Woman stabbed at Tacoma’s Point Defiance points out her attacker as trial opens
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- The victim, a 34-year-old architect, identified the defendant in court as her assailant
- DNA evidence and surveillance footage linked Nicholas Matthew to February 2024 attack.
- Matthew, who is representing himself, faces attempted murder charge in trial.
Jurors seated in the trial of a man accused of attempted murder in Tacoma heard testimony Tuesday morning from the woman who was repeatedly stabbed with a knife while she walked alone at Point Defiance Park.
She was the second witness to testify after a Pierce County prosecutor laid out her case against the defendant, Nicholas Fitzgerald Matthew, who has pleaded not guilty. He is representing himself, declined to give his own opening statement and said he had no questions for the woman he’s charged with trying to kill.
The woman, previously identified only as Jane to protect her privacy, is a 34-year old architect named Victoria Nizzoli who said she’d lived in Pierce County for four years. During her testimony, deputy prosecuting attorney Lisa Wagner asked her why she thought she was targeted.
“I think I was the one lone woman on the trail,” Nizzoli said.
Wagner asked if she recognized anyone in the courtroom as her attacker. Nizzoli turned at the witness stand to face Matthew and pointed to him.
Matthew, 29, appeared in the packed courtroom wearing a blue dress shirt with a dark tie. His hair stuck out in every direction. At his side was Peter Reich, an attorney on standby to assist Matthew from the Department of Assigned Counsel. Matthew has remained in custody on $2 million bail while his case has pended.
In response to questions from Wagner, Nizzoli told jurors that Feb. 10, 2024 was a beautiful, sunny day in Tacoma, and she decided to go to Point Defiance Park because that weekend was the Lunar New Year celebration in the city, and she was searching for glass art known locally as Monkeyshines.
It felt like a normal day in the park, Nizzoli said. She visited a few times a year to run and train for races or pick up trash. There were a lot of people at Point Defiance that day, and Nizzoli said she felt safe with so many around. Nizzoli picked out the Blue Trail and started looking through ferns and around trees.
About 10 to 15 minutes into her walk, Nizzoli said, she heard measured footsteps coming up behind her on the gravel. She turned and saw a man standing within arms reach. The smell of weed, or cannabis, hit her, which Nizzoli said was a reason she let her guard down. She said she assumed he’d forgotten about personal distance because he was high.
Nizzoli said she apologized for being in his way and offered to let the man pass. She said the man told her, “Oh no, that’s fine,” smiled and chuckled. Nizzoli started to walk away.
“He followed me instantly, and that was when I felt the first hit,” Nizzoli said.
“I can still hear the, the clunk sound,” she added.
Nizzoli said she didn’t feel the knife on the first impact to the back of her head, but as she continued to be attacked she realized she was being stabbed. She said the first thing she screamed was, “I knew it,” because something was telling her she wasn’t safe.
“I started screaming for help, and I realized people might not come if I wasn’t clear, so I started screaming, ‘He’s going to kill me, he’s killing me,’ repeatedly,” Nizzoli said.
Nizzoli was stabbed in the skull and the back, and she fell forward to the ground, where she flipped over to face the man. She said he had her arms pinned to her side with his legs, and while he was trying to stab her in the face at one point, she held the knife in her teeth.
She said she stopped screaming once she was facing him and offered him money or anything to let her go. The man told her he couldn’t let her go, telling her she was a pedophile and that she had to pay for what she did.
Answering questions from Wagner, Nizzoli said she had never been accused of such a crime, much less convicted, and she had never met Matthew before.
At one point in the assault, Nizzoli said, the man held his knife against her throat, like he was trying to get to an artery.
“He was saying, ‘Tilt your head back so I can end your pain. You need to meet your maker,’” Nizzoli said.
The next thing Nizzoli remembered was hearing someone else come up the trail and confront her attacker. She said she was bracing for the next impact of the knife when suddenly he was off of her.
According to prosecutors, that’s when a woman at the park with her husband kicked Matthew in the head, and he ran off down the trail before disappearing into the woods. Two men who had responded to Nizzoli’s screams followed him until they lost sight of him as he ran toward the Owen Beach parking lot.
Tacoma Police Department officers and medical personnel arrived and took over life-saving care from the bystanders who had helped Nizzoli until she was transported to Tacoma General Hospital, where she immediately underwent surgery.
Wagner showed jurors grisly photographs of Nizzoli’s wounds. Her ear had been slashed in half, her fingers were bloodied from defensive stab wounds and she had cuts all over her head, shoulder, face and back. Nizzoli said stab wounds on her skull required over 150 staples.
None of the injuries were visible as Nizzoli testified Tuesday. Judge Jennifer Andrews ordered news media to not record images of her. Nizzoli spoke confidently while on the stand. Her voice only showed emotion when she described how Matthew had told her to “meet your maker.”
It was the second time Nizzoli has publicly recounted her horrific attack. Two weeks after it happened, she spoke in a news conference with the Police Department while her assailant was still on the run.
Who is Nicholas Matthew?
Matthew, who was identified as a suspect after detectives collected DNA from the victim’s clothing, was arrested in late March 2024 at San Francisco International Airport, where he was allegedly trying to flee the country.
Matthew has no prior criminal convictions in Washington state, but court records state he has criminal history in California, Georgia and in the Army. He served in the military from August 2015 to June 2018 as a computer/detection systems repairer, according to the Army’s public affairs office at the Pentagon. He had no deployments and held the rank of specialist at the end of his service.
His mental competency was examined several times before he was cleared to proceed to trial, and he was prescribed antipsychotic medications during two 90-day periods of inpatient treatment at Western State Hospital, but court records indicate he mostly refused medicine.
Jurors likely won’t hear about Matthew’s previous mental health issues. In pre-trial arguments, prosecutors asked that there be no references to that, noting that the defense had not endorsed any expert witnesses to testify about Matthew’s mental health.
What jurors will hear in state’s case
The trial is estimated to last for two weeks, according to court records. A jury panel that appeared to be made up of seven women and eight men, which includes three alternate jurors, is tasked with deciding if Matthew is guilty.
In her opening statements, Wagner told the jurors that she would prove to them that it was Matthew’s intent to kill Nizzoli, and that evidence would show the attack was premeditated, that he formed the intent to murder her before he began running at her on the trail.
Wagner gave jurors a wide-ranging overview of the investigation into Nizzoli’s stabbing, including how a DNA sample submitted to a database of DNA profiles matched with Matthew’s name, which she said broke the case open.
Jurors will also hear, Wagner said, about how license-plate cameras in Tacoma and Ruston captured Matthew’s yellow Chevy Spark driving to and from Point Defiance Park. His apartment in Federal Way was also searched, but she said the knife used in the attack was never recovered.
Once Matthew was detained, he was interviewed by detectives. Confronted with surveillance video of his vehicle at the park, Wagner said Matthew told detectives he had been to the park but never left his vehicle.
Detectives also noticed a large gash on his right palm that appeared infected. Wagner said Matthew’s explanation was that he cut himself shaving.
This story was originally published August 5, 2025 at 2:20 PM.
