Nicolae Miu, the man who fatally stabbed a teenager in July 2022 at the Apple River in Wisconsin, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Miu, 54, was found guilty on April 11 of first-degree reckless homicide of 17-year-old Isaac Schuman.
The convicted killer was also found guilty of lesser charges for stabbing and wounding four teenagers – three boys and a girl.
Miu, who was sentenced a day after the second anniversary of the tragic incident, bowed her head and cried in the courtroom.
“He stole Isaac’s life and he stole mine,” said Isaac’s mother, Alina Hernandez. “For me, justice is getting my son back… I’m thankful that the jury got it right and the monster will die in prison. He has no soul… he’s evil.”
Nicolae Miu, 54, who fatally stabbed a 17-year-old boy in the Apple River in July 2022, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Wednesday.
Isaac Schuman, 17, died after Miu stabbed him in the chest in the river on July 30, 2022. Miu was sentenced a day after the second anniversary of his death.
“He has no remorse. He plays the victim. It makes me sick. Your Honor, I ask you to sentence him to the maximum,” she added.
Before being sentenced, Miu addressed Isaac’s parents and said: “My heart is broken; my heart is very heavy. I never wanted this tragedy to happen.
“I pray to God for forgiveness, compassion and love for all those directly and indirectly affected by the outcome of this tragic event,” he added.
Miu’s rampage came after he was surrounded by a large group of rowdy teenagers while boating on the river and several of them pushed him while accusing him of “looking at a girl.”
Video of the interaction showed the teens booing Miu before he pulled out a Swiss Army knife and began hitting them.
When Isaac was attacked by Miu, Owen Peloquin, his friend, said he didn’t see him get stabbed but ran towards the teen and took him to shore with his other friend Alex after they noticed.
“I did the best I could to stop the bleeding,” Peloquin said as he became visibly emotional on the stand during his testimony.
Miu, of Prior Lake, Minnesota, claimed his fatal stabbing was “self-defense” after the gang claimed he was “looking for girls” and “taking pictures of girls” in the area.
Isaac was taken by ambulance to Lakeview Hospital in Stillwater, where he was pronounced dead.
Ryhley Mattinson, AJ Martin, Dante Carlson and Tony Carlson were the other four teenagers stabbed that day.
Mattinson had to undergo emergency surgery and when she arrived her blood alcohol level was 0.09.
Carlson suffered penetrating trauma from the stab wounds and had to undergo hernia surgery. His blood alcohol level was also 0.09.
Peloquin said Miu “strangely ran up to us and made us feel very uncomfortable.”
The Romanian-American engineer claimed to have acted in self-defense.
On the day of her sentencing, jurors were sent out of the courtroom to deliberate Miu’s fate as prosecutors and defense attorneys argued over whether it was self-defense.
“Nicolae Miu is a murderer who did not act in self-defense,” District Attorney Karl Anderson told jurors in his closing arguments, saying the video of Isaac’s July 2022 killing proved his point.
“One of the things the defense said at the beginning of the trial and in their opening statement was that they were glad that there was video,” he said. “We are too.”
Anderson also dismissed claims that Miu was scared when she stabbed Shuman, saying her behavior was a result of her bad temper.
Before being sentenced, Miu addressed Isaac’s parents and said: “My soul is broken; my heart is very heavy. I never wanted this tragedy to happen.”
“Nicolae wasn’t scared, he was furious,” Anderson said.
Anderson added that Miu could have brandished the knife as a threat and scared Shuman and his friends without resorting to horrific violence.
Miu’s lawyer, Corey Chirafisi, insisted his client had been attacked and threatened by an intrepid mob and that the stabbings were justified.
He said: ‘They got in his face, they shouted at him, they insulted him, they insulted him.
‘They laid hands on him and the group of six became brave.
‘The group of six became so bold that they surrounded him and began to mock him.
‘They do this to a man who has done nothing to them, absolutely nothing.
‘So when that man, Mr. Miu, tries to create some space between himself and Madison Coen, they attack.
‘They hit him, they push him, they slap him, they hit him again.
“They were strangled from all directions. And Nic Miu acted in self-defense.”
Chirafisi highlighted how fearless the boys seemed during the attack, their lies about him being a paedophile and how one was heard telling Miu: “You have 10 seconds.”
“In your everyday life, when someone tells you that you have 10 seconds, what usually happens next?” Chirafisi continued. “Nothing good comes after that. It’s reasonable, in our experience as adults, to take that as a threat.”
Shown photos and videos from that day during his trial, Miu said Madison Coen and Mattison touched him before they pulled out the knife.
“They were very close, very close to me. I could feel them and hear them,” Miu said.
Miu described how she grabbed her pocket knife as her fear became “really high” just before Madison put her hand on her upper arm.
In recorded interviews, Miu said: ‘Suddenly, they were like wolves around me and they were attacking me from all directions and I really, really feared for my life.
“They came up to me, hit me, jumped on top of me, and I don’t remember anything else.”
The three-inch Swiss Army knife that Miu used to stab the young men in 2022
Miu on the stand, crying and smiling as she talked about her pet dog during her eight-day trial, as more than three dozen witnesses took the stand.
During his testimony, he said he did not know how many people were attacking him, but he knew it was “more than I could handle” and that he has had “nightmares” ever since.
A witness, Larrion Davis, later told investigators he saw the attacker “taking pictures of little girls” in the area.
However, when he took the stand, Davis seemed confused by this claim and admitted he was not sure what he saw because “there was a lot going on.”
Miu’s then-wife, Sondra, told detectives the violent altercation began after Miu, whose group was further up the river, returned and found a “phone that had been lost” while wearing snorkeling gear.
As she watched, Sondra said, “a group of guys got off their tubes and started beating him up.”
The trial lasted eight days and more than three dozen witnesses took the stand.
Miu pleaded not guilty to the charges in September 2022.
He was originally born in Romania and immigrated to the United States as a teenager.
Sondra and Miu divorced after the incident and he was “living a peaceful and quiet life in Minnesota” and had “never been in trouble before.”
