Robert Fratta: Texas ex-cop who hired two men to fatally shoot wife almost 30 years ago executed
HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS: Nearly 30 years after Robert Fratta, 65, hired hitmen to kill his wife in the midst of a divorce and custody battle, he was executed on Tuesday, January 10 at 7:49 PM. The former suburban Houston police officer was killed at the state penitentiary in Huntsville with the administration of a lethal injection. The injection was a powerful dose of the sedative pentobarbital, which killed the accused 24 minutes after he was given the shot. This execution was ordered for the fatal shooting of his wife Farah in November 1994.
CBS reports that three minutes before the execution procedures were initiated, Barry Brown, who serves as Fratta’s spiritual advisor prayed for him as he remained strapped to the death chamber gurney with needles in his arms. Brown prayed with Fratta with their right hands linked together and also kept his prayer book next to the accused.
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Brown had apparently asked for prayers for the "hearts that have been broken ... for people who grieved and those who will grieve in days ahead.” He also went on to ask God to “be merciful to Bobby.” Fratta was also asked if he had a final statement, but he said “No.” Brown then continued to pray as the drugs began to take effect. He then closed his eyes and took a deep breath and his life ended swiftly after he snored loudly, six times. Kahan, Fratta’s son, and Farah’s brother Zain were among the witnesses who saw him die- neither of them was acknowledged by Fratta in his final moments.
"Bob was a coward in 1994, when he arranged the murder for hire of his estranged wife," Kahan said. "And 28-plus years later, he still was a coward tonight. When he was offered an opportunity to at least extend an olive branch to his son that he knew was watching this." He then went on to add, “And he still chose the coward's way out. He could have said: 'I'm sorry.'"
Nearly thirty years ago, it is said that Fratta had orchestrated the murder plot where he hired a middleman named Joseph Prystash to hire the shooter, Howard Guidry, who killed his wife. Farah was then shot twice in the head by Guidry in her garage. According to court records, Fratta had told a friend, "I'll just kill her, and I'll do my time and when I get out, I'll have my kids.” He is said to have gone around asking everyone he knows if they knew anyone that would kill his wife to aid him.
Both Prystash and Guidry were sent to death row for the killing. Fratta had more recently been one of the four inmates who unsuccessfully sued to prohibit the state’s apparent use of expired and unsafe execution drugs. Fratta was first given the death sentence in 1996, but the sentence was overturned on the basis of prohibiting the use of statements from co-conspirators as evidence. However, he was resentenced to death in 2009. His children, whom he killed his wife for, had been taken care of by Farah’s father Lex Baquer.