Authorities say Joseph Niemiec fled Wisconsin after the attack and was arrested by a Nebraska trooper later the same day.

RACINE, Wis. — An 18-year-old Wisconsin man is accused of stabbing his father in the neck after asking him for a hug, then fleeing hundreds of miles before a Nebraska state trooper stopped him later that day, according to police and a criminal complaint filed in Racine County.

Joseph M. Niemiec, of Pleasant Prairie, faces one count of attempted first-degree intentional homicide with use of a dangerous weapon in connection with the Aug. 12 attack. The complaint describes a sequence that began shortly before 1 a.m. inside a Racine home and ended about 10 hours later with Niemiec in custody along Interstate 80 in Nebraska. His father survived and police said he was expected to recover. The allegations in the complaint have not been proved in court, and the available records reviewed for this report do not establish a motive for the attack.

Racine police were sent to the 4200 block of 21st Street at about 12:51 a.m. after receiving a report of a stabbing. Officers found the injured man conscious and holding pressure to a wound on his neck, according to the complaint. He was still able to speak with investigators and described what he said had happened inside the home. Authorities later said he was taken for treatment at Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee. Police publicly reported that his injuries were not expected to be fatal and that he was expected to make a recovery.

The father told officers that the encounter began when he heard a noise at a back door and at first thought someone might be trying to enter the house. He then realized the person was his son, according to the complaint. Niemiec came inside and asked whether they could talk. The two sat in the kitchen, where Niemiec spoke about difficulties in his life and made statements about previous suicide attempts, the complaint says. Those remarks form part of the father’s account to investigators, but authorities have not said that they established a motive or explained why the alleged attack occurred.

According to the complaint, Niemiec briefly left the kitchen and then returned and asked his father for a hug. As the two moved toward one another, investigators allege, Niemiec produced a knife and stabbed his father once in the neck. The father told police the impact initially felt like a blow to his throat. He moved backward and put a hand against the injury. The complaint says Niemiec then tried to approach him again with the knife. The father managed to take the weapon away and push his son back, creating an opportunity to get out of the house.

The confrontation did not end at the doorway, according to the account investigators included in the complaint. Police said the father ran from the residence while Niemiec followed him. The injured man disposed of the knife in a trash container and reached a neighboring home, where he was able to call 911. By the time officers arrived, Niemiec was gone. Authorities said he had left the Racine area in a Chevrolet Malibu. Police then began looking for him while medical personnel treated the father and investigators worked to establish what had happened inside the house.

Later that morning, the search moved far beyond southeastern Wisconsin. The Nebraska State Patrol said it was notified that a suspect wanted in connection with a Wisconsin attempted homicide might be traveling west on Interstate 80 in a Chevrolet Malibu. At about 11:45 a.m., a trooper spotted a matching vehicle near the Alda interchange at mile marker 304, west of Grand Island. The trooper made a traffic stop and confirmed that the driver was Niemiec, according to the patrol. The agency said he was arrested on the Wisconsin warrant without reporting further violence during the stop.

The Nebraska arrest placed Niemiec roughly 650 miles from Racine only hours after police had been called to the Wisconsin home. State patrol officials said he was booked into the Hall County Jail while authorities in the two states coordinated the next steps. The Nebraska State Patrol said it was working with the Racine Police Department on the investigation. Wisconsin authorities had already obtained a warrant, and Racine County prosecutors filed the criminal charge as the extradition process was being arranged.

The criminal complaint charges Niemiec with attempted first-degree intentional homicide while using a dangerous weapon. Wisconsin’s attempted-homicide charge is based on the prosecution’s allegation that a defendant acted with the intent required for first-degree intentional homicide but did not complete the offense. The dangerous-weapon allegation is also part of the filed accusation. Those charging decisions state what prosecutors intend to prove; they are not findings of guilt. No conviction or judicial determination concerning the allegations was identified in the source material reviewed for this report.

Early coverage of the case drew attention to a Hall County booking photograph of Niemiec, with some reports describing his facial expression as a smile or smirk. The photograph documents his appearance after his arrest, but an expression in a booking image does not establish what happened inside the Racine home, why it happened or what Niemiec intended. The central evidence described publicly instead comes from the father’s account, the responding officers’ observations, the criminal complaint and the law-enforcement records surrounding the interstate search and arrest.

The case also left a Racine neighborhood confronting a serious act of violence that police described as involving members of the same family rather than an unknown attacker. One neighbor told FOX6 Milwaukee that the proximity of the incident was startling but said she viewed it as isolated. Police have not publicly described an ongoing threat to the surrounding area. The father had been able to escape, seek help at another residence and give officers an account of the confrontation despite his injury, providing investigators with information that quickly focused the search on Niemiec.

By Aug. 17, Niemiec remained in Nebraska while extradition proceedings were pending, according to reports citing authorities in both states. FOX6 reported that an extradition hearing had been scheduled for Sept. 15. The currently available sources reviewed for this article do not reliably establish the result of that hearing or confirm a later Wisconsin court appearance, so no subsequent procedural outcome is being inferred. That distinction matters because an arrest in another state does not by itself establish when a defendant has been physically returned to the jurisdiction where the criminal case was filed.

The most recent verified account therefore leaves Niemiec charged in Racine County and subject to the interstate process required to return him from Nebraska. His father was expected to recover, according to Racine police. Prosecutors still bear the burden of proving the attempted-homicide allegation in court, and the public records and reports reviewed here do not provide a verified explanation for what authorities say led from a late-night conversation between father and son to the stabbing.

Author note: Last updated Sept. 28, 2026.