Mitros sentenced to house arrest for fatally shooting wife in Manayunk

When Gregory Mitros walked out of a Philadelphia courtroom with family and friends on Friday morning, he knew both what his immediate future would hold and that he’d never be able to forget his recent past.

Eight weeks after finding Mitros guilty of involuntary manslaugher in connection with the fatal June 2011 shooting of his wife Linda inside their Markle Street home, Municipal Court Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart sentenced the Manayunk man to six-to-12 months house arrest and four years of probation while ordering him to complete alcohol counselling and anger-management treatment.

At the end of the brief sentencing hearing, held in the same courtroom in which the Kermit Gosnell case is being heard, Minehart said he would consider reducing the probation term should Mitros succeed with the latter two portions of the sentence.

Mitros reacts

Mitros had little to say after the hearing at which he thanked the judge for “treating me fairly” in the case where he claimed the gun went off unintentionally during a struggle on a stairwell with his distraught wife of more than two decades.

“I’m just thankful to have this over with,” said Mitros told NewsWorks before leaving with the immediate goal of regaining his job at the the University of Pennsylvania utilities control center.

His family and attorney said Mitros recently had spoken with his former employer and learned of the possibility that he could get rehired once legal proceedings ended, which they did Friday.

Verdict seen as fair

Both defense attorney Michael Quinn and assistant district attorney Peter Lim reiterated that there were no winners in a case which shattered both a family and a neighborhood group in which friends loved both the victim and the shooter.

“It’s a tragic situation. The people supporting him were here to support her, too,” said Lim in the courtroom hallway. “There’s no question that he took his wife’s life, and he’ll have to live with that the rest of his life. That’s a tough thing to have hanging over you. … It’s a fair and just sentence.”

For his part, Quinn said he was grateful that Mitros did not receive any jail or prison time.

“He’s lost his beloved wife, his home, his job. He works everyday to honor her memory. One of her sons has forgiven him, and the other is working toward doing that. Everything about this person’s life has been put on hold,” Quinn said.

“She is never coming back, and he has to deal with that grief every single day,” Quinn said. “I just hope that he can forgive himself for taking his beloved wife’s life.”