Suzanne Basso on Wednesday evening became only the 14th woman executed in the U.S. since the Supreme Court in 1976 allowed capital punishment to resume. Almost 1,400 men have been put to death during that time.
At 6:26pm, the 59-year-old was pronounced dead by lethal injection. She gave no statement before the execution. She and five other people were convicted of kidnapping and beating Louis "Buddy" Masso to death in 1998.
The man's body was unrecognizable when it was found in a ditch. Colleen Barnett, who prosecuted Basso, attended her execution and said that justice was served for a man who was tortured by his killers.
"Beating him with baseball bats, kicking him with steel toed boots, on his head, on his scrotum, he had broken ribs, skull fractures, a broken neck, broken nose," Barnett said.
Barnett said Basso was the ringleader, and that her motive was insurance money. Basso's attorney appealed to the United States Supreme Court to halt the execution, based on what he said was Basso's diminished mental capacity. The court denied the appeal about 45 minutes before the execution. Basso is the fifth woman to be executed in Texas since 1982.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report
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