Suzanne Margaret Burns was born on May 15, 1954, in Schenectady, New York. She was the youngest of eight children in her family. Her parents were Florence Garrow and John Richard Burns. Florence was the elder sister of Robert Garrow, who was known for being a spree killer and rapist. Suzanne had a difficult childhood marked by physical and sexual abuse. One well-known family story is that when her mother caught her smoking, she forced Suzanne to eat a pack of cigarettes instead of punishing her in a more traditional way.

In the early 1970s, Suzanne married James Peek, a Marine. After her marriage, she went by the name Sue Peek. The couple had two children—a daughter born in 1973 and a son born in 1974. James Peek had legal troubles and was arrested in 1982 for molesting their daughter. He was convicted of taking indecent liberties with a child. By the early 1990s, the Peek family moved to Houston, Texas, where they changed their last name to O'Malley, adopting an Irish-American identity. In Houston, Suzanne sometimes worked as a security guard in an apartment complex.

In 1993, while still married to James Peek, Suzanne began a relationship with Carmine Basso, a man from New Jersey who owned a security business. Although she never divorced Peek, she started using the name Basso and referred to Carmine as her husband. Eventually, he moved into her house. Carmine died in 1997.

Suzanne Basso was involved in the murder of Louis "Buddy" Musso, which occurred on August 25, 1998. Musso had recently moved from New Jersey to Texas to be with Basso. After just 16 days at her residence, he became a victim of horrific abuse. Basso, her son James O'Malley, and several accomplices allegedly forced Musso to perform chores and inflicted severe injuries on him.

During the days leading up to his death, Musso faced brutal treatment in an apartment shared by the co-defendants. He was beaten, subjected to cigarette burns, and scrubbed with a wire brush while being bathed in cleaning solutions. At one point, he was restrained on a mat where he was physically abused repeatedly. Witnesses reported seeing Musso with visible injuries prior to the murder.

On the evening before his body was discovered, Basso allegedly tried to establish a false narrative that Musso had run away. When Musso's body was ultimately found in Galena Park, Texas, it was severely battered. The medical examiner noted that he had suffered many injuries, including multiple fractures and extensive bruising all over his body.

Basso, along with her co-defendants, was implicated in the death due to their involvement in the attack and subsequent cover-up. Following the investigations, Basso was arrested and charged with capital murder. The circumstances surrounding Musso's death revealed that the motive was likely financial, tied to life insurance policies taken out on him, with Basso as the beneficiary.

The trials of Basso and her accomplices unfolded in the years that followed. Many were convicted, with varying sentences handed down. Basso was ultimately sentenced to death. After years on death row, she was executed by lethal injection on February 5, 2014.