With God as a Witness
In November of 1994, Farah Fratta was discovered dead in the garage of her Texas home. She had been shot twice in the head. At the time, Farah was in the midst of a divorce with her husband, Bob Fratta. Bob was an upstanding citizen, who worked in public safety as both a police officer and a fireman. But divorce documents were about to make his dark side public. To investigators, Bob was the likeliest suspect in his wife’s murder, but he had a seemingly airtight alibi: he was at church with their three children at the time of Farah's death. “48 Hours" correspondent Richard Schlesinger reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 02/05/2011. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+.
- Duration
- 41m
- Broadcast on
- 25 Dec 2024
- Audio Format
- other
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I remember the last day of quite wealth, the day that it happened. Memories of her voice are definitely in my head. Bradley, Bradley, I'll be here honey. My mother was murdered. I was about seven and a half years old. Far apart of a very pretty lady, her story was pretty tragic once she married Bob. The marriage was in a lot of trouble, a divorce was pending. It was November 9, 1994, that was an evening where Farah had stopped to get her hair cut with no idea about what was going to happen. At the time, Farah was getting her hair cut, the shooter and the getaway driver were in a car together on the way to Farah's house and the shooter was going to hide in the backyard. On that same evening, Bob had picked up all three of the kids, it was his night for visitation. He took me and my brother and my sister, we all went to church. While we were at the church, they would have us doing just a bunch of little fun activities which also involved praying. So Farah got her hair done, pulled into her garage. It just so happened that when Farah came home that night and back into her garage, the neighbors that lived directly across from the garage, saw her come home. We heard something outside like a pop and I got up to look out the window and as I was doing that, we heard a scream and I saw Farah fall and then we heard another shot. I saw her laying down there by her car. It was at that time when we realized she wasn't getting up that we dialed 911. Now on Keanu, what is your emergency? Yes, right, this one was shooting, please. It's just started giving them a play-by-play of what we were seeing. The car had just pulled out the suspect and behind the tree, okay ma'am. It blocked me and just got in the car but we gave it a silver car I believe and one burnt out headlight, the suspect just took off. We have Jesus to help this woman. How will we hurt our destiny? After leaving the Catechism class, we went back to the house. The first thing I remember was just all the yellow tape everywhere. Bob Fronto was nowhere near the mercy when Farah was shot. He had definite proof to say Bob wasn't there, Bob was a Catechism with us. I just remember arriving there and my dad acting very surprised as to what was going on. How many people use charges their alibi and use their own children as their alibi? Who does that? I came home about seven o'clock from work and my wife had just prepared a night. Nice hot meal for me. Lex and Betty Barker couldn't know it when they sat down for dinner that November night but they were enjoying the last few moments of life as they knew it. The telephone rang, that was maybe two minutes after eight o'clock. It was a neighbor with news. Betty, Farah has been shot. Oh my God. Their only daughter, Farah, had been ambushed. Two bullets to her head. I don't know how fast I drove, I have no idea and when we went there the lights were all over the place and the cop was trying to stop us.
Transcription truncated.
In November of 1994, Farah Fratta was discovered dead in the garage of her Texas home. She had been shot twice in the head. At the time, Farah was in the midst of a divorce with her husband, Bob Fratta. Bob was an upstanding citizen, who worked in public safety as both a police officer and a fireman. But divorce documents were about to make his dark side public. To investigators, Bob was the likeliest suspect in his wife’s murder, but he had a seemingly airtight alibi: he was at church with their three children at the time of Farah's death. “48 Hours" correspondent Richard Schlesinger reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 02/05/2011. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+.