Original Episodes
104 – Ellen Rae Greenberg
048 – Cieha Taylor
042 – Elnaz Hajtamiri
085 – Aubrey Dameron
Episode Transcript
Welcome back to Bite-Sized Crime. This week I’m bringing you the latest updates on some cases that I’ve covered in the past. Since the last update episode in February of 2024, there has been significant movement in several cases, so I wanted to spend some time updating you on where they are now. I’ll give a quick overview of each case to catch you up to speed, but the original episodes are linked in the show notes if you’d like to go back and re-listen to get all the details.
The first case I’d like to talk about is that of Ellen Rae Greenberg, which I covered in episode 104. On January 26, 2011, Philadelphia schools closed early in anticipation of a big winter storm. Ellen, a first grade teacher, left school around 1:30 and headed to the apartment she shared with her fiance Sam.
Around 4:45pm, Sam told Ellen he was going to the gym located in their apartment complex. But when he returned 45 minutes later, he found the door to the apartment locked. He had his key, but the swing bar lock was activated from the inside, preventing him from getting the door open. He called out to Ellen through the door, but she didn’t respond. He called her cell phone, but she didn’t answer. For twenty minutes, he texted Ellen and called repeatedly, hoping she would hear the notifications.
According to Sam, he finally ended up kicking in the apartment door. When he did, he saw Ellen lying on her back on the kitchen floor, her head resting against the cabinet. She was covered in blood. Sam called 911 and told the dispatcher that there was a knife sticking out of Ellen’s chest. When paramedics arrived, Ellen Greenberg was pronounced dead at the scene.
When investigators arrived at the apartment, their first instinct was that this was the scene of a suicide. Ellen had been alone in the apartment with the door locked from the inside. The security guard had watched Sam force open the door, but aside from that, there was no sign of a break-in. Sam and Ellen’s apartment was on the sixth floor, and the only other entrance was a sliding door with a narrow balcony; the fresh snow on the ground beneath it was undisturbed. There weren’t any cameras in the sixth-floor hallway, but security footage from the lobby didn’t show any unusual persons in the building that evening. And Ellen didn’t have any obvious defensive wounds on her body. The knife matched a set found in the kitchen, and there wasn’t any blood anywhere else in the apartment.
An autopsy revealed that Ellen had been stabbed twenty times. There were eight stab wounds in her chest, including the final, 4-inch-deep wound where the knife was found. She had a stab wound in her stomach and a long gash across the back of her scalp. Ten stab wounds were found on the back of her neck, two of which penetrated her spinal cord and brain. The medical examiner also noticed eleven bruises along the right side of her body from her leg up to her arm. At the end of the autopsy, he concluded that the manner of death was homicide.
However, detectives strongly believed that Ellen’s mental health struggles combined with the fact that she had no defensive wounds and she was found inside a locked apartment clearly indicated that she had taken her own life. They convinced the medical examiner to change his ruling from homicide to suicide. The case was officially closed.
Ellen’s parents, Joshua and Sandra Greenberg, fully believed that their daughter had not died by suicide, but that she had been murdered. Unfortunately, because investigators had treated the original crime scene like a suicide, much of the evidence was already gone. The apartment had been professionally cleaned, and many of Sam and Ellen’s belongings had been removed by friends and family. But the Greenbergs weren’t giving up. They hired their own experts and private investigators to help them get Ellen’s case reopened.
For years, Ellen’s case went back and forth. In 2018, the Pennsylvania State Attorney General’s Office agreed to look into the case, but in April of 2019, they upheld the ruling of the medical examiner, and Ellen’s case was closed again.
The Greenbergs decided to file a lawsuit against the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office, claiming that the original ruling of homicide was correct and asking for it to be changed back to homicide or to undetermined so that the investigation could continue. In 2023, an appellate court ruled that they did not have standing to sue the city, but in August of 2024, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed to take the case.
On February 3, 2025, the city of Philadelphia settled two lawsuits with the Greenbergs. The city agreed that the current medical examiner will reopen Ellen’s case and look at all the evidence. The next day, Dr. Marlon Osbourne, the original medical examiner who conducted Ellen’s autopsy in 2011, announced that based on new information, he no longer believes that Ellen died by suicide. While his statement does not officially change Ellen’s cause of death, the acknowledgement of his error has brought a measure of closure to Ellen’s family. Joshua Greenberg told CNN, “We fought very long to get this. To get justice for our daughter. And we did.”
The Greenbergs are still waiting for an official ruling from the medical examiner’s office, but they are hopeful that Ellen’s case will be reopened soon. I’ll keep you updated with any new information.
The next case is the disappearance of 28-year-old Cieha Taylor, whose case I covered in episode 048. In February of 2020, Cieha’s vehicle was found abandoned on the train tracks on East Trapnell Road in Plant City, Florida. The driver’s side door was wide open, the keys were in the ignition, and the engine was still running. Cieha’s wallet was in the passenger seat and her cell phone was lying on the ground next to the car. However, the police officers who responded to the scene didn’t bother to try and find out who the car belonged to – they moved the car off the tracks, turned it off, and locked the doors. It wasn’t until three days later that Cieha’s family learned that her car had been found and that she was missing.
When the investigation into Cieha’s disappearance finally began, they learned that Cieha had left work on the morning of February 6, picked up her boyfriend Jason at his job, then drove him to their friend Kevin’s house on Cowart Road. There, Cieha talked to Kevin and his father, but the men later said that Cieha was acting strangely. Cieha and Jason had apparently gotten into a fight just before they arrived, and Cieha was agitated.
After Cieha left Kevin’s house, she called a friend at 4:30pm. The friend said that Cieha was crying and clearly upset. Sometime later, Cieha texted Jason an angry message that said, “So you’re going to send your white supremacy buddies after me? You think you’re smart, I’m smarter.”
Just two and a half hours later, Cieha’s vehicle was found abandoned a mile away from Kevin’s house.
Throughout the investigation, detectives questioned Jason multiple times, and they searched Kevin’s house on Cowart Road, although according to the family, no forensic examinations were done on the property. Detectives also interviewed Kevin and his father, as well as several other persons of interest, but there was no evidence to connect any of them to Cieha’s disappearance.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March of 2020, the investigation into Cieha’s disappearance stalled, but her family has not given up on finding her. In November of 2022, a group of former military and law enforcement officers called We Are The Essentials held an event in Plant City to renew interest and awareness in Cieha’s case. But it wasn’t until two years later that there was real movement in the investigation.
In May of 2024, Cieha’s boyfriend Jason Roberts and his friend Kevin Ring were arrested on charges unrelated to Cieha’s disappearance. Kevin Ring is currently in jail facing 73 felony drug and firearms charges. Jason Roberts is facing lesser charges and has been released on bond.
The Taylor family hopes that these arrests will lead to information about Cieha’s disappearance, information they believe Jason and Kevin have. Cieha’s aunt Hope told WTSP, “They are going to wait until they have absolutely everything… Detective Florio told me that they are not taking a half case to the state because they do not want any wiggle room with him, that they want the smoking gun. They want it to where he is going to prison for what they’ve done to or allegedly done to her.”
As of this recording, no one has been charged in the disappearance of Cieha Taylor. If you have any information about her disappearance, please contact the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office at (813) 247-8200.
The next case is that of Elnaz Hajtamiri, whose abduction I covered in episode 042. In late 2021, 37-year-old Elnaz had been dealing with abusive and harassing behavior from her ex-boyfriend, Mohamad Lilo. In spite of Elnaz contacting the police multiple times, Mohamad’s behavior escalated. On December 21, 2021, Elnaz was attacked in the parking garage of her condo, but was saved by a passerby. In the wake of the attack, Elnaz packed up and left town, moving in with relatives in Wasaga Beach, Ontario. But unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of her troubles.
On the evening of January 12, 2022, three men dressed in police gear knocked on the door, claiming to have an arrest warrant for Elnaz. Suspicious, Elnaz’s relative tried to call 911, but the men quickly overpowered him, rushing into the house and grabbing Elnaz. They dragged her barefoot through the snow and threw her into the back of a white SUV. Then, they were gone.
The Ontario Provincial Police launched an investigation into the abduction, quickly connecting it with the previous attack on Elnaz. Mohamad Lilo was arrested and charged with criminal harassment, but he was released on bail shortly thereafter. Elnaz’s family has spent the three years since spreading awareness of Elnaz’s disappearance and hoping for her return.
During that time, Ontario police have charged at least seven individuals in connection with the December parking garage attack and the January abduction. In November of 2023, Mohamad Lilo was officially charged with first-degree murder in Elnaz’s case. He is currently awaiting trial in Ontario. Most recently, in August of 2024, Deshawn Davis was arrested by the U.S. Marshals in connection to the case. Authorities believe Mohamad orchestrated the attacks, with Davis and another accomplice posing as the police officers who kidnapped Elnaz. Davis is also facing charges in Florida for the murder of rapper Lowell Grissom Jr. in 2023.
Authorities continue to search for Elnaz Hajtamiri. If you have any information about her abduction, please call the dedicated tip line at 1-888-728-3415. If you are outside of Canada, you can submit a tip online at canadiancrimestoppers.org. There is a $100,000 reward for information leading to her recovery.
The last case is that of Aubrey Dameron, a 25-year-old trans woman whose disappearance I covered in episode 085. In the fall of 2018, after leaving an abusive relationship, Aubrey returned to her hometown of Grove, Oklahoma, and moved in with her mother, stepfather, and brother. But life at home wasn’t easy. In February of 2019, Aubrey got into a physical altercation with her stepfather Mike, which resulted in him filing charges against her for assault and battery. The charges were quickly dropped, but it was clear that Aubrey’s current situation was not healthy or safe.
During this time, Aubrey slowly began pulling away from those closest to her, in particular her uncle Christian and aunt Pam. Aubrey usually called or texted them every day, but lately it was days or even weeks between conversations. When she did reach out, she didn’t sound like her usual upbeat, bubbly self.
Then, on March 16th, Pam got a message from a friend asking if Aubrey was missing. The friend sent Pam a screenshot of a Facebook post with a picture of Aubrey and a number to call if anybody had seen her.
When Pam reached out to Aubrey’s mother Jennifer, she was shocked to find out that Aubrey had already been missing for an entire week. According to Jennifer, she had last seen Aubrey in the early morning hours of Saturday, March 9th. Jennifer had woken up around 3:30am to use the bathroom and had seen Aubrey leaving the house. Aubrey told her mom that she was going to meet someone, but she didn’t say who. She said goodbye and walked out the door. Two days later, when Aubrey still hadn’t returned home and wasn’t responding to calls or texts, a missing persons report was filed with the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office.
Pam and Christian were upset that they had been left out of the loop in regards to Aubrey’s disappearance, and it didn’t seem like law enforcement was doing any real investigating. The detective in charge of Aubrey’s case told Pam that he didn’t think Aubrey was really missing, “because of her lifestyle,” indicating that she was a known drug user who was very sexually active.
Frustrated, Pam and Christian began their own investigation. They learned that when Aubrey left her mom’s house on March 9th, she left behind her purse and her prescription medications, which she was dependent on to treat her epilepsy. Also, the fact that Aubrey didn’t have a car combined with the rural location of the house would have required Aubrey to either get a ride with someone or walk several miles on back country roads to reach the edge of town.
Detectives finally pulled Aubrey’s cell phone records and determined that her phone last pinged at 3:42am on March 9th near a mobile home park just 100 yards from the house. Christian and Pam organized multiple searches of the property, bringing in search dogs and divers to explore several nearby ponds. The dogs hit on a small pond near the house as well as a blue tarp in Jennifer’s shed. But even though the tarp was handed over to the sheriff’s department, it wasn’t tested in a timely manner.
In the summer of 2020, over a year after Aubrey disappeared, her case was handed over to the Cherokee Nation Marshal Service, where it was upgraded from a missing persons investigation to a homicide. A new team of investigators went over the case file, re-interviewing Aubrey’s friends and family members and conducting new searches. But eventually it appeared that all leads had been exhausted, and Aubrey was still missing.
Then, on January 31, 2025 – six years after Aubrey disappeared – human remains were discovered in rural Ottawa County, Oklahoma. It appeared that they had been there for quite some time. Ultimately, the remains were identified as those of Aubrey Dameron. The Quapaw Nation Department of Public Safety released a statement, saying, “Aubrey’s family has been notified of the identification of their loved one. We extend our sincere condolences to Aubrey’s family and friends as the past six long years of searching for Aubrey have come to an end and the investigation into Aubrey’s death continues.”
If you have any information related to the disappearance or death of Aubrey Dameron, please contact the Quapaw Nation Marshal Service at 918-238-3137.
As I mentioned at the top of the episode, all of the original recordings for these case episodes are linked in the show notes, and you can find source materials and transcripts on the podcast website. If you have any other updates or know of a case that I should cover, please reach out to me through email or through the contact form on bitesizedcrimepod.com. Thank you for your support, and I’ll be back next week with a brand new episode.