AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) — Texas executed a
woman on Wednesday convicted of leading a plot to kidnap, torture and
then beat to death a mentally disabled man to rob him of his cash and
collect insurance money.
Suzanne Basso, 59, died at 6:26 p.m. CST (7.26 p.m. ET Thursday)
by lethal injection at the state's death chamber in Huntsville,
making her the 14th woman put to death in the country since the U.S.
Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
In that time, about 1,400 men have been executed, according to the
Death Penalty Information Center, a monitoring agency.
Basso did not make a last statement, the Department of Criminal
Justice said.
Lawyers for Basso filed an application with the U.S. Supreme Court
seeking a stay, arguing that she is not mentally competent and
should not be executed.
The appeal was denied, without comment.
"She is delusional. She has been diagnosed with at least six
different disorders over time," said attorney Winston Cochran Jr.,
who filed the petition.
Basso was convicted for the 1998 death of Louis "Buddy" Musso, 59.
Basso lured the New Jersey man to Texas with the promise to marry
him.
Basso, with five others, later beat him and killed him for his money
and to cash in on an insurance policy where she was named the
beneficiary, according to court documents.
The victim was beaten so severely with baseball bats, belts and
steel-toed boots that his body was unrecognizable when it was found
in a ditch.
After Musso's death, police found an insurance policy that would pay
$65,000 as a result of violent crime, according to prosecutors.
Lawyers for Basso have argued there was no evidence that proved she
was one of the killers.
The execution is the seventh this year in the United States and the
510th execution in Texas, the most of any state after the
reinstatement of the death penalty.
(Additional reporting by David Ingram in Washington;
editing by
Scott Malone, Grant McCool, Tom Brown and Lisa Shumaker)
