Sentencing set for Nicolae Miu in fatal stabbing of Stillwater teen on Apple River

Nick Ferraro, Pioneer Press
Updated ·3 min read

A sentencing date has been scheduled for Nicolae Miu, who was found guilty last week of fatally stabbing 17-year-old Isaac Schuman and wounding four other tubers on western Wisconsin’s Apple River in 2022.

Miu, 54, of Prior Lake, will be sentenced in St. Croix County Circuit Court in Hudson at 8:30 a.m. July 31, two years and a day after his confrontation with two groups of tubers in Somerset.

A jury of six women and six men deliberated for about six hours over two days last week before finding Miu guilty of first-degree reckless homicide with a dangerous weapon, four counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety with a dangerous weapon and one count of misdemeanor battery with use of a dangerous weapon.

Jurors could not agree on the most serious charges against Miu: first-degree intentional homicide, which carried a potential life sentence, and four counts of attempted intentional first-degree homicide. When they didn’t find him guilty of those counts, they moved to the lesser charges that prosecutors added the day before closing arguments.

District Attorney Karl Anderson told reporters after the verdict that Miu could face 97 years in prison if Judge R. Michael Waterman sentences him to consecutive terms on the counts. The reckless homicide conviction carries up to 45 years in prison, followed by 20 years of extended supervision.

Waterman on Wednesday ordered that a presentence investigation be conducted by the county’s community corrections department. The report could recommend a sentence.

At the sentencing hearing, attorneys for both sides will argue how long Miu should be imprisoned. Victim impact statements are also expected at the sentencing, which, like the trial, will be livestreamed.

Under Wisconsin’s “truth in sentencing” law, Waterman will determine how many years Miu spends in prison and how many on extended supervision. The system differs from Minnesota’s, where inmates typically serve two-thirds of their prison sentence incarcerated and the remaining third on supervised release.

Claimed self-defense

Miu testified that he feared for his life and acted in self-defense when he stabbed Schuman, of Stillwater, and seriously injured tubers not in the teen’s group: Ryhley Mattison, then 24, of Burnsville; A.J. Martin, then 22, of Elk River; and brothers Dante Carlson and Tony Carlson, both in their early 20s, of Luck, Wis. All of them suffered puncture or slash wounds in the abdomen or upper torso. Schuman bled to death.

Miu testified that he was carrying a snorkel and goggles while looking for a friend’s lost cellphone contained in a waterproof floating bag and that his “fear scale” kept growing during the July 30, 2022, confrontation. His attorneys tried to portray a scene in which Miu was surrounded by a drunken, angry mob who called him a “pedophile” and “raper” and attacked him.

The prosecution said Miu had opportunities to walk away despite taunts from the teens and that the confrontation turned violent after he became angry and punched Madison Coen, who was part of the Carlson brothers’ group.

“Absolutely senseless and horrific acts of violence and all Nicolae Miu had to do was walk away,” Anderson said in the state’s closing argument on April 11. “All he had to do was walk away. That’s what you’ve seen in this case.”

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