In “self-defense,” a Minnesota engineer killed a teenage kid and wounded four others after they called him a pedophile and got into a fight over a misplaced phone. He now faces life in jail.
Nicolae Miu, 52, of Prior Lake, Minnesota, was detained and charged with four counts of attempted homicide and first-degree intentional homicide after allegedly assaulting a group on Wisconsin’s Apple River on Saturday at approximately 3:45 p.m.
Isaac Schuman, 17, who was on the honor list, died after being discovered by emergency personnel “without vital signs” and with a “puncture wound in the upper abdomen near his left breast,” according to the criminal complaint. Miu now faces life in prison.
At Stillwater’s Lakeview Hospital, Schuman was declared deceased. The remaining four victims—Rhyley Mattison, 24; three unnamed guys, aged 20 to 22—were transported to a separate hospital, where they are still alive and well.
The violent altercation began after Miu, whose group was farther up the river, went back to find a ‘phone that was lost’ while wearing snorkeling gear, his wife, Sondra, told detectives, according to the criminal complaint.
While he was looking, Sondra said a ‘group of guys got off their tubes and started hitting’ him.
The group apparently accused Miu of ‘looking for little girls’ and being a ‘child molester’ after he had been snorkeling between two groups on each side of the river looking for the phone, according to a video viewed by the St. Croix DA’s Office in Wisconsin.
A man who was said to be wearing a yellow swimsuit sustained an injury to his abdomen after he shoved Miu into the water.
After the 51-year-old engineer got back to his feet, he began to ‘punch and slap’ 24-year-old Mattison in the face, who had just approached from the other side of the river.
The twentysomethings approached Miu after spotting him chatting to a group of teenagers who looked ‘uncomfortable,’ as he was allegedly asking for the numbers of ‘young girls.’
Speaking to DailyMail.com, Ryhley said: ‘I was with some friends tubing down the river, when a couple of them said that we needed to stop because there was a group of kids who looked uncomfortable.
‘There was an older man with them, so we stopped our tubes. The guys went over to see what was going on and then a few of my girlfriends and I also went over,’ she said. ‘They explained that this older guy was asking these younger boys if they knew younger women or could get him the numbers of some younger women. It was creepy.
‘I don’t really remember if someone said something to him, or exactly what was said, but then he punched my friend straight in the face.
‘I don’t know if I then said something to make him more upset, but then I remember him turning and staring at me and he put his hand down by my stomach.
‘He looked like he was going to punch me. I said to my friend I think he punched me, and “oh my god that hurt.”
‘I looked down and I was bleeding out because he stabbed me. After that I just remember us trying to get away.
According to the lawsuit, Mattison suffered damage to his left side. She asserted that the other three wounded people belonged to her group and were unacquainted with the adolescent.
‘I was the first one who was stabbed, and my other friend got cut from his bellybutton up. I have a punctured lung,’ she told DailyMail.com. ‘The doctors had to open up my stomach to fix my diaphragm and they’ve stitched me up. I’m on a lot of pain medication.
‘I think he had the knife between his fingers, I just saw that I was bleeding and I screamed call 911.’
Sondra stated that Miu had the knife attached to his belt when he first told police he got it off of tubers and used it in “self-defense.”
According to the DA’s office, there was “enough blood in the river that the water turned a tinge of crimson in several areas.”
Miu admitted to him during an interview that he “ran away” from the gang and that Schuman’s organization “manufactured two weapons.”
According to the complaint, the youngster said one of the guys tried to “drag his trunks down” after he asked the group if they had seen his friend’s phone and that the group mocked him. The youngster had a knife on him, according to Miu, while another person was carrying a “longer knife” that resembled a kitchen knife.
The engineer said that during the scuffle, he twisted the boy’s arm and “poked” the knife off of him. He said that “they assaulted me” and that he was “acting in self-defense.”
He admitted to the police that he started swinging the knife about because he “wanted out.”
Additionally, Miu said that the gang was “too inebriated” to pursue him and that they were acting “mean.”
‘Why did they want to scare me with a knife?’ he said to investigators.
Later, the attacker acknowledged having a knife on him “earlier” in the day, but he insisted he didn’t know where it was.
He reportedly said, “Oh no,” and buried his head in his hands after hearing of Schuman’s passing, according to the lawsuit.
Miu is being jailed on a $1 million bail and is scheduled to return to court on Monday.
Social media posts supporting the Second Amendment are abundant on the Ritchie Engineering employee’s sites, including one showing the rifle his wife gave him for his birthday in 2019.
The teen’s family is still grieving his passing and has said to KARE 11 that he had a “very bright future ahead of him.”
‘We are all heartbroken and devastated beyond words that his future has been tragically and senselessly cut short,’ they family said in a statement.
The teenager, who was about to enter his senior year of high school at Stillwater, wanted to major in electrical engineering.
In addition to playing golf, Schuman also began a “auto and boat detailing company” the previous year.
His “big smile, infectiously optimistic attitude, and raise everyone around him” were other things for which he was renowned.
For Mattison’s medical bills and Schuman’s burial costs, a GoFundMe has been created.
Schuman’s fundraiser has garnered $30,162 of it’s $50,000 goal, as of Tuesday afternoon. Mattison’s has raised $8,790 of its $15,000 goal.