What is the Apple River stabbing case?

This article contains a video of graphic content. Please read with caution.

In July 2022, the idyllic Apple River became the scene of a crime when 17-year-old Isaac Schuman was stabbed and killed, and four teens were injured. Two years later, Nicolae Miu is on trial for those attacks, in what’s now commonly known as the Apple River stabbing case.

On July 30, Nicolae Miu and his wife, Sondra Miu, were floating in the water with friends at the Apple River, a popular spot for outdoor recreation in the summer in Wisconsin’s St. Croix County, Fox9.com reported. That afternoon, Nicolae, then around 50 years old, broke away from the group with a snorkel and goggles to search for a cell phone one person lost in the water.

Around that same time, Nicolae was approached by a group of teens, also in the river, one of whom captured their interaction on cell phone footage. Nicolae’s defense team alleges he was attacked by the teenagers, and acted in self-defense. According to the prosecution, however, the teens confronted the defendant because Nicolae said he was looking for “little girls” underwater.

The teens told Nicolae Miu to “get away”

In a cell phone video captured by Jawahn Cockfield, the teenager at the Apple River who taped the Nicolae Miu confrontation, the teens can be heard telling Miu to “get away.” Tensions escalated as Miu was surrounded, and a teen touched his shoulder. Not long after the conflict erupted, emergency first responders arrived at the scene. Isaac Schuman later died at a local hospital from his stab wounds, and four others had serious knife injuries on their torsos and abdomens.

According to Cockfield, Miu was not captured on video stating he was “looking for little girls,” but when he heard him say that, and based on Miu’s other strange behaviors, he began filming. “He had said like a weird comment, which is why I started recording in the first place,” Cockfield said in his testimony at Miu’s trial.

Witnesses identified Miu, and he was arrested at the Apple River that same day. The knife used in the stabbings, which Miu later said he grabbed from one of the teenagers, was also recovered. Miu told the police he was in “self-defense mode” when the attack happened.

The cell phone footage is a key piece of evidence

Charged with first-degree intentional homicide and four counts of attempted first-degree intentional homicide, Nicolae Miu’s trial began in early April 2024, and central to the case is whether Miu was threatened, or if he had ample opportunity to walk away from the confrontation which, according to the prosecution, the cell phone clips illustrate.

Supporting Miu’s claim of self-defense, however, one witness from Miu’s party there that day testified at the trial,

“When he tries to get up out of the water, they attack him in the front, smack him across the front of the face while somebody comes from behind and starts pushing him down. And that moment he feared for his life, and he responded with self-defense.”

via CBS News

But according to state prosecutor Karl Anderson, “All Nicolae had to do was walk away,” Anderson said. “He eventually did walk away, but not after stabbing five people.” Miu pleaded not guilty to all charges. If convicted, Miu could be sentenced to life in prison.