Man on Trial for Fatal Stabbing of 17-Year-Old During Fight at Wisconsin’s Apple River Claims Self-Defense
A river tubing excursion turned deadly when a fight between a group of teens and a man they suspected of inappropriate behavior left a 17-year-old dead. The man who allegedly killed the teen during the fight says he acted in self-defense.
The fight broke out after a crowd of teenagers on a tubing trip approached an older man who they said was hassling them. In a video taken during the exchange, one of the teens asked the man, “You looking for little girls?”
One of the teens pushed the man into the water. The man, with a knife in his hand, exited the water and lashed out. Five teenagers were stabbed. One of them, Isaac Schumann, bled to death.
The tragic incident took place at a popular tubing spot on the Apple River in Hudson, Wisconsin, around 30 miles from Minneapolis.
Nicolae Miu, 54, has been charged with murder.
In court, witness Alexander Vang recalled trying to save his friend Schumann.
“I needed to hold pressure on the wound and dragged him to the shore,” Vang said.
When asked in court to identify the attacker, Vang pointed at Miu.
The jury saw in slow motion the moment Miu stabbed 24-year-old A.J Martin.
Martin survived and lifted his shirt to show the court a scar across his abdomen where he says he was slashed.
The defendant says he was defending himself when he lashed with the knife. He says that the 13 teenage tubers had been drinking heavily and that they attacked him.
Court TV’s Ted Rollins is following the trial.
“He can effectively get up there on the stand and say, ‘I was scared as soon as I fell into the water, I thought I might drown,’” Rollins tells Inside Edition.
Schumann’s mother testified for the prosecution. She said how she ran to the river bank after being notified that her son had been stabbed.
“I climbed down, looked, and saw Isaac’s hair lying down on the river bank. I knew it was him. They were trying to perform CPR on him,” the mother said in court.
In his opening statements, the lawyer for Miu says he had the knife with him to cut the twine needed to connect his group’s tubes.