Man found guilty of Point Defiance stabbing that nearly killed woman

Nicholas Matthew, 29, was found guilty of stabbing a woman in Point Defiance Park last year in Tacoma, The Tacoma News Tribune reported Tuesday.

Matthew was found guilty of first-degree attempted murder, with a deadly weapon sentencing enhancement, for attacking 34-year-old Victoria Nizzoli on a marked trail of Five Mile Drive on the afternoon of February 10, 2024.

He was convicted by a jury of six men and six women just hours after deliberations, according to The Tacoma News Tribune.

Matthew reportedly pinned Nizzoli to the ground and repeatedly stabbed her. Witnesses intervened, and Matthew ran from the scene toward the Owen Beach parking lot. After that, they lost sight of him.

“I begged him to let me go, that I could give him money, that I would give him anything he wanted if I could live,” Nizzoli said in a press conference. “That was when he made it verbally explicit that his intent was to kill me.”

Emergency management workers transported Nizzoli to the hospital with serious wounds.

Matthew arrested for Point Defiance stabbing

TPD arrested Matthew in March 2024 after finding out he had fled to Atlanta, Georgia.

Detectives secured a confidential, attempted murder in the first-degree warrant with nationwide extradition and flew to Atlanta. When they arrived in Georgia, they found out Matthew was trying to leave the country.

Law enforcement then caught him in San Francisco. He was held in a California correctional facility before being extradited to Washington.

In May 2024, a judge found Matthew not competent to stand trial after his mother said he had bipolar disorder and Schizophrenia, according to KIRO 7. He was ordered to 90-day treatment.

However, a competency evaluation subsequently determined he was fit to stand trial, KOMO News reported.

This story was originally published on August 4, 2025. It has been updated and republished since then.

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