HOUSTON – A Houston-area hitman died of natural causes while awaiting an execution date on Texas’s death row.
Officials with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice told KPRC 2 that Joseph Prystash died Thursday.
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Prystash and Howard Guidry were convicted and given death sentences for the 1994 murder of Farah Fratta, a mother of three. The pair was hired by Farah’s estranged husband, Robert Fratta.
The couple was in the midst of a contentious divorce and custody battle when Farah Fratta was murdered in the garage of her home. Robert Fratta’s intensifying sexual appetites prompted Farah to seek a divorce.
Robert Fratta, a former Missouri City law enforcement officer, promised Prystash a Jeep for helping arrange the murder and passing the murder weapon to Guidry, who was to be paid $1,000 for killing Farah Fratta.
Robert Fratta was executed in January 2023.
An execution date had not yet been set for Prystash.
Guidry remains on death row.
