Nicolae Miu is found guilty of first degree homicide of boy, 17, during tubing trip after gang of teens accused him of being pedophile

Nicolae Miu has been found guilty of the first-degree intentional homicide of a 17 year-old boy after he was surrounded by a gang of teens while tubing on a Wisconsin River. 

Miu, 54, an engineer, was convicted Thursday morning over the September 2022 stabbing of Isaac Schuman on the Apple River in Wisconsin.

The convicted killer was also found guilty of lesser charges of stabbing and injuring four teens - three boys and a girl. 

He sat in silence with his head bowed as the verdict was read out after less than a day's deliberation. The trial lasted eight days, as more than three dozen witnesses took the stand.

The families of Miu's victims were heard giving a sigh of relief, Kare11 reporter Lou Raguse said. 

As he was led away afterwards, Miu was seen turning to stare at his surviving victims and their families. 

First-degree reckless homicide was the third option available to jurors, after first-degree intentional homicide and second-degree homicide. 

It carries a sentence of up to 60 years in prison.

Jurors were sent out to consider the case Thursday afternoon, with prosecutors refuting claims that Miu acted in self defense. 

They claimed he could have dispatched his attackers by flashing his knife without resorting to violence. 

The Romanian-American engineer had claimed he acted in self defense.

He was searching for a friend's lost phone in the river when he was falsely accused of being a pedophile who was taking photos of young girls. 

Video of the interaction showed the teenagers heckling Miu before he pulled out a Swiss army knife and started jabbing them. 

When Shuman was attacked by Miu, Owen Peloquin said that he didn't see him get stabbed but rushed over to him and brought him to shore with his other friend Alex after they realized. 

'I tried my hardest to stop the bleeding,' Peloquin said as he became visibly emotional. 

Schuman was taken in an ambulance to the Lakeview Hospital in Stillwater where he was pronounced dead. 

Ryhley Mattinson, A.J Martin, Dante Carlson and Tony Carlson were the other four teenagers stabbed that day. 

Mattinson had to have emergency surgery and when she arrived her blood alcohol level was at 0.09. 

Carlson suffered penetrating trauma from his stab wounds and had to have a hernia repaired and his blood alcohol level was also 0.09.   

As he testified in court on Monday, Peloquin said that Miu 'just weirdly like sprinted at us, just made us all super uncomfortable.' 

On Wednesday, jurors were sent out to consider Miu's fate as prosecutors and defense attorneys battled over whether it was self-defense. 

Nicolae Miu is a murderer who did not act in self defense, DA Karl Anderson told jurors in his closing arguments - and said video of Isaac Shuman's July 2022 killing proved his point.

'One of the things the defense said at the beginning of trial and in their opening was they’re glad there’s a video,' he said. 'So are we.' 

Anderson also rubbished claims Miu, originally from Romania, was scared when he stabbed Shuman - and said his behavior was the result of a bad temper.

'Nikolae was not in fear, he snapped.' Anderson said.

Anderson added that Miu could have brandished the knife as a threat and scared Shuman and his friends off without resorting to violence, which saw four others stabbed and injured too. 

He sought to play down assertions Miu had been cornered, saying: 'He's not in an alley with no way out, people blocking his exit

Corey Chirafisi, Miu's lawyer, insisted his client had been rounded on and threatened by a fearless mob and that the stabbings were justified.

He said: 'They got in his face, they screamed at him, they called him names, they swore at him.

'They put their hands on him and the group of six, they became brave.

'The group of six became brave to the point that they circled him and start taunting him.

'They do this to a man who has done nothing, absolutely nothing to them.

'Then, when that man, Mr. Miu, tries to create some space between him and Madison Coen, they pounce.

'They punch him. They push him. They slap him. They hit him again.

'They choke him. From, all directions. And Nic Miu acts in self-defense.'

Chirafisi highlighted how unafraid the boys seemed during the attack, their lies about him being a pedophile and that one was heard saying to Miu 'You got 10 seconds.'

'In your everyday experiences in life, when someone tells you that you have 10 seconds, what normally comes after that?' Chirafisi continued. 'Nothing good is coming after that. It's reasonable in our experiences as adults to take that as a threat.'