On January 10, 2023, the state of Texas executed former police officer Robert Fratta, 65, at the Huntsville State Penitentiary.

He took his last breath at 7:50 pm about 24 minutes after the lethal dose of pentobarbital, a powerful sedative, was administered into his veins.

The former Houston police officer was executed for his role in the death of his estranged wife 28 years ago. He was convicted for hiring two people to murder his wife during a bitter custody battle and divorce that took place in 1994.

Just before the drugs were administrated, the warden asked Fratta if he had any last words, to which he replied, “No.”

Prosecutors said that Fratta planned and organized the murder and sought the services of a middleman, Joseph Prystash, who hired Howard Guidry, the shooter.

Fratta’s wife, Farah, who was 33 at the time of the murder, was killed in her garage in Atascocita, a Houston suburb. She was shot twice in the head. Robert Fratta was a police officer at the time of the murder. He denied any involvement in his wife’s murder.

At the last minute, the execution was delayed by one hour due to appeals seeking the scrapping of the death penalty. The execution was given a go-ahead by the US Supreme Court, the Texas Supreme Court, and the Texas Court of Appeals.

Fratta’s lawyers argued that prosecutors withheld information that a witness had been hypnotized, which led her to change her original recollection of events, claiming that she saw two men at the scene and a getaway driver.

However, according to prosecutors, the hypnosis produced no new information or identification and shouldn’t have made a difference in the outcome of the trial. They also argued that Fratta had told several acquaintances that he wanted his wife dead, and he asked them if they knew anyone who could do the job. Fratta told one of his friends that he would even kill her himself, do his time, and get his kids when he was released from prison.

The two other men who carried out the murder, Prystash and Guidry, were also convicted of the crime and sent to death row.

Fratta’s lawyers also made an effort to stop the state prison from executing prisoners by suing them for using what they claimed were expired drugs that were unsafe. A judge ruled in favor of the State of Texas on Tuesday, January 10, overruling Fratta’s lawyers.

Fratta received his first death sentence in 1996, but a federal judge overturned the conviction a few years later. In 2009, Fratta had another trial and was resentenced to death.