FORKS — A 4-year-old girl alerted law enforcement to her mother’s injury from the house where Laranda Konopaski, was mortally wounded, court records said.
Mariah Konopaski phoned 9-1-1 at 5:09 a.m. Sunday, saying her father, Moises Ramirez Matias, 25, had stabbed her mother, 18, and that her mother was dead, said a Forks Police Department probable-cause statement.
Ramirez Matias, who also uses the alias Dario Ramirez Moises, was arrested without incident Wednesday on Merchants Road in Forks for investigation of premeditated murder-domestic violence in the death of Laranda Konopaski.
He was charged with the murder Tuesday in documents filed in Superior Court.
The murder occurred in a trailer at 1205 S. Forks Ave. that had bloodstains “from one end to the other” and a bloodstained kitchen knife on the bed in the master bedroom, said Officer Gene Hoagland of the Forks Police Department.
“Mariah was in the house,” Mariah’s aunt, Melina Harris of Seattle, said Wednesday.
“That’s the most horrid thing.”
Laranda, lying in a hallway, was treated by emergency medical services personnel but died later at Forks Community Hospital, Hoagland said.
The girl told authorities that during an argument between her mother and father, she saw Ramirez Matias take a knife from the kitchen, saw her parents in the bedroom, then saw her mother lying on the floor with a neck wound that was bleeding.
“[Mariah] made a horizontal motion from one side of her neck to the other while describing the wound on Konopaski,” Hoagland said in his statement.
A family member will apply for permanent custody of the girl, who last fall had extensive surgery at Seattle Children’s Hospital for a bowlegged condition she has had since birth, Harris said.
“She was smiling and glad to see some family yesterday, and she gets to see family today, too,” Harris said Wednesday.
A savings account — No. 9930468963 — that will be turned into a trust account for Mariah has been set up for donations at any Sterling Savings Bank, Harris said.
“She is effectively an orphan,” Harris said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
