Lex Bakker
Appearances
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
But none of Frada's gym buddies thought of calling the police. What are you thinking?
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
But if Frotto was serious, his efforts to cover his tracks were a joke. Police got a big break when they came here to St. Mary's, the church where Frotto 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.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
And the church ladies weren't the only ones who remembered Bob making calls that evening.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Frada'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.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
She didn't tell us a whole lot. Perhaps I wasn't cooperative. Investigators were sure Mary Gipp was hiding something big. In my mind, she was the key to this case. Especially when they learned about her live-in boyfriend. His name? Joseph Price Dash. He was an ex-con and he liked to work out with Bob Frotta. But Mary Gipp had no intention of revealing anything. She was a witch.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Mary Gipp knew it all. Who killed Farah Frata? 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. Detectives would have to find some way to make her talk. They knew the prime suspect, Farah's husband Bob, had called Gipps' cell phone and pager hours before and right after the murder. But that's all they knew.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
And until they learned more, they had to let Frata remain free and see his children. I explained to the children what would happen. Social worker Judy Cox monitored Bob's visits and tried to help the children cope with their mother's murder.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Detective Larry Davis continued tailing Frada. And almost daily, they would have the same conversation.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
But that day would never come if Mary Gipp didn't start talking. So prosecutors hauled her before a grand jury.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Within hours, Mary Gipp made a deal. She'd cooperate if she wasn't prosecuted.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
She said her boyfriend, Joe Price-Dash, who knew Frada from the gym, was hired by him to set up the murder.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
According to Mary Gipp, Price-Dash hired that neighbor, 18-year-old Howard Guidry, to be the trigger man. Guidry would get $1,000. Joe Price-Dash would drive Guidry to the murder scene, pick him up afterwards, and use Gipp's cell phone to tell Bob Frotta when it was done.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
But Mary Gipp knew Farah. They both worked out at the gym. Had you done the right thing back then, Farah would be alive. Those three kids would have a mom. Instead, while Price Dash and Guidry were killing Farah, Mary Gipp was home, killing time. Do you remember what you were doing?
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
She's a... Soul of a devil. When Fara's parents heard prosecutors gave Mary Gipp immunity, it sounded to them like a deal with the devil.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
But without Gipp, the prosecutors could not make as strong a case against Bob Frotta. How important a witness was she? Number one. Here's why. When Price Dash left Gipp's house after the murder, he left the gun behind and she began collecting evidence.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
After Mary Gipp got immunity, she gave police that serial number she copied down, and they ran it immediately. That's when they learned the gun had been purchased by suspect number one. That trace came back to Robert Allen Frada. Police didn't have to look far for this gun. It was right under their noses in one of their own evidence rooms.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
It 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. To my right is Howard Guidry. Guidry was questioned. It wasn't long before he confessed to everything and he even went with police to the murder scene.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
The dominoes were falling quickly. After Guidry confessed, Price Dash was arrested and also confessed. They were both charged with murder. They fingered Frotta, and five months after the crime, Bob Frotta, 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.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Proving that he did will be harder than prosecutors thought. By the time the trial began, Price, Dash and Guidry said their confessions were coerced, withdrew them and refused to testify. To back up Mary Gipps' details of the conspiracy, prosecutors would have to call one witness who saw Bob Frotta making all those phone calls the night of the murder.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Prosecutor Kelly Siegler had no choice. Frata's young son, Bradley, was called to testify against his own father.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
But it worked. Bob Frada was convicted of murdering his wife. It took the jury less than one hour. He was sentenced to death along with Price Dash and Guidry.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Four years after his murder conviction, nobody thought Bob Frotta was going anywhere but the Texas death chamber. And they were all wrong.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
13 years after the murder, a federal judge threw out Frotta's conviction, ordered a new trial, and set off a new round of legal wrangling. My head was spinning. The judge said there is no doubt that Frada is a vile man, but there was testimony linking Frada to the murder that should never have been admitted. And suddenly, there is a very real chance. I was nervous, very nervous.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Fata's daughter is now 18. She should be getting ready for her high school prom. Instead, she's getting ready for her father's second murder trial.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Frata's children have spent their lives struggling with the knowledge that their father killed their mother.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
For Bradley, Frata'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.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
If the first trial didn't convince him, the second one might, because the state would have to prove its case against his father all over again.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Mike Charlton, Frata's original attorney, thought it was long overdue after all the mistakes he saw in Frata's first trial.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
The problems began with those confessions that Frata's alleged co-conspirators, Joe Priestash and Howard Guidry, withdrew before Frata'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.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Did you know that they were calling the police officer to testify about these confessions? No.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
The Constitution says that defendants have the right to cross-examine people who accuse them of crimes. But since neither Guidry nor Price-Dash took the stand, there was no way to cross-examine them. That was just fundamentally wrong.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
I think so, yes. Intentionally? Yes. Did you go over the line? No. I mean, you are a type A prosecutor. You'll have to admit it. I mean, is it not possible that you would have gone however slightly over the line?
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
But in federal court, Frotta won a new trial. Those confessions from Guidry and Price-Dash, the ones they said were coerced, were thrown out. And Mary Gipps' crucial testimony linking Frotta to the plot was ruled hearsay and also tossed out. Did you agree with any of the federal court decisions? No. Not one bit of it?
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
For Frotta's new trial, two new prosecutors, Denise Bradley and Mia Magnus, will try to make the case against Frotta almost 15 years after the crime and without a lot of the key evidence.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Farrah and Bob Frata's daughter, Amber, hasn't seen her father since she was four and he went to death row. She hasn't wanted to until now, when he could be set free.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
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.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Are going to have to muster every bit of evidence they can. He's got the motive. If they're going to make Frada finally pay for murdering his wife. And so what are your two or three strongest pieces of evidence that you can present?
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
I don't think they have a case. But Frotta's new lawyers, Randy McDonald... He might very well walk out of this courtroom.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
...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. The key to their defense for this new trial could be those workout buddies, who all thought he was joking when he talked about killing his wife. They thought he was kidding for good reason, because he actually was kidding.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
But Joseph Price-Dash, they argue, saw an opportunity to kill Farrah and blackmail Bob. And that may be why they were phoning each other at the church that night.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
The defense also thinks it can explain that serial number that Mary Gipp copied off the gun, which led police directly to Frada.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Bob Frotta is about to get one more chance at freedom. I'm very concerned, no doubt about it.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
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. 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.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
The wait for a verdict is taking its toll. All rise. Finally, after two days of deliberation,
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Bob Frotta is found guilty again. But it's still not over. One week later, the jury is back, deciding what is now the most important question, whether to send Frotta back to death row. As long as he's living, he is definitely a threat to my family. Amber is so afraid of Frada, even though he's behind bars, that she's agreed to take the stand during this sentencing hearing.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Amber asked jurors to send her own father to the death chamber. What did you tell the jury that you missed in your life?
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
But some of the most damning evidence against Frotta may come from his own lips.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Prosecutors played jailhouse recordings of Frotta calling a female admirer who sent him photos. You bring out the animal in me. And flirting while the jury was out.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
And while his lawyers are fighting to spare his life, Frata says something to his lady friend that is, at the very least, unexpected. It's funny because I'm not actually against the death penalty.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
But after hours of deliberating about Frata's punishment, the jury still has no decision. There's no news that doesn't look very good to me. In deadlock. The jury was still out on the day Amber would graduate from high school.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Her family tried not to think about what was happening at the courthouse.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
And then, 15 years after the call that came to tell them Farah had been murdered, they got another call. The jury was back.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
It's the outcome Lex and Betty prayed for, and it answered at least some of Bradley's questions.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Amber was able to graduate in peace. and begin to look to the future.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
But none of the members of this family can face the future without remembering the past, trying to keep Farah alive, if only in their hearts.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Lex and Betty Bakker 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.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Oh, my God. Their only daughter, Farah, had been ambushed. Two bullets to her head.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Farah was 33, a mother of three, and she was dying. Medics rushed her to a chopper, but it was too late.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Bob Frotta, their daughter's estranged husband. They'd been married for 11 years and were involved in a messy divorce. He was fighting for the kids. She was fighting for the kids. A painful custody battle over seven-year-old Bradley, six-year-old Daniel, and four-year-old Amber was scheduled for trial in less than three weeks. Were you afraid for the safety of your friend, Farah? Yes, I was.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Kitty Waters Sneed worked alongside Farah at American Airlines for years and was Farah's closest friend. I knew it was Bob. Right away? Right away. To the outside world, Bob Frada was an upstanding citizen, working in public safety as both a police officer and a fireman.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Farah told Kitty her husband wanted her to do things to him sexually that not only embarrassed her, they sickened her.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Farrah detailed all of Bob's sexual desires in her divorce papers, and Frata's secret was about to become public record.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
After her death, Detective Larry Davis read Farrah's papers. How strange were these requests? Real strange.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Farrah threw Bob out of the house, and as the court date approached, she seemed more and more on edge.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Just months before her murder, Farrah called 911 in a panic, and Larry Davis rushed to her house.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
The attacker broke in through a window and attacked Farah in front of her three young children. I woke up to my mother screaming. Bradley, the oldest, was just seven.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Farrah suspected the intruder was a friend of Bob Frotta's. Whoever it was fled, leaving an injured Farrah with her terrified children, and he was never caught. She thought her husband had something to do with it. In his gut, Detective Davis believed her, but without concrete proof, all he could do was warn Bob.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Four months later, Farah was dead and Detective Davis was called to the scene again.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
In fact, Frata's alibi was hard to beat. Plenty of people saw him in church with his three young children while his wife was being murdered. But 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. What did they find in the car? $1,000. The $1,000 was in the glove compartment.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Bob explained that it was money to buy new carpeting. $1,000, is that unusual in these parts?
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Franta wasn't doing himself any favors that night, while detectives interrogated him for hours.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
But the police couldn't prove it, so they had to let Bob Frotta go, even though they believed they were letting a killer walk free. I hope they find the guy.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Their mother had just been murdered, and their father was the prime suspect. Oh, my God. And Lex and Betty Bakker had to tell their grandchildren what happened.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Betty and her husband Lex were in mourning themselves for the death of their daughter. On top of that, Bob Frada 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 a man who you believed at the bottom of your soul killed your daughter.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
While Frada was making his case for custody, detectives were building their case against him. We just follow him.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
We know he likes to go to the gym. And it was at the gym that Detective Larry Davis heard about some interesting conversations Frada had been having about his wife. He said, I'm going to find a way to knock her off. Mike Edens worked out with Frada. And I said, knock her off. And he goes, yeah. He says Bob asked him if he knew someone who would kill her.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
Yes, yes. He never thought Frada was serious. Thought nothing of it. Just frustrated by the divorce. but Frana sure did like talking about killing his wife. He asked me if I knew of anybody.
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
And according to prosecutor Kelly Siegler... 15, 17 different guys. They all said pretty much the same thing as Mike and Jimmy. What do all these guys prove?
48 Hours
With God as a Witness
And apparently, Frada had put some thought into how to have his wife murdered.