we've already talked about the fact that even saying there's no sign of a break in, period, as he looked around, he doesn't verbalize that. I looked around. I didn't see any he just dismisses that. But at the same time, he says at all. So anytime you have an emphasis like that, you have to pay attention to it. In this particular scenario, I think it's purposeful because I think he, again, is trying to draw attention, draw the 91 1 to believe this couldn't have happened. It couldn't have been a break in. Always never words like that when they're used to emphasize a point are meant to read the leader or listener to believe a particular story Because you need to ask yourself, why is this being emphasized? Why in this particular spot do they wanna make it clear that this did not happen or this did happen? Because you might find that it's because they're trying to detract you from what really did happen. I did think that was interesting, your emphasis point. I didn't catch that. I enjoyed this from a statement analysis perspective going through it. It really was kinda textbook. So we focused a lot on some of the red flags we see in this call, but I wanna go back to some of the things that I see as a sign of veracity. And I agree with Angela and Bob. The beginning of this call, he starts right off. I just walked in, and he gets right to the point of what's wrong. The other thing is that everything's described in a correct order, and there's not any inconsistencies in what he's telling as far as his story, and it remains consistent with what he tells the police later that evening when he's interviewed and then in a couple weeks later when he's interviewed again. The other thing I just wanna make a comment, I I would want to know about whether he's generally a hesitant person in his decision making or if he has a tendency to be squeamish in high stress situations. Well, that's a good point too. You don't you really don't know. There could be circumstances that make it seem like somebody is behaving in a way that's suspicious when it's actually just who they are. Yeah. I mean, when he's asked to do CPR, it just almost like, oh my god. Do I have to? So that could be because he doesn't care. It could be because he is squeamish and these types of situations are too overwhelming. We just don't know. We don't know enough about him to know how he would normally react in a situation like this, which most people aren't don't find themselves in these situations. But were there would there be anything else in his life that would show how he tends to react in these types of crises. I remember a a drive by shooting, and the poor young man that got shot was very seriously injured. In fact, ended up dying from his injuries. And his mother had gotten to the scene, and she was standing outside of the tape. And they asked her if she wanted to go be with him. She was distraught, but she said no. And, clearly, she had nothing to do with it. By all accounts, was, you know, a mother that cared for her son, but for whatever reason, she she didn't wanna go be close to her son in that moment. Maybe just terrified, just fear of or denial of the whole situation, but you just don't know how people are gonna react. You don't know, and that's why statement analysis and behavioral analysis are not definitive proof. They can't identify an offender or determine with a % certainty whether someone is guilty, innocent, deceptive, or honest. While we rely on investigative experience, education, training, and research, our conclusions are still based on probabilities. Even in this 911 call, there are red flags, but there are also signs of veracity. And any analysis we do is just one piece of the puzzle. It can inform an investigation, but it can never substitute for a thorough well planned investigative process. Okay. We're gonna stop here for today. And as we've seen, the details of this case are complex and the circumstances surrounding Ellen's death continue to spark heated debate. But to help us better understand what may have happened, we have to take a closer look at Ellen herself. So next time, we're going to have an in-depth discussion of Ellen's victimology because there are key aspects of her background and behavior that lead some to believe she took her own life. We'll examine those factors and what they might tell us about this case. In the meantime, if you want to support our show and get early and ad free access to our episodes, check out our Patreon at patreon.com/theconsultpod. And don't forget about unsubs, which is the Facebook fan page created by fans for fans of the consult where you can discuss cases, share insights, and connect with other listeners of our show. That's it for this episode of the consult. Thank you for listening. Music for The Consult is composed by John Hanske. If you'd like to learn more about our show, you can visit our website, www.truecrimeconsult.com. That's www.truecrimeconsult.com. You can also follow us on Twitter. Our handle is at theconsultpod. Thank you.
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