A Texas woman is to be executed on Wednesday, February 5, for the brutal 1998 murder of mentally disabled man, Louis “Buddy” Musso.
After being convicted in 1999 of leading a group of thugs in the torture and killing of Musso, 59, in order to cash in on his life insurance policy, the woman, Suzanne Basso, is only the 14th woman to be executed in the U.S. since 1976.
Basso’s lawyer argued that the 59-year-old woman is not mentally competent enough to face execution because of delusions and that the state statute governing competency was unconstitutionally flawed, also questioning the legal admission of a medical examiner’s testimony. This all came after a state judge last month ruled that Basso had a history of fabricating stories about herself, sought attention, and manipulated psychological tests. Basso and her attorneys filed three appeals over the years, all of which were denied.
Coleen Barnett, who prosecuted Basso, says, “She would pretend to be different things.” She continues, “[In] 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.” At a competency hearing, Basso acknowledged that representations about her background were fabricated — that she was a triplet, worked in the New York governor’s office, and had a relationship with Nelson Rockefeller.
She and her son met Musso, who had the intellect of a 7-year-old child but cared for himself, at a church carnival in New Jersey. He left there to move in with her in Jacinto City, east of Houston. From there, Musso was led to believe that he and Basso would wed. Court documents detail the extensive abuse Musso endured days before his body was found in a ditch by a jogger. He’d been bathed in a solution of bleach and pine cleaner and scrubbed with a wire brush. The man’s body was found on the morning of August 28, 1999.
Basso is slated to receive a lethal injection today at 6pm CT but her lawyer Winston Cochran has filed a last-minute appeal to stay the execution.