Convicted killer also charged with kidnapping
LAKEWOOD, Wash. – Pierce County prosecutors want a woman already serving a life sentence in California for her daughter’s death to stand trial in the girl’s kidnapping here.
Lisa Ann Platz was convicted of killing her 9-year-old daughter, Rebecca Aramburo, in 2001, about a month after the girl was kidnapped.
Platz, 36, was transferred to Pierce County this past week. On Friday, a not guilty plea to second-degree kidnapping was entered for Platz in Superior Court.
Judge Katherine Stolz also reopened an earlier case in which Platz was charged with custodial interference for keeping her daughter longer than allowed during a prearranged visit in the summer of 2001. Platz previously pleaded innocent in that case.
She remains held in the county jail. Trial is set to begin Dec. 11.
A kidnapping conviction won’t lengthen Platz’s life sentence, but officials want justice in Pierce County, said Grant Blinn, deputy prosecutor.
“A 9-year-old girl was murdered, Blinn said. “That girl deserved some justice in the community that she was raised in.”
If Platz’s murder conviction is overturned for any reason, prosecutors said they want to make sure she’s at least been convicted of other crimes against her daughter.
Platz had taken her daughter without permission before.
She disappeared with the girl in 1994 before a private investigator tracked her down in 1998, court documents said.
In April 2001, she was charged with custodial interference after keeping Rebecca for three months instead of the week that had been agreed upon by the girl’s father, Jose Aramburo.
A month before her September trial in the case, prosecutors summoned her to court after learning that she was going to try to take the girl again.
Platz denied the accusation, gave a valid address at a Fife motel and was released pending trial.
On Aug. 13, 2001, Platz and her boyfriend, James Csucsai, kidnapped Rebecca at gunpoint from her stepmother’s car in Lakewood, according to court documents.
Investigators found them Sept. 21 staying in a tent at a campground at Lake Tahoe, Nev. After a nine-hour standoff, authorities entered the tent and found Rebecca dead with her throat slashed.
Csucsai and Platz were nearly unconscious from knife cuts.
Platz was convicted of first-degree murder by a California jury, and sentenced in June 2003 to life without the possibility of release.
Csucsai committed suicide in jail in 2002.