Robert Fratta was sentenced to death by the State of Texas for the contract killing of his wife. According to court documents Robert Fratta who was a former police officer in Missouri would hire Joseph Prystash and Howard Guidry in order to murder his wife who would be fatally shot. Robert Fratta would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Joseph Prystash and Howard Guidry would also receive death sentences and remain on death row
- Robert Fratta was executed on January 10 2023
Robert Fratta 2022 Information
SID Number: 05446020
TDCJ Number: 00999189
Name: FRATTA,ROBERT ALAN
Race: W
Gender: M
Age: 64
Maximum Sentence Date: DEATH ROW
Current Facility: POLUNSKY
Projected Release Date: DEATH ROW
Parole Eligibility Date: DEATH ROW
Inmate Visitation Eligible: YES
Joseph Prystash 2022 Information
SID Number: 03350968
TDCJ Number: 00999202
Name: PRYSTASH,JOSEPH ANDREW
Race: W
Gender: M
Age: 65
Maximum Sentence Date: DEATH ROW
Current Facility: POLUNSKY
Projected Release Date: DEATH ROW
Parole Eligibility Date: DEATH ROW
Inmate Visitation Eligible: YES
Howard Guidry 2022 Information
SID Number: 05427297
TDCJ Number: 00999226
Name: GUIDRY,HOWARD PAUL
Race: B
Gender: M
Age: 45
Maximum Sentence Date: DEATH ROW
Current Facility: POLUNSKY
Projected Release Date: DEATH ROW
Parole Eligibility Date: DEATH ROW
Inmate Visitation Eligible: YES
Robert Fratta More News
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned down an appeal from a former Missouri City police officer convicted of hiring a hitman to kill his wife, one of two Houston-area death row losses in the high court this week.
Though he has consistently maintained his innocence, Robert Fratta was sentenced to death in 1996 after a Harris County jury found him guilty of masterminding a murder-for-hire plot designed to do away with his wife Farah.
“I’m completely innocent of my wife Farah’s death,” Fratta wrote in an appeal he filed himself, alleging he was framed by his slain wife’s father. “The evidence was also legally insufficient. Yet here I set on Texas Death Row awaiting execution unless this Court intervenes.
Robert and Farah Fratta were embroiled in a heated divorce and custody battle when the 34-year-old mother was shot in the head while stepping out of her car at their home.
The ex-officer and erstwhile firefighter was at church at the time, but investigators flagged him as a suspect in part because he’d reportedly asked around for a hitman before the crime. In the end, prosecutors said, he hired Joseph Prystash, who in turn hired a third man to carry out the killing. All three men are now on death row.
Written from a prison typewriter, the appeal the court declined to review on Monday raised a slew of questions including everything from claims about allegedly ineffective lawyers to insufficiency of the evidence used to convict him and problems with jury instructions during his trial.
But at the heart of the claim are questions about whether Fratta was allowed to file his own appeals in tandem with attorneys’ filings – something lower courts did not let him do, repeatedly ignoring some of the claims he filed himself.
“The rule of law is taking another hit,” said attorney James Rytting, who represents the condemned former officer. “Robert Fratta’s trial was deeply flawed, (he) proved that himself and was penalized for figuring out serious problems with his trial on his own and for trying to bring them to the courts’ attention.”
In addition to turning down Fratta’s case, the court declined to review the conviction of Shelton Jones, who was convicted of the 1991 killing Houston police officer Bruno D. Soboleski.