Hatfield man gets 40 years in stabbing death of his wife
In his sentencing hearing Monday, Walid Mitwalli, 38, who pleaded guilty to stabbing his wife, Mona, to death in their Hatfield home three years ago, asked for leniency.
In his sentencing hearing Monday, Walid Mitwalli, 38, who pleaded guilty to stabbing his wife, Mona, to death in their Hatfield home three years ago, asked for leniency.
"I have nothing left," said Mitwalli, who was in tears as he spoke before Montgomery County Court Judge Steven O'Neil. "All I can ask is for some mercy."
But Mitwalli did not receive mercy from O'Neil, who sentenced him to up to 40 years in prison - the maximum for third-degree murder.
"You had an extreme indifference to human life," O'Neil told the defendant in delivering his sentence. "Normally, this court would have felt inclined to sentence more."
The sentence capped an emotional day of testimony at the Montgomery County Courthouse.
Prosecutors called a deputy county coroner, the case's lead detective, and friends and family of the victim as they sought to vividly depict the early morning stabbing on June 7, 2013, in their home in the 2900 block of Denbeigh Drive, and the events leading up to it.
Prosecutors argued that Mitwalli had a history of domestic abuse, and that the couple were in the middle of a contentious divorce and a custody dispute over their twin daughters, who were 6 at the time. They were asleep upstairs at when their mother was killed.
"They know Daddy killed their mother," said Amany Elswedy, a sister of the 30-year-old victim. "They can't feel safe in their own house."
Mitwalli pleaded guilty to third-degree murder last November in a deal that allowed him to avoid a first-degree murder conviction and the accompanying mandatory sentence of life in prison.
But he also admitted to stabbing his wife multiple times with a 14-inch carving knife: in the head, back, chest, abdomen, neck, and throat.
John I. McMahon Jr., Mitwalli's defense lawyer, argued that Mitwalli had been angered by his wife's extramarital affairs and that she had come at him with a knife. Mitwalli took it from her in self-defense. He was in a furious rage when he stabbed her to death, his lawyer said.
Mitwalli will be eligible for parole after 15 years in prison, and will receive credit for the time served since he was first arrested in June 2013.
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