Madison Belsterling
“If anyone deserves the death penalty, it is
this woman. I only wish that she could be
executed the same way that she killed that
poor man.”
• Born May 15th, 1954
Suzanne and Buddy
• Prior occupation: office clerk, seamstress, laborer
• Completed education: K-12th
• No prior prison record
• 1 of 8 children
• Married James Peek in early 1970’s
• Had 1 daughter and 1 son
• Never divorced her husband but was involved with a man
named, Carmine Basso
• Referred to Carmine as her husband and changed her last
name to Basso
• Lived along
• 59 years old at the time of the crime
• Had financial problems
• Mentally disabled
• One day, his social security client had trouble
contacting him
Buddy Musso
• Suzanne was not in trouble with
the law before first crime.
• August 25, 1998: Suzanne
Murdered Louis “Buddy” Musso.
• Received capital punishment and
the death penalty.
• Died by lethal injection on
February 5, 2014.
•
Insurance Fraud: Any act committed with the intent to
obtain a fraudulent outcome from an insurance process.
This may occur when a claimant attempts to obtain
some benefit or advantage to which they are not
otherwise entitled, or when an insurer knowingly denies
some benefit that is due.
•
Death Sentence: A sentence to be put to death for a
capital crime.
•
Lethal Injection: is the practice of injecting a combination
of poisons into a person with a fatal dose of drugs
(typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium
solution) for the express purpose of causing immediate
death.
• Kidnapping: To take (someone) away
illegally by force, typically to obtain a
ransom.
• Murder: The unlawful premeditated killing of
one human being by another.
• Capital punishment: The legally authorized
killing of someone as punishment for a
crime.
• Kidnapping
• Torture
• Murder
• Abuse of Buddy with belts, bats
and steel toed boots.
• Attempted insurance fraud.
• Brothers and sisters or Suzanne
would stay in Buddy’s house while
she was away
• Forced him to get on his hands &
knees on a plastic mat; if he moved
they would abuse him
• The siblings would call Suzanne and
tell if he was misbehaving
• 1 sibling, who weighed over 300 lbs,
jumped on Buddy while he was on the
mat; forced him to fall flat to his
stomach
• At one point, Buddy requested that
someone there take him to the hospital
• Bathed him in a solution of bleach and
pine sol using a wire brush on his body
• Were giving him this kind of bath when he
died
• Medical examiners said: unable to count
the number of bruises he had because
there were so many
• Skin abrasions, burns, broken bones, skull
fracture, bruises
• Musso was dumped near a roadway in
Galena Park
• Killers disposed their gloves and shoes at
a dumpster nearby
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/05/suzanne-bassoexecuted-_n_4734017.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2551806/SuzanneBasso-executed-torture-beating-death-mentally-disabledman-intellect-seven-year-old-promised-marry-insurancescam.html
• Behavioral Theory: People are not born with violent behavior but they
learn to think and act that way from day to day experiences.
Suzanne was one of eight children, born to her mother, Florence and
Dad, John. She was a good child, completing all of the years or
schooling. But her mother, on the other hand was very involved in
crime. She was an older sister of the killer, Robert Garrow. This is
showing that Suzanne’s mother was born into a criminal family,
therefore Suzanne would be more absorbed to deviant behavior since
her mother was. Suzanne also married a man named James Peek, who
was involved in deviant behaviors as well. In 1982, he was in trouble
with the law for molesting his daughter and convicted of taking
indecent liberties with a child. This event never forced Suzanne to
divorce James or leave him for any reason.
Additionally, the entire family moved to Houston, Texas to get away
from the situation. When they arrived, they changed their name to
O’Malley to take a new identity. They didn’t take this to the court, the
family just changed their names by themselves, which is also not the
correct way you are supposed to do things. Secondly, she never
divorced her husband, she just fell in love with a new man named
Carmine Basso who owned a company called Latin Security &
Investigations Corporation. In Suzanne’s eyes, being in a relationship
with someone who works with the law was a plus for her, so that way
she could get away with more. Yet again, she changed her name to
Basso since she was unable to marry him. Once she figured all of this
out, she got all of her siblings involved. They all became criminals and
committed deviant crimes. They helped in the murder of Buddy Musso.
All in all, Suzanne learned to behave this way mostly from her mother,
who was not strict at all and let Suzanne have a lot of freedom. There
are signs of deviant behavior in many generations of the family.