HUNTSVILLE, Texas — On Tuesday, a man is set to die for hiring a hitman to kill his wife.
Farah Fratta, a mother of three, was shot to death in her Atascocita home in 1994.
KHOU 11 went through court records, interrogation videos and 911 tapes to better understand the murder and why her husband was found guilty of killing her.
In the Harris County Courthouse records, we found the 911 tape from Nov. 9, 1994.
Dispatch: 911, what’s your emergency?
Caller: Yes, I just saw a shooting.
Dispatch: OK, do you know if anybody has been shot?
Caller: A lady is down in her garage. She’s been shot two times. She’s shot.
It was Farah, 33, who was going through a bitter custody battle for her three children. In a police interrogation video, her husband, Robert Fratta, claimed he didn’t kill his wife because he would have gotten more money if she lived.
Interviewer: Did you arrange to have your wife killed?
Fratta: No, I did not. I’ll put it this way, too. I mean, if anything happens to her. That’s one of the things I was thinking about on the way over here. It’s like, what the hell am I going to do now? I mean, me filing for custody, me filing for custody was also relying on her to be paying me child support at $600 or $700 per month.
Fratta denied doing it and turned on the charm in front of the camera, but investigators still charged him with murder.
“I remember ... it was your station and they had this incredible close-up of him winking at the camera and I had never seen a defendant smiling," said Andy Kahan, a victim advocate who sat through the trial.
Fratta was a police officer and a firefighter in Missouri City, who Kahan said knew how to work the system.
“It was kind of unfathomable to think that someone with that background would actually be responsible and come to find out that he had been asking multiple, multiple people – anywhere from eight to 10 people – if they could take out his wife," Kahan said.
It was Fratta’s oldest son who testified about being at church with his dad the night of the murder, calling into question what Fratta hoped would be his alibi.
“Even though he was with the kids, he spent most of the time on the phone outside of the church basically confirming everything and he also had money that he was going to be paying the murder-for-hire," Kahan said.
Judy Cox was a social worker who worked with Fratta’s children and sat in on his visitations after the murder.
“It was devastating, devastating and he did fine and I think he now knows his testimony was vital," Cox said while speaking about Fratta's oldest child's testimony.
In 1996, Fratta was sentenced to death. Farah’s parents decided they would raise the kids and even changed their last names to break all ties.
However, in 2009, Fratta was granted a new trial. The confessions of his two accomplices were thrown out and the family was forced to do it all again. After hearing all the evidence, the verdict was the same. Fratta returned to death row.
At the request of Farah's family, Cox and Kahan will be with them to witness the execution.
“Bradley even still calls me Ms. Judy, he says, 'Ms. Judy, I want you there,'" Cox said.
She said she doesn't expect Fratta to show any remorse.
“No, he’s a narcissist. They don’t apologize," she said.
Fratta declined our request for an interview. He filed a lawsuit trying to stop his execution. He claimed, along with other death row inmates, the drugs Texas uses are out of date.
We asked the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and a spokesperson told us, "All lethal drugs are within their use dates and have been appropriately tested."
The U.S. Supreme Court has also declined to issue Fratta a stay of execution.