Texas Executes Ex-Cop Who Hired 2 People to Kill Estranged Wife

This booking photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows Robert Fratta, a former suburban Houston police officer, on death row. Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP

A former Houston police officer was executed on Tuesday for hiring two people to murder his estranged wife over 30 years ago.

Robert Fratta, 65, was executed by lethal injection at the state jail in Huntsville for the fatal shooting of his 33-year-old wife, Farah Fratta, in November 1994, during a contentious divorce and custody battle.

Fratta was pronounced deceased at 7:49 p.m., roughly 24 minutes after receiving a deadly dose of the powerful sedative pentobarbital.

Bradley Baquer, Fratta’s son, and Zain Baquer, Farah’s brother, were among those who witnessed Fratta’s death. He didn’t acknowledge them or make a statement before receiving the lethal injection.

Fratta was the first person in the state of Texas to be executed this year. Texas officials said he stared straight ahead at the ceiling and did not acknowledge the victims or witnesses during his execution.

“The death penalty is reserved for the worst in America. It is the government’s and society’s punishment for the worst crimes,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg told reporters outside the prison on Tuesday night.

“Robert Fratta had his wife murdered to settle a divorce; something that millions of Americans go through. It was a premeditated crime. It involved two other people; a middleman and a shooter,” she continued. “And the victim Farah Fratta’s life was negotiated down to $1,000 and a car. For this, she was murdered.”

“Robert and Farah had three children—one of them was here tonight. Fratta never apologized,” Ogg continued. “There was no question about his guilt. Two separate juries tried him, convicted him, and sentenced to death. And tonight, justice was had.”

Andy Kahan, a victim advocate from Crime Stoppers of Houston, said the day was about Farah Fratta, not Fratta.

“This is not about Bob. Bob was a coward in 1994 when he arranged the murder-for-hire of his estranged wife,” Kahan said. “He was a coward in 1994 and 28 years plus 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, as well as Farah’s brother.”

Kahan said that Fratta chose to ignore the witnesses rather than apologize to the people whose lives he “destroyed.”

“Make no mistake about it, Bob Fratta is the epitome of an atomic bomb, and he exploded a family,” Kahan said. “And the reverberations and remnants of the actions of a narcissistic egomaniac play on for 28 years plus.”

Execution

Fratta’s spiritual adviser, Barry Brown, prayed over him while he was strapped to the death chamber gurney for about three minutes before the execution began.

Brown rested his right hand on Fratta’s right hand, his prayer book on the pillow next to Fratta’s head. Brown asked for prayers for “hearts that have been broken ... for people who grieved and those who will grieve in days ahead.” He asked God to “be merciful to Bobby.”

As the lethal injection began, Brown prayed over Fratta, who closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then snored loudly six times before all movement stopped.

Fratta has maintained his innocence in the murder-for-hire scheme that prosecutors allege Fratta masterminded.

According to prosecutors, Fratta used middleman Joseph Prystash to hire gunman Howard Guidry, who shot Farrah Fratta twice in the head in her garage in Houston’s Atascocita neighborhood.

Fratta was a Missouri City public safety officer at the time.

Earlier that day, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito denied Fratta’s request for a stay of execution and a writ of certiorari—a judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency (pdf).

These final-hour appeals with the U.S. Supreme Court, the Texas Supreme Court, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals slightly delayed the execution by less than an hour.

Last Thursday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously refused to commute Fratta’s death sentence to a lesser penalty or grant him a 60-day reprieve.

Fratta was sentenced to death in 1996, but his conviction was overturned by a federal court that decided that admissions from his co-conspirators should not have been brought into evidence. The court said in the same finding that “trial evidence showed Fratta to be egotistical, misogynistic, and vile, with a callous desire to kill his wife.”

In 2009, he was retried and sentenced to death.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.