John Thanos

Who was John Thanos?

John Frederick Thanos was convicted in 1992 of the September 1990 murders of Billy Winebrenner, Gregory Allen Taylor, and Melody Pistorio. At his trial he taunted the families of his victims, saying he wished he could dig up their bodies and defile their corpses. Thanos stated: "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" during his sentencing hearing for the murder of Winebrenner and Pistorio.

His attorney later said of Thanos: "What he did was reprehensible, that's true... the other thing is, he is extremely damaged. He is an extremely damaged human being. And really, in our society we should not kill sick people. He really is a sick person."

Thanos waived all of his appeals and refused to fight his death sentence after he was convicted and sentenced to death.