Editor
The Evening Sun
501 North Calvert Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21278
To the Editor:
This is in regard to the crime spree murders on the Eastern Shore over Labor Day.
Your headline writer used the word "parolee" a lot for a couple of days when in fact the man was - in prison talk - "let out", "put on the street" or "cut loose". Thanos got out of prison because his time ran out and for no other reason. Nobody asked him where he was going to sleep or what he was going to eat or how he was going to pay for it before they did it to him.
It is puzzling to me that your paper gave as much front page with picture coverage to this one, while other, arguably more heinous, homicides got short notice in the back of the Metro section. One begins to ask whether the race or social class of the victims had anything to do with it, or are police and prosecutors in some counties more encouraging of the media such as when transporting suspects by car.
It is probably true, as your headlines implied, that Thanos actually does have self-destructive if not suicidal tendencies. He chose two of the counties most likely to seek the "death penalty" in the case of homicide (Baltimore and Worcester) - especially during an election year and on the eve of a primary. Thanos is an easy pigeon for the prosecutors because he is insisting on defending himself rather than rely on court-appointed attorneys as he has had to do in the past.
After the year or two to hold a trial and sentence him, Thanos will not be returned to the brand- new, out-of-the-way, medium-security prison on the Eastern Shore. He is going to be in the middle of Baltimore City at the Maryland Penitentiary, whether he is sentenced to "life", "death", "life without parole", or any combination thereof. His only way out, it appears, is a decision that he was insane at the time of the offenses (in which case he will be sent to a State hospital) or the completion of the planned $160 million, 2500-bed new prison in Western Maryland.
It is really too bad that Thanos' "death penalty" will cost the State about $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 more than his "life sentence". It is also too bad that at the age of 41, Thanos did not have the opportunity to learn or improve himself during all those adult years he spent in prison in the past. It is somewhat disquieting that over 500 people got out of the Maryland prison system the same month he did and 3,000 by the date he got captured.
Sincerely,
Nancy Moran
nm
P.S. A nice headline might be "Vicious Circle".