48 Hours Mystery: Thou Shalt Not Kill
Produced by Patti Aronofsky and Jenna Jackson
(This story was originally broadcast on Feb. 6, 2010)
In November 1994, the body of 33-year-old Farah Fratta was discovered in the garage of her Humble, Texas home.
"I remember the last day quite well, the day that it happened. Memories of her voice are definitely in my head," Farah's eldest child, Bradley, told "48 Hours Mystery" correspondent Richard Schlesinger. "When my mother was murdered I was about 7 1/2 years old."
"Farah Fratta, a very pretty lady. Her story was pretty tragic once she married Bob," Prosecutor Kelly Siegler explained. "The marriage was in a lot of trouble, a divorce was pending…
"It was November the 9th, 1994. That was the evening when Farah 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 get-away 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."
Bradley said his father took him, his brother and sister to church that night.
"While we were at the church, they would have us doing a bunch of little fun activities which also involved praying," he said.
"So Farah got her hair done, pulled into her garage… It just so happens that when Farah came home that night and backed into her garage, the neighbors that lived directly across from the garage saw her come home," said Siegler.
"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," said neighbor Laura Hoelscher.
"And I saw her laying down there by her car," said Darin Hoelscher.
"It was at that time, when we realized she wasn't getting up, we dialed 911," said Laura. "I just started giving them a play by play of what we were seeing."
Listen to the Hoelscher's 911 call
"After leaving the Catechism class we went back to the house. The first thing I remember was just all the yellow tape everywhere," Bradley explained. "I just remember arriving there and my dad acting very surprised as to what was going on."
"Bob Fratta was nowhere near the murder scene when Farah was shot," Siegler said. "He had definite proof to say, 'Bob wasn't there. Bob was at Catechism with us.' How many people use church as their alibi and use their own children as their alibi? Who does that? Lex and Betty Baquer 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.
"I came home about 7 o'clock from work and my wife had just prepared a nice hot meal for me," Lex explained. "The telephone rang. It was maybe 2 minutes after 8 o'clock."
It was a neighbor with news. 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," Lex continued.
"They wouldn't let me go to Farah," Betty aid. "I said, 'I am the mother. I need to get to my child.'"
"I got to her... she was alive… she was face up, but she was having convulsion," Lex said.
"One of the paramedics said she has lost a lot of blood [and said] I suggest you hurry up and go to the hospital."
Farah, 33, was a mother of three and she was dying. Medics rushed her to a chopper, but it was too late.
"I just couldn't believe it," Lex said. "I refused to believe that she was dead. I just stood there and kept staring at her."
"Her eyes were open. And I just put my hand up on her - just shut her eyes. And I felt her. She was cold. It hurt so much," Betty said. "…one person destroying a mother and three kids."
"The first thing out of my mouth," Lex said, was, "'Where is that son of a bitch?' Talking about my son-in-law, Bob Fratta. I knew immediately that Bob had something to do with it."
Bob Fratta, their daughter's estranged husband. They'd been married for 11 years and were involved in a messy divorce and a painful custody battle over Bradley, 7, Daniel, 6, and Amber, 4, was scheduled for trial in less than three weeks.
Kitty Waters Sneed worked alongside Farah at American Airlines for years and was Farah's closest friend. She said she was afraid for Farah's safety.
"I knew it was Bob… Right away" she told Schlesinger.
To the outside world, Bob Fratta was an upstanding citizen - working in public safety as both a police officer and a fireman; a man who doted on his three children. But there was apparently a very different side to Bob Fratta.
"There were things that embarrassed her to talk about," Sneed said.
Farah told Sneed her husband wanted her to do things to him sexually that not only embarrassed her, they sickened her.
"She showed me some stains in the closet where some things went on," said Sneed.
Farah detailed all of Bob's sexual desires in her divorce papers. Fratta's secret was about to become public record.
"There were things that he liked to have performed that I don't know if CBS wants to air on primetime," said Detective Larry Davis.
After her death, Davis read Farah's papers. He called the requests "real strange."
"She had to get out. Had to for the kids' sake," Sneed said. "They couldn't be around something like that."
Farah threw Bob out of the house and as the court date approached, Kitty said she seemed more and more on edge. "She had asked me if I felt Bob would ever have her murdered."
Police believe Farah had good reason to be afraid of Bob.
Just months before her murder, Farah called 911 in a panic. Det. Larry Davis rushed to her house.
"She was upset. She was crying," said Davis. "… She was in bed. And a male came into her house … had a mask on and stunned her with a stun gun - she was terrified."
The attacker broke in through a window and attacked Farah in front of her young children.
Bradley the oldest, was just 7.
"I woke up to my mother screaming," he said. "I had no idea really what was going on. All I know was my mother was in danger and something wasn't right."
Daniel, Farah's second son, was 5.
"We were just screaming, crying outside the door, ' Let our mommy go, leave her alone, leave her alone.'"
Farah suspected the intruder was a friend of Bob Fratta's. Whoever it was fled, leaving an injured Farah with her terrified children. He was never caught.
Detective Davis said "she thought her husband had something to do with it."
In his gut, Davis believed her; but without concrete proof, all he could do was warn Bob.
"I said, "Bob, I know what you're up to and it's not going to work. You need to leave her alone.'"
Four months later, Farah was dead and Det. Davis was called to the scene again.
"I said, 'Bob, I told you to leave her alone.' And he told me, 'I didn't do anything.'"
In fact, Fratta's alibi was hard to beat. Plenty of people saw him in church with his three young children while his wife was being murdered. Police were sure even if Bob wasn't at the scene, he at least had something to do with the killing - especially when they searched his car.
Police found $1,000 in the glove compartment. Bob explained that it was money to buy new carpeting.
"A thousand dollars in your glove box on the night that your wife is murdered surely raises a lot of suspicion," Davis told Schlesinger when asked if that was a lot of money to have in the car. "We believe that that may be money to pay off a hit man."
Fratta wasn't doing himself any favors that night while detectives interrogated him for hours.
"I asked him a question that stills sticks out in my mind today - the way he answered it. I said, 'Bob what should happen to somebody that kills somebody?' He said, 'They should go to jail forever.' I said, 'What should happen to somebody that has their wife killed?' And he told me 'it depended on the circumstances.' I walked out and I said, "He killed her.'"
But the police couldn't prove it, so they had to let Bob Fratta go - even though they believed they were letting a killer walk free.
"He's just happy go lucky… he's cheesing to the camera," Davis said. "He gave all indications that he was going to get away with this murder. "When the children woke up the next morning, they just sat up and they looked at me," said their grandmother, Betty Baquer. "They must be saying to themselves, 'Where's my mother?'"
Lex and Betty Baquer had to tell their grandchildren what happened: their mother had just been murdered and their father was the prime suspect.
"So I sat them down on the bed - all three of them. I said, 'Mommy's no longer with us,'" Betty continued. "Bradley said to me, 'Where is she?' I said, 'Baby, she died last night.'"
"I just remember crying for hours," Bradley said. "'Why did this happen to me? Why is this happening to my mother?'"
"It was terrible," Betty said. "I mean, you know, hysterically crying, trying to calm them down. They were crying. I was crying. [Lex] walks in the room he starts crying."
"For like five years after it happened, I thought every day I was going to wake up and it was going to be a dream," said Bradley.
"I cried for weeks and weeks afterwards," said Daniel.
Betty said Amber, the youngest, was most affected.
"Every night going to bed she would cry for her mother," she explained. "Hysterically crying, 'Grandpa, please.' Tugging on his shirt. 'Please. Please open the box. I want to see my mommy. I promise you one more time. Just this one time, then I'll let you put the nail in.' She put that little finger up. She wanted to see her mother."
"I kept saying, 'Where's my mom? When is she coming back?'" Amber said, "People would have to just look at me brokenheartedly and tell me, you know, 'She's not. She's not coming back. She's gone forever.'"
Betty and Lex were in mourning themselves for the death of their daughter. On top of that, Bob Fratta had been released by the police and was now trying to get custody of the children.
"You're fighting for custody of your grandchildren with the man who you believe at the bottom of your soul, killed your daughter," said Schlesinger.
"It was a very difficult situation, but you don't think at that time," Lex said. "All you want to do is save these innocent children and you cannot let these children go."
While Fratta was making his case for custody, detectives were building their case against him.
"We're just following him. We find out where he goes. Anywhere he visits we're going to visit. We know he likes to go to the gym," said Det. Larry Davis.
And it was at the gym that Davis heard about some interesting conversations Fratta had been having about his wife.
"He said, 'I'm gonna find a way to knock her off,'" said Mike Edens, who worked out with Fratta. "And I said, 'Knock her off?' And he goes, 'Yeah.'"
Edens said Bob casually asked him if he knew someone who would kill her.
"'What about some of these people you work with? You think they might be interested?' 'I don't know,'" Edens said.
He never thought Fratta was serious; just frustrated by the divorce.
But Fratta sure did like talking about killing his wife.
Jimmy Podhorsky also worked out at the gym. "He asked me if I knew of anybody. It seemed to be pretty much what he wanted to talk about… to me and everybody else."
According to Prosecutor Kelly Siegler, "15, 17 different guys" all said pretty much the same thing as Edens and Podhorsky.
"What do all these guys prove?" asked Schlesinger.
"They prove motive," replied Siegler.
Apparently, Bob Fratta had put some thought into how to have his wife murdered.
"He had a list of her daily activities," Podhorsky said. "He was gonna solicit a gang member."
"He said, 'I'll get a gun,'" said Edens.
But none of Fratta's gym buddies thought of calling the police. Podhorsky said, "He's going to come to his senses. He's just blowing off steam."
"There wasn't a lot of money up front. Maybe a thousand dollars, $2,000," said Podhorsky.
"It didn't raise any red flags, though?" asked Schlesinger.
"If it was anybody else, probably so," Podhorsky replied. "But just knowing Bob, he was so likeable and he was very kind. You didn't take him seriously."
Prosecutor Kelly Siegler disagreed. "Oh, he was serious. Deadly."
If Fratta was serious, his efforts to cover his tracks were a joke. Police got a big break when they went to St. Mary's, the church where Fratta was with his kids at the time of the murder. Trouble is, while he spent some time in the pews, he spent a lot of time on the phone.
"A lot of the ladies at the church recalled Bob being on and off the phone," said Siegler.
The church ladies weren't the only ones who remembered Bob making calls that evening. Bradley, who was 7 at the time, remembered his father being on the phone, too.
Fratta's beeper kept going off and he used the church phone to return the calls. The police were certain he was calling the killer. But when they traced the calls, they were led to a woman they had never heard of before: Mary Gipp.
"We tried to talk to her," Davis said. "She didn't tell us a whole lot."
"I didn't give them any information that they wanted," Gipp told Schlesinger.
"Perhaps I wasn't cooperative."
"She was a witch. She was a smart aleck. She was a bitch," said Siegler.
Investigators were sure Gipp was hiding something big.
"In my mind she was the key to this case," said Davis. That was especially the case after investigators learned about Gipp's live-in boyfriend. Joseph Prystash, an ex-con, liked to work out with Bob Fratta.
But Mary Gipp had no intention of revealing anything.
"I don't know why I did what I did," said Gipp. Mary Gipp knew it all. She knew who killed Farah Fratta, why and how. But for almost four months after the murder, she told the police nothing.
"I didn't give them any information that they wanted," Gipp told Schlesinger.
Detectives would have to find some way to make her talk. They knew that the prime suspect, Farah's husband, Bob, had called Gipp's cell phone and pager hours before and right after the murder. But that's all they knew. And until they learned more, they had to let Fratta remain free and see his children.
Social worker Judy Cox monitored Bob's visits and tried to help the children cope with their mother's murder.
"I explained to the children what would happen," Cox said. "Amber asked the most questions. 'Do you know that the bad guys put bullets in mommy's head?'"
"What do you say to a child who says that to you?" asked Schlesinger.
"'Yes, baby. I do know that.' And that's about all you can say to them."
"My job was to keep an eye on him," said Det. Davis. "To make sure that Mr. Fratta didn't try to take off with the kids."
Davis continued tailing Fratta. Almost daily, they would have the same conversation:
"He says, 'Hey Larry.' 'Bob.' He goes, 'Am I going to jail today?' And I said, 'Not today, Bob. Soon, but not today.'"
But that day would never come if Mary Gipp didn't start talking. So prosecutors hauled her before a Grand Jury.
"I said, 'Wait a minute. Are you charging me with murder?'" Gipp said. "And he said, 'Yes.' And I went, 'Wait a minute. Wait a minute here. Wait a minute.'"
Within hours, Mary Gipp made a deal. She'd cooperate, if she wasn't prosecuted.
"After I was given immunity for my testimony, I just told them everything. Everything I knew," she said.
Gipp said her boyfriend, Joe Prystash - who knew Fratta from the gym - was hired by him to set up the murder.
"They had my neighbor involved in it. He's going to shoot her and kill her," said Gipp.
According to Gipp, Prystash hired that neighbor, 18-year-old Howard Guidry, to be the trigger man. Guidry would get $1,000. Joe Prystash would drive Guidry to the murder scene, pick him up afterwards, and use Gipp's cell phone to tell Bob Fratta when it was done.
"He told me that Bob was going to take his children on Wednesday to church and that's when they were gonna wait for her. And that's when they were going to kill her," Gipp explained.
"He told you that?" asked Schlesinger.
"Yes," Gipp replied.
"Did you ever think of calling the police?"
"No."
"You could've stopped it."
"I could have. I really just didn't wanna deal with it, to be honest with you," she said. "You know, that sounds disgusting. But it's easier just to not do anything than it is to confront it and say, 'OK, this is going down.' I didn't want to be part of it."
Mary Gipp knew Farah. They both worked out at the gym.
Schlesinger remarked, "Had you done the right thing back then..."
"She'd still be alive," said Gipp.
"Farah would be alive. Those kids would…"
"Have a mom."
Instead, while Prystash and Guidry were killing Farah, Gipp was at home killing time.
"I was watching, at that particular time I was watching ice skating," she said.
She waited for her boyfriend to return.
"I asked him if she was dead. That was the only thing I asked,' she said.
And he said, 'Yes.' And I said, 'How do you know?' And he said. 'Because I was there. And I saw her.'"
Then, Mary Gipp and Joe Prystash had sex.
"I have no idea what kind of soul she's got. She has no soul. She's a monster. She's the demon," said Farah's father, Lex Baquer. "Soul of a devil," added his wife, Betty.
When Farah's parents heard prosecutors gave Mary Gipp immunity, it sounded to them like a deal with the devil.
"If anybody should be six feet under ground it's her. Not my daughter. She could have saved my daughter," said Betty.
But without Gipp, prosecutors couldn't make as strong a case against Bob Fratta. Siegler said Gipp was their No. 1 witness.
Here's why: when Prystash left Gipp's house after the murder, he left the gun behind and she began collecting evidence
"I took all the information off of the gun and wrote it down on a blue sticky pad," Gipp explained. "The information…the serial number, anything that was on the side of the gun, I wrote it down."
"Why did you write down that information as opposed to calling the cops and saying, 'My boyfriend just killed somebody?'" Schlesinger asked.
"I don't know," she replied.
After Mary Gipp got immunity, she gave police the serial number she copied down. They ran it immediately. That's when they learned the gun had been purchased by their No. 1 suspect.
"That trace came back to Robert Allen Fratta," said Davis.
Police didn't have to look far for the gun; it was right under their noses in one of their own evidence rooms. The gun had been used in a bank robbery after the murder. And luckily for detectives, the alleged bank robber had been caught with it. He was in jail and his name was Howard Guidry.
Guidry was questioned and it wasn't long before he confessed to everything.
He even went with police to the murder scene to show them how he did it.
"I pulled the gun up and I shot her once in the head," he told police. "And she like fell to the side… and as I started to run out, she wasn't really dead. So, I turned around. I closed my eyes and I shot her one more time in the head."
Guidry's crime scene walkthrough
The dominoes were falling quickly. After Guidry confessed, Prystash was arrested and also confessed. They were both charged with murder. They fingered Fratta, and five months after the crime, Bob Fratta - who hoped a well-timed trip to church would shield him from suspicion - was arrested and charged with murdering the mother of his three children.
Proving that he did will be harder than prosecutors thought. By the time the trial began, Prystash and Guidry said their confessions were coerced, withdrew them and refused to testify. To back up Mary Gipp's details of the conspiracy, prosecutors would have to call one witness who saw Bob Fratta making all those phone calls the night of the murder.
Prosecutor Kelly Siegler had no choice. Fratta's young son, Bradley, was called to testify against his own father.
"He was still a baby. We did not want to scar him for life," Siegler said. "It was horrible. To have to have a child come into a courtroom and talk about it, much less see their dad - and he still loved his dad. It was horrible."
But it worked. Bob Fratta was convicted of murdering his wife. It took the jury less than one hour. He was sentenced to death along with Prystash and Guidry.
Siegler was relieved.
"Relief that it's done, that it's over, that we did our job, and that the right thing happened," she said.
Of course, it wasn't over. It wasn't even close to over.
"I got a phone call on my cell phone," Siegler said. "'Kelly have you heard the news?' And I remember stopping and feeling sick and wanting to throw up."For years after his murder conviction, nobody thought Bob Fratta was going anywhere but the Texas Death Chamber. They were all wrong.
Thirteen years after the murder, a federal judge threw out Fratta's conviction, ordered a new trial and set off a new round of legal wrangling.
The judge said there is no doubt that Fratta is a vile man, but there was testimony linking Fratta to the murder that should never have been admitted. And suddenly there is a very real chance that he would be set free.
"I was shocked," said Fratta's daughter, Amber. "Who in their right mind could let somebody like that, you know, have a retrial? It's kinda scary."
Fratta's daughter is now 18. She should be getting ready for her high school prom, instead she was getting ready for her father's second murder trial.
"If he ever gets out, what will I do? What will my family do? He knows where we live," she said. " I mean, I honestly think that he would come to our house. And, you know, I feel like I would be put in a harmful situation if he ever got out. He's a psychopath."
Fratta's children have spent their lives struggling with the knowledge that their father killed their mother.
"I was always upset," said Daniel. "I would see kids with their dads or their mothers. I was always jealous, always mad."
For as long as Daniel can remember, he's had to explain to other kids why his parents aren't around.
"I remember one kid especially saying, 'Ha, ha. I have a mother and you don't."
Daniel punched that kid, and as he got older, he had trouble controlling his anger.
"I feel like it's all directed towards my dad," he said. "He's the reason why I'm angry so much."
For Bradley, Fratta's eldest child, the hardest part is reconciling the happy times he remembers before the murder with learning about the crime his father is accused of.
"I don't think I really believed it at that time that he did it," Bradley said. "Even to this day, I myself, I'm not 100 percent sure that he's the one that did this."
If the first trial didn't convince him, the second one might. Because the state would have to have to prove its case against his father all over again.
Mike Charlton, Fratta's original attorney, thought it was long overdue after all the mistakes he saw in Fratta's first trial.
"There was a very, very good chance that a court someday was going to give him a new trial," Charlton explained. "There was nothing fair about this trial… nothing the prosecution had done, nothing that the judge had done, nothing about the evidence, the way it came in, was fair."
The problems began with those confessions that Fratta's alleged co-conspirators, Joe Prystash and Howard Guidry, withdrew before Fratta's first trial. Both men refused to testify in that trial. But the prosecution still managed to get their statements before the first jury by calling a police officer to testify about them.
"Did you know that they were calling the police officer to testify about these confessions?" asked Schlesinger.
"No," Charlton replied. "I was flabbergasted. I mean, I truly was stunned that anybody would have the audacity to try to do this."
The jury heard testimony that Prystash admitted he was hired to arrange the murder.
Charlton said, "I immediately started screaming. I never sat down for the next two days. I was objecting every chance I had."
The Constitution says that defendants have the right to cross examine people who accuse them of crimes. But since neither Guidry nor Prystash took the stand, there was no way to cross examine them.
"That was just fundamentally wrong," said Charlton. "And I'm not exaggerating. It was an appalling moment in criminal justice."
Charlton believes prosecutor Kelly Siegler - an experienced and tough prosecutor - intentionally crossed the line.
When asked if she went over the line, Siegler responded with emphatic "No."
"Listen, when you're a prosecutor you want to make dang sure you have the right person who's committed a crime," she told Schlesinger. "And when I'm convinced that I have and all the evidence points to that person being guilty, I will very aggressively, following the law and following the rules, do everything that I can to make that case strong enough to withstand a conviction and appeal. Yes I'll do that."
But in Federal Court, Fratta won a new trial. Those confessions from Guidry and Prystash, the ones they said were coerced, were thrown out. And Mary Gipp's crucial testimony linking Fratta to the plot was ruled hearsay, and also tossed out.
Siegler didn't agree with any of the Federal Court decisions.
"How can you say that all the evidence against Bob Fratta is hearsay evidence when you have those phone records; you have that divorce motivation; you have all those people he solicited, you have the weapon. No - I don't agree," she said.
For Fratta's new trial, two new prosecutors - Denise Bradley and Mia Magness - will try to make the case against Fratta almost 15 years after the crime and without a lot of the key evidence.
"When you go into a trial where so much evidence has been taken away from you, it's frightening. It's really scary," said Magness.
"I was kind of left with the notion of well what's left? Bradley said. "How in the world are we going to be able to get a conviction?"Farah and Bob Fratta's daughter, Amber, hasn't seen her father since she was 4 years old and he went to death row. She hadn't wanted to until now, when he could be set free.
"I always knew I was just gonna, you know, give him a piece of my mind. Pretty much put him in his place," she said. "I have to see him before this re-trial happens."
To see him, she has to go to the jail where he was awaiting his new trial.
"I was petrified," she said. "Wow, I'm really doing this. I'm really about to meet my father, face to face for the first time in like 14 years."
Their meeting didn't go well.
"He had a grin on his face like he had no emotion to him at all," Amber said.
Amber didn't ask him if he killed her mother; she always believed he did. But she was hoping he'd show a little remorse.
"He had the nerve to tell me please go to Christian counseling. By then I had heard enough from him," she said. "Basically, I let him know that when he does die, he gets that needle in his arm, I wanna be there."
"Do you really mean that?" Schlesinger asked. "You really want to be there and see him die?"
"Honestly, when it comes down to it, I do think that he deserves it," she said.
Prosecutors Mia Magness and Denise Bradley are going to have to muster every bit of evidence they can if they're going to make Fratta finally pay for murdering his wife.
Bradley said, "He's got the motive," And their strongest evidence? "The phone calls, the gun, all the other people he'd solicited," she said.
But Fratta's new lawyers, Randy McDonald and Vivian King, should have an easier time defending him this time around since the appeals court threw out so much crucial evidence, like the confessions of his co-conspirators
"I don't think they have a case," MacDonald said. "He might very well walk out of this courtroom."
"We don't think that the government had the correct theory of actually what happened," added King.
The key to their defense for this new trial could be those work-out buddies who all thought Bob Fratta was joking when he talked about killing his wife.
"They thought he was kidding for good reason. Because he actually was kidding," said MacDonald.
But, they argue Joseph Prystash saw an opportunity to kill Farah and blackmail Bob. And that may be why they were phoning each other at the church that night.
According to MacDonald, "Prystash is setting him up to say, 'We just did this thing. You need to pay me off.'"
"It defies logic," said Prosecutor Mia Magness. "No thug is gonna commit that level of crime without a promise of something of benefit."
The defense also thinks it can explain that serial number that Mary Gipp copied off the gun, which led police directly to Fratta.
"The police already had the gun in custody," MacDonald said. "They easily could have had her write that down."
"The idea that they would manufacture evidence to convict an innocent person is sort of repugnant," said Magness.
The lines are drawn.
"The right thing happened the first time," said Magness. "We want the right thing to happen for the second time.
Bob Fratta is about to get one more chance at freedom and Lex and Betty Baquer are very concerned.
"He's guilty. He's got to be guilty," said Betty.
"There is no iota of evidence saying that he hired anybody," MacDonald tells the court. "There's no proof that money ever exchanged hands."
"The defendant continued to seek out people over and over and over again looking for the person who could get the job done," Bradley said in court.
Magness tells jurors, "He even supplies the gun."
In the end, prosecutors convinced the judge to allow Mary Gipp to say what she saw her boyfriend do after the murder. The judge wouldn't allow audio recording. Gipp also told the jury about the gun.
"It all came back," Lex Baquer said of his daughter's murder. "I have to relive the whole thing all over again."
It's now up to the jurors who have to consider weeks of testimony and piles of evidence.
"Did I do enough? Did I do my best?" said Magness.
Finally, after two days of deliberation, there's a verdict.
We the jury find the defendant Robert Alan Fratta guilty of capital murder as charged in the indictment…
Bob Fratta is found guilty again…but it's still not over. One week later, the jury was back deciding what was now the most important question: whether to send Fratta back to death row.
"As long as he's living he is definitely a threat to my family," said Lex Baquer.
Amber is so afraid of Fratta - even though he's behind bars - that she agreed to take the stand during the sentencing hearing. Amber asked jurors to send her own father to the death chamber.
"What did you tell the jury you missed in your life?" asked Schlesinger.
"My mom wasn't there for my first date, my first kiss, and she won't be there for the birth of my kids," she replied. On top of everything, Amber took the stand on her 19th birthday.
"The judge had said it's gonna be on your birthday, so I was ready for it that day," she said.
Some of the most damning evidence against Fratta may come from his own lips.
Prosecutors played jail house recordings of Fratta calling a female admirer who sent him photos…
Bob Fratta recording: "You look so sexy and delicious to me. You bring out the animal in me… Right now you're all I'm thinking about lately."
…and flirting while the jury was out.
"That's the day that you went out and you started deliberating," Magness told jurors. "I mean, doesn't that show you who he is."
"While they were working hard trying to make a decision about his future, he's unfazed," Magness told Schlesinger.
And while his lawyers are fighting to spare his life, Fratta said something to his lady friend that is at the very least, unexpected.
Bob Fratta recording: "See, it's funny. Because, I'm not actually against the death penalty (laughter). You know to me some people, you know, deserve it. "
"He believes in the death penalty for other people. He believes in justice apparently for other people," Bradley tells the jury.
"The way that he is wired is just so different than the rest of us," Magness told Schlesinger.
But after hours of deliberating about Fratta's punishment, the jury still has no decision.
The jury was still out on the day Amber would graduate from high school. Her family tried not to think about what was happening at the courthouse.
"Today is a very, very special day for Amber. I love my baby," said Lex. "This child, in spite of having to go through so much trauma, held her own. She's a strong child just like her mother. And I am so proud of her."
And then, 15 years after the call that came to tell them Farah had been murdered, they got another call. The jury was back.
"He's going to go to death row? Whoa!" Lex said on the phone.
It's the outcome Lex and Betty prayed for, and it answered at least some of Bradley's questions.
"I do believe that he is guilty and he was found guilty twice for a reason," he said, "but I physically haven't gotten that chance to ask my father face to face and I would like to do that."
"I mean, it was kinda mixed emotions," Amber said. "He is my dad, so it was, like, I was sad, but he deserved it at the same time."
Amber was able to graduate in peace and begin to look to the future.
"I just plan on getting my apartment with my friend next month and moving in and focusing on college after that," she said.
But none of the members of this family can face the future without remembering the past and trying to keep Farah alive… if only in their hearts.
"I still pray every single night to her," Bradley said. "Dear mommy, I love you and I miss you and I'll never ever forget about you. And I will continue praying for you every single night as long as I live."
Bob Fratta is appealing his conviction.
His children were adopted by Farah's parents. They have all taken their mother's maiden name.