Nicolae Miu takes a stand at the assassination of Isaac Schumann in the Wisconsin River

News from the USA

from Catherine Donlevy

The Minnesota man who stabbed a teenager to death and injured several others in a chaotic brawl with water pipes claims he “absolutely” should have used a knife to defend himself against the young group or he would have been killed.

Nicolae Miu, 54, testified Tuesday that he reached for the knife after the group’s taunts turned physical during the fatal July 30, 2022, attack in Apple River, Wisconsin, that killed the 17-year-old honors student Isaac Schumann.

“I was surrounded, they were screaming, they had just pushed me and it looked like they weren’t going to back down,” Miu told the stand.

The engineer offered a play-by-play along with a video of the frantic moments before plunging the knife into Schumann’s torso.

Miu — who looked noticeably thinner than in the nearly 2-year-old clip — was allegedly looking for a friend’s lost phone in a St. Croix County river when the young group accused him of taking pictures and “looking for little girls.”

The alleged killer said fear “creeped over him” when the teenagers’ shouts and laughter turned into a stampede.

In the video, Miu can be seen slowly pulling out a Swiss Army knife, which he says he was carrying to cut a rope for the planned water tubing adventure.

“I reach for my pocket knife because at one point my fear became very strong. I was getting ready to pick it up,” Miu said.

Two teenage girls who were with the group were the first to grab Miu, he testified, but the verbal altercation turned into a “horror situation” when one of the boys punched him in the face and into the water to “drown” .

Miu said he didn’t know how many people were attacking him, but he knew it was “more than he could take.”

Miu said he was “in a fog” about the rest of the incident – which involved allegedly plunging the knife into Schumann’s torso and slashing four others.

Shuman was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Miu admitted to the bench that he threw the knife into the water during the frenzy because he was afraid: “I felt like I had to throw it away.”

Asked by the defense if he still believed he should have used the knife against the young group, Miu insisted he would have been dead if he hadn’t.

“Absolutely,” Miu said. “I believe I would have been killed that day.”

Miu has long claimed self-defense in the shocking brawl, which he says has left him with constant nightmares.

In taped interviews previously played in court, Miu compared the teenagers to “wolves” who were “attacking me from all directions”.

“They came to me. They hit me, climbed on top of me, and then I don’t remember anything,” he said.

One witness who took the stand earlier in the trial claimed Miu was the one who approached the group. Two others told authorities Miu was the one who turned the altercation physical when he punched a young woman.

Miu has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder.