OSHKOSH — Jurors found Grant Fuhrman guilty of attempted first-degree intentional homicide Friday night, after about four hours of deliberation.
Authorities said Fuhrman stabbed a school resource officer in 2019 at Oshkosh West High School with a two-pronged grilling fork.
The prosecution and defense had both made their final appeals to the jury earlier in the day before deliberations began around 3:00 p.m.
Assistant District Attorney Tracy Paider showed a video of Fuhrman circling Officer Michael Wissink’s office moments before the attack and compared him to a predator waiting for the right moment to go for the kill.
“The defendant…was a shark,” she said, “circling his prey and when the moment was right to strike, he did.”
Paider said Fuhrman stabbed Wissink “over and over” with a grilling fork before Wissink shot Fuhrman in self-defense. Fuhrman’s defense team, however, said only one wound on the officer’s body matched the two-pronged fork the defendant brought to school that day. Defense attorney Tim Casper argued this demonstrates his client did not intend to kill Wissink, but was attempting “suicide by cop.”
“He gets over to the side and he takes the serving fork and he pokes him in his back left shoulder blade...” said Casper, “…you don’t try to kill someone when you’re trying to commit suicide, because they then can’t kill you…what he’s trying to do is aggravate him enough to get him to shoot him.”
Finally, in front of a packed courtroom Friday evening at the Winnebago County Courthouse, the jury reached a decision in the case of Grant Fuhrman after a nearly two-week trial. The jury found 20-year-old Fuhrman guilty of first-degree attempted homicide.
Fuhrman's family and friends were emotional at the verdict. Corey Mehlos, Fuhrman’s attorney, said that this is only a setback in the case and not yet a final outcome.
Mehlos said that he believes Fuhrman has grown significantly since 2019 and that it’s important to look at his age and mental well-being at the time of the attack.
"One of the biggest mistakes we make here in Wisconsin is sometimes we treat teenagers as adults, and we punish them as criminals for things that they don't have an adult brain to make that choice on,” Mehlos said after the verdict.
Winnebago County Judge Daniel Bissett scheduled Fuhrman’s sentencing for May 1.
