HOUSTON — The Supreme Court declined to grant a stay of execution for Robert Fratta, who is scheduled to be executed in Texas Tuesday.
The court denied two applications in which Fratta sought a stay. There are no recorded dissents. The Supreme Court declined to grant a stay of execution to Fratta, who paid a teenage hitman to murder his estranged wife in 1994.
During two capital murder trials, prosecutors said Robert Fratta paid the 18-year-old triggerman $1,000 to kill Farah Fratta, the mother of his three children.
Prosecutors painted Robert Fratta as a sexual deviant who was motivated by a messy divorce, a bitter custody battle and money from an insurance policy.
In 1996, it took jurors less than an hour to convict Fratta and they sentenced him to death. He showed no emotion but family members from both sides wept.
Farah's father, Lex Baquer said it had been especially hard on the couple's children.
"The young girl, she still asks for her mother. 'Mommy, I love you, Mommy. I miss you, Mommy,'" Lex said. "'I know you're in heaven, and someday when I die, I will meet you in heaven.'"
"I cannot wait for the day when I see him laying on that table, waiting to get the injection. That will be justice for me," Farah's mom, Betty Baquer, said after the first trial.
Justice would be a long time coming for Farah Fratta's loved ones. Thirteen years after she was killed, her husband's conviction was overturned because of inadmissible evidence.
During a 2009 retrial, the couple's children – who were then young adults – testified against their father, and Fratta was convicted and sentenced to death again.
Now 65, after 26 years on death row, a judge finally scheduled his execution date. It came too late for Farah Fratta's father, who died in 2018.
