Suzanne Basso Execution: The Murder Was ‘Horrible, Horrible, Horrible, It Was What The Death Penalty Was Made For’

Suzanne Bass was scheduled for execution in Texas today (Wednesday) for the brutal slaying in 1998 of a mentally disabled man,.

She will become the 14th woman to be put to death since 1976.

Basso was convicted in 1999 of leading a group of thugs who tortured and killed Louis ‘Buddy’ Musso, 59, in order to cash his life insurance policy.

Basso’s attorney, Winston Cochran, claimed that his 59-year-old client is not mentally competent enough to face execution because she suffers from delusions. He further alleged that the state statute governing competency was unconstitutionally flawed. And, furthermore, he also challenged the legality of a medical examiner’s testimony.

However, last month a state judge ruled that Basso had a history of making up stories about herself, sought attention and manipulated psychological tests.

Colleen Barnett, the prosecutor, said. “She would pretend to be different things. One setting she would pretend to be blind. One setting she would pretend she couldn’t walk. One setting she had the voice of a little girl.”

Cochran said in a federal court filing. “Why rush to judgment on Basso?” He sought a punishment delay that was refused Monday by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and a federal judge.

He took his appeals Tuesday to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, one step short of the Supreme Court. Cochran said a degenerative disease has left her paralyzed. Basso, 59, claimed her paralysis was the result of a jail beating years ago

Basso was portrayed at her trial as the ringleader of a group of people who fatally tortured Musso in 1998 in order to steal his money.

“She lured him to Texas with the idea they’d get married,” Barnett said, but she was already married

Basso made herself the beneficiary of insurance policies purchased for Musso and she also took over his Social Security benefits.

Five others, including Basso’s son, also were convicted for Musso’s death. but prosecutors sought the death penalty only for Basso.

According to the evidence, Musso had died a particularly agonizing and gruesome death.

He’d been bathed in a solution of bleach and pine cleaner and scrubbed with a wire brush. An autopsy showed he had at least 17 cuts to his head; 28 cuts and cigarette burns on his back; bruises all over his body; a skull fracture; a fractured bone in his neck; 14 broken ribs and two dislocated vertebrae.

“It was just horrible, horrible, horrible,” Barnett said. “When you talk about the death penalty, what the death penalty was made for, it was for a case like this.”

Suzanne Basso became a suspect after she reported Musso missing.