Texas Executes Woman Convicted of Torturing and Slaying Mentally-Disabled Man

Texas executed Wednesday a woman convicted for murdering a mentally-challenged man in 1998. She is the fourteenth woman to be put to death since the capital punishment resumed in 1976.

Suzanne Basso, 59, was executed by lethal dose of pentobarbital and was pronounced dead 11 minutes after she was administered the drug. She did not make any final statement, reports the Associated Press.

The US Supreme Court rejected her last-day appeal nearly an hour before she was executed. Previous courts also did not grant a stay on Basso's execution stating that she had a history of falsifying stories.

Basso was found guilty of torturing and killing 59-year-old Louis 'Buddy' Musso in 1998.

Prosecutors said the New York-native lured Musso to Texas from New Jersey with a marriage promise. Then along with her teammates she murdered him so that she could claim his insurance money worth $65,000.

Musso was beaten badly with baseball bats, belts and steel-toed boots. His body was found in a ditch battered and unrecognizable, reports Reuters. However, her lawyers argued that there was no evidence that she the one who killed Musso.

Basso's daughter also testified against her saying that she was a victim of her mother's emotional, sexual and physical abuse since childhood.

Approximately 60 women are currently on death row in the U.S.

Texas now uses a single drug rather than a combination of three drugs that was used till 2012, reports msnbc.

According to the Guardian, the new method takes on average twice as long as it did with the previous method.

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