Suzanne Basso Executed in Texas, Offered No Final Words Before Death
Suzanne Basso was put to death last night in the state of Texas for torturing and killing a mentally-impaired man named Louis "Buddy" Musso. Basso allegedly lured Musso to his death in Texas and led a group of people, including her own son, who attacked, tortured, and eventually killed Musso for his money.
"No sir," Basso told the warden when asked if she had a final statement.
Basso smiled at two friends watching from the galley, mouthed something to them, then nodded and lay down on the gurney. A dose of pentobarbital was administered, and Basso appeared to drift off to sleep, snoring rather loudly. Eventually the snoring subsided, then stopped altogether, and Basso was pronounced dead 11 minutes after the pentobarbital was administered.
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She was sentenced to death in 1998, after Musso's body was found in a ditch outside Houston. His body was bruised, broken, cut, and had been washed with bleach and scrubbed with a wire brush. Authorities suspected Basso after she reported Musso missing once his body was found. As it turned out, she had made herself the sole beneficiary of his life insurance policy and then took over his Social Security benefits.
Basso met Musso in New Jersey and lured him to Texas with the promise of marriage, even though she was already married. Prosecutor Colleen Barnett told the Associated Press that Basso was a complex person who used a variety of disguises and personalities to get what she wanted.
"She would pretend to be different things," Barnett explained. "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. It was just horrible, horrible, horrible. When you talk about the death penalty, what the death penalty was made for, it was for a case like this."
Five other people were indicted with the murder of Musso, but Basso was apparently the ring-leader and the only one to receive the death penalty.
