Man charged in deadly Apple River stabbing claimed to police he acted in self defense Transcript

Speaker 1: (00:00)
A Stillwater family mourning the loss of a 17 year old son and brother who was stabbed to death while out tubing. Isaac Schuman was one of five stabbed on the Apple River. His family remembering him as an honor roll student who had a very bright future.

Speaker 2: (00:14)
The man accused of killing him appearing in court for the first time today. Nicolae Miu faces life in prison if convicted on the first count of murder. And we’re getting a clearer picture of what might have led up to the stabbings on the river.

Speaker 1: (00:27)
Our Babs Santos joins us now live from the St. Croix County Courthouse with what we have learned so far. Babs?

Babs Santos: (00:34)
Well, lawyers made it clear today. This was a completely random encounter between people who did not know each other before Saturday, but still it all obviously ended so terribly. We’re beginning to learn more about what led up to a deadly stabbing spree on Somerset’s Apple River that left 17 year old Isaac Schuman of Stillwater dead and four others hospitalized.

Speaker 4: (00:57)
Two have been released. Two remain in the hospital.

Babs Santos: (01:00)
Charging documents filed in St. Croix County court on Monday say 52 year old Nicolae Miu of Prior Lake is responsible. He was with his wife and friends tubing on the water Saturday when he split up from the group, he says, to search for a lost cell phone with scuba gear. Miu says he thought another group of tubers had the missing phone and approached them. But video of the altercation turned over to police shows tubers calling him a pedophile claiming Miu was looking for little girls. Witnesses later told law enforcement he was bothering young people on the tubes before a crowd gathered around him and told him to leave.

Speaker 5: (01:35)
And this appears to have been a completely chance encounter.

Babs Santos: (01:38)
He had the opportunity to leave according to Monday’s complaint, but instead he hit a woman that had confronted him before exchanging blows with another tuber and falling in the water. When he got up, he got up swinging, allegedly stabbing many people around him with a three inch blade that after extensive searches was later recovered by law enforcement. After this arrest captured in video shared with FOX9, and an interview at the St. Croix County Jail, Miu told the investigator it was self-defense, saying a lot of people came onto him calling him a child molester and insulting him for being in the water with scuba gear. He said, “Everything happened so fast and I thought that was it for me.” He feared for his safety unsure what the people were going to do to him, some of whom he claims had knives.

Speaker 5: (02:22)
There are apparently two sides to the story.

Babs Santos: (02:26)
When law enforcement told him the extent of what he had done, he responded that his whole life was down the tubes and he was sorry for how this ended up. In court today, his cash bail was set at $1 million as one of his victims watched from her hospital bed. And if convicted, he faces life in prison for the most serious charge. Back to you.