Apple River stabbing trial: Nicolae Miu's interrogation video played in court

HUDSON, Wis. (FOX 9) - Nicolae Miu's jailhouse interrogation video was played in court on Tuesday as part of his trial for the fatal Apple River stabbing on July 30, 2022. During the interview, he claimed he didn't have a knife.

Nicolae Miu, 54, is charged with first-degree intentional homicide and multiple counts of attempted first-degree intentional homicide that could send him to prison for life if he is convicted. He is accused of killing Stillwater, Minnesota, native 17-year-old Isaac Schuman and wounding four others — Dante Carlson, Tony Carlson, Ryhley Mattison and A.J. Martin — on July 30, 2022. 

READ MORE: Timeline of what happened

St. Croix County Lt. Brandie Hart interviewed Miu in jail after the stabbing on July 30, 2022. You can watch the interrogation in the player above. 

The defense acknowledged Miu lied during the interrogation in jail.

In the interrogation video, he told Hart he defended himself. He said the tubers had weapons — a smaller knife and a kitchen knife — and he took the smaller knife from them when they attacked him. 

READ MORE: Key players in Nicolae Miu's trial

He told Hart the group of teenagers insulted him and grabbed his snorkel, and threw it — and then another group of mostly girls came over and called him a "child molester". He said they attacked him, and he went into self-defense mode. Then he returned to his tubing group, who asked him what happened, but he wouldn't tell them because he needed to calm down. 

"I feared for my life," Miu told Hart, noting when two people pointed knives at him, "I thought that was it for me." Luckily, he said, he took a knife from one of the teenagers and didn't remember if he made contact with anyone with the knife. 

Miu told Hart he did not have a knife on the river — he only had one at the beginning to cut the rope for the tubes, but he didn't know what he did with it, though he may have put it back in his vehicle.

During the fight, Miu said he fell into the water and was hit in the back and near the ear. He said, "I was fearing for my life," and he was worried they would find out who he was and do something to his wife, he told Hart. 

"I was just floating down the river," Miu said. "Why do these things happen? It's beyond me. I don't understand. I mean, why would they — that many people come down on one person that wouldn't actually do anything… I truly, truly feared for my life." 

Miu told Hart multiple times they tried to pull his swim trunks down. 

Hart told Miu four people were hurt and one person died. Miu asked her if it was because the group of people was fighting each other, and then he said, "Oh my god" and put his hands on his head. 

Miu then suggested underage drinking needs to end on the Apple River because it has turned into a "sewer." 

Apple River stabbing: What happened 

According to court records, the stabbing took place on the Apple River near the Sunrise Bridge in Somerset, Wisconsin, which allegedly started after Miu was apparently looking for a friend, Ariel Chaguez Leyet's, cell phone in the river but was confronted by tubers who said he was acting sketchy. 

The encounter escalated, and he apparently punched a female, Madison Coen, on the left side of her face before Miu was punched, eventually leading to the stabbing.

Witnesses began calling 911 at 3:47 p.m. on July 30, which indicated there were potentially four or five victims with wounds to the mid to upper body. 

A 24-year-old woman from Burnsville, Minnesota, a 20-year-old and 22-year-old man from Luck, Wisconsin, and a 22-year-old man from Elk River, Minnesota, were injured in the attack. But, 17-year-old Schuman died from his injuries.   

According to the criminal complaint, Miu claimed the attack was self-defense. He said he was "so fearful" for his safety, adding he wasn't sure what the people in the river were going to do to him, and "everything happened so fast."