John Frederick Thanos was born in Dundalk, Maryland in 1949, the son of John Steven and Patty Thanos. His father was a World War II veteran who suffered from severe mental illness. Accounts later described the elder Thanos as abusive and violent, often subjecting both his son and wife to mistreatment. He was alleged to have drugged his wife and beaten young John, creating a deeply unstable and traumatic household. As a boy, Thanos struggled in school and displayed troubling behavior. He was expelled at an early age and soon drifted into delinquency.

Thanos had a long criminal history before his killing spree began. In October 1969, at age 20, he assaulted and raped a woman in Rosedale, Maryland. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison. At trial, he threatened the presiding judge, foreshadowing the violent hostility that would later define him.

In 1971, Thanos attempted a prison escape. He briefly succeeded but was recaptured. An additional eight years were added to his sentence. After serving more than a decade, he was released in April 1986, only to return to prison a month later after committing an armed robbery at a convenience store.

In April 1990, due to a clerical error, Thanos was accidentally released early. A prison official responsible for the mistake was later dismissed. Free again, Thanos tried to stabilize his life, taking short-lived jobs as a bricklayer and poultry processor in Salisbury, Maryland.

That summer, however, he exposed himself to a woman who had given him a ride. Facing charges for indecent exposure, he feared his parole would be revoked. According to his later confession, this fear became the spark for his murderous spree. He claimed that once he believed prison was inevitable, he decided to unleash his rage on others.

On August 31, 1990, Thanos set out carrying a sawed-off .22 caliber semi-automatic rifle concealed in a black doctor’s bag. He had recently robbed a taxi driver at gunpoint, locking him in the trunk of his cab, and now escalated his violence.

While hitchhiking, Thanos encountered 18-year-old Gregory Taylor. He forced Taylor, at gunpoint, to drive him to a remote wooded area. Thanos initially intended to tie the teenager to a tree but when Taylor resisted, he ordered him to the ground. He then shot Taylor three times in the head, killing him instantly.

After murdering him, Thanos stole Taylor’s car and attempted to alter his appearance to resemble the victim in order to use the stolen identity. Taylor’s murder was cold, calculated, and senseless, marking the beginning of Thanos’s killing spree.

Two days later, Thanos committed armed robbery at a Salisbury convenience store, shooting the clerk in the head. The victim miraculously survived, though badly wounded. On September 1, Thanos went to a gas station where 16-year-old Billy Winebrenner worked. He traded his father’s watch to Winebrenner for $20 in gas, with an informal agreement that he could buy it back for $60.

On September 3, 1990, Thanos returned to retrieve the watch. This time, Winebrenner was accompanied by his girlfriend, 14-year-old Melody Pistorio. Pistorio had the watch but had left it at home in her jewelry box. When Winebrenner explained this, Thanos grew enraged.

Thanos brandished his rifle and robbed the gas station, forcing the teenagers to hand over all the cash. He then shot both Winebrenner and Pistorio twice in the head at point-blank range, killing them instantly. Witnesses later testified that neither victim resisted and that the killings were deliberate executions.

The murders of the teenagers horrified Maryland. Thanos had now killed three innocent young people within four days.

On September 4, 1990, police spotted Thanos driving north. He matched the description of a robbery suspect. When officers attempted to stop him, Thanos opened fire. A shootout followed, though no one was injured. Thanos abandoned his car and fled into the woods, eventually forcing his way into a passing motorist’s car and taking the driver hostage.

The chase continued into Delaware, where police cornered him in a parking lot in Smyrna. Thanos engaged in another gun battle, firing until his weapon was empty. Surrounded, he surrendered and was taken into custody. The following day, Delaware authorities turned him over to Maryland State Police.

Thanos faced trial for the murders of Gregory Taylor, Billy Winebrenner, and Melody Pistorio. During proceedings, he displayed a shocking lack of remorse. He mocked and taunted the victims’ families, at one point saying he wished he could desecrate their remains. In a chilling statement, he told the court:

“Their cries bring laughter from the darkest caverns of my soul. I don’t believe I could satisfy my thirst yet in this matter unless I was to be able to dig these brats’ bones up out of their graves right now and beat them into powder and urinate on them and then stir it into a murky yellowish elixir and serve it up to their loved ones.”

His defense attorney argued that Thanos was a profoundly damaged man, shaped by years of abuse and mental illness. But the brutality of his crimes and his own words left no doubt in the jury’s mind.

In 1992, Thanos was convicted of the three murders and sentenced to death. He waived all appeals, effectively volunteering for execution.

At the time of his conviction, Maryland still mandated the gas chamber as its sole execution method. Thanos briefly agreed to participate in a legal challenge by having his execution videotaped to test whether it violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. In response, Maryland’s legislature passed a law making lethal injection the primary method of execution, effective January 1994.

On May 17, 1994, Thanos was executed by lethal injection at the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center in Baltimore. At 45 years old, he became the first person executed in Maryland since 1961, and the state’s first execution after the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 (Gregg v. Georgia).