The 8-year-old victim did not know Nichalas San Souci before the assault that interrupted a family outing near the University of New Mexico.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The attack had no reported history behind it: an 8-year-old girl and a 24-year-old stranger happened to be inside the same Albuquerque restaurant, and within moments a family outing became a violent criminal case that would end 15 months later with a 12-year prison sentence.
Authorities have consistently said Nichalas San Souci did not know the child he attacked April 25, 2025, at Saggio’s near the University of New Mexico. The girl had gone with her mother to look at a decorative fountain or waterfall inside the restaurant while the family waited. Prosecutors said San Souci struck the child in the head with a glass beer bottle and injured her neck with the broken bottle. She was taken to a hospital and needed 19 stitches.
The absence of a prior relationship became one of the defining circumstances in the case. There was no publicly reported family dispute, continuing argument or earlier confrontation between San Souci and the girl. Instead, police records attributed to San Souci a brief explanation that the child had gotten in his way. Her father, Britton Rose, said she had done nothing to provoke the assault. The statement did not provide a detailed motive, and the available public reporting does not establish a broader reason for why San Souci selected the child.
The restaurant setting meant the attack unfolded in front of witnesses and cameras rather than in isolation. The Albuquerque Journal reported that a police officer reviewed security video showing San Souci take a bottle and smash it over the girl’s head. The girl’s mother told officers that her daughter began screaming as they stood near the fountain and that she then saw a man holding the child from behind, according to the criminal complaint described by the newspaper.
Across the restaurant, Rose heard the commotion. He later told KOB that he heard a loud sound, screaming and his wife repeatedly yelling for someone to stop. Another customer intervened before or as Rose reached the scene. The complaint said the patron struck San Souci with a tray and helped Rose stop him. Other people also assisted, according to local reporting. The confrontation became a collective emergency inside the restaurant before law enforcement arrived.
Rose said the threat continued after the initial struggle. He told KOB that San Souci later stood and pulled out a knife. Rose initially believed the knife could be meant for him but then became concerned that San Souci was looking again toward his daughter. Rose said he moved between them. The Albuquerque Journal reported that police later found a knife during a search of San Souci after he was arrested outside the restaurant.
Police located San Souci nearby after the restaurant confrontation, and witnesses identified him as the attacker, according to the criminal complaint as reported by the Journal. Subsequent reporting on police video said officers encountered him in a parking area and learned that a child had been injured inside. The investigation quickly combined eyewitness identification, physical evidence and restaurant surveillance footage. Those sources formed the basis of the allegations that moved into district court the following month.
The girl was taken to the University of New Mexico Hospital. She received stitches and was released, the Albuquerque Journal reported. Rose later told KOB that his daughter was expected to be OK. He also spoke publicly about the shock of seeing a routine family activity turn into an assault without warning. The family’s early comments were made while the prosecution was still developing and while San Souci was being held on charges he had not yet admitted.
A Bernalillo County grand jury indicted San Souci in May 2025 on child abuse resulting in great bodily harm, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The aggravated-assault allegation involved the confrontation with the girl’s father and the knife. San Souci entered a not-guilty plea and was held without bond. KOAT reported that prosecutors argued in a detention filing that the alleged behavior was sufficiently extreme to make release conditions inappropriate.
At that early point, District Attorney Sam Bregman publicly described the case as deeply disturbing and said the original charges could expose San Souci to decades in prison if he were convicted. Those comments reflected the prosecution then before the court. They did not predict the exact sentence that would ultimately be imposed, because the case changed substantially before trial. The distinction became clear the following spring when San Souci decided to plead guilty to a different two-count disposition.
On March 27, 2026, San Souci pleaded guilty to first-degree and third-degree child abuse. Court records later referenced that plea when listing his sentencing hearing. The guilty plea eliminated the need for jurors to decide whether he committed those child-abuse offenses. It also changed how the core conduct could properly be described: San Souci was no longer merely accused of the crimes covered by his plea but had formally admitted guilt in court.
Four months later, the case reached sentencing. A Second Judicial District Court calendar scheduled San Souci for a July 28 hearing, and the Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office announced afterward that he had been sentenced to 12 years in the New Mexico Corrections Department followed by three years of supervision. Law&Crime reported that the supervision would take the form of probation after his release.
San Souci addressed the victim and her family at that hearing, according to KOAT reporting cited by Law&Crime. He apologized and said he had been on drugs at the time of the attack. He also acknowledged that drug use was not an excuse and said he would accept the punishment imposed. The available reporting does not show that his statement altered the factual basis for the convictions: he had already pleaded guilty months earlier.
The sentence ended a case whose public record was unusually detailed because the incident took place in a crowded business. The child’s parents gave accounts. Customers intervened. Restaurant surveillance was reviewed by police. Witnesses identified San Souci outside. Prosecutors obtained an indictment, and the court ordered him held while the case proceeded. None of those individual pieces alone explains why the attack happened, but together they produced a documented chronology from the first moments inside Saggio’s to the final sentencing hearing.
That chronology also shows how the legal meaning of the case changed over time. Immediately after the attack, investigators were determining what had happened and prosecutors were making allegations. After the grand-jury indictment, San Souci remained a defendant who had pleaded not guilty. Once he entered the March 2026 guilty plea, criminal responsibility for the two child-abuse counts was established by his own admissions. Sentencing then became the remaining major question.
The punishment imposed on July 28 answered that question with a term exceeding a decade. San Souci is to spend 12 years in state prison and then remain under supervision for three additional years. The sentence was lower than the maximum exposure publicly discussed when the original three-count indictment was pending, but it represents the final reported disposition of the offenses resolved through his guilty plea.
The case’s most basic facts remain stark without requiring speculation about motive: an 8-year-old girl went to a restaurant with her family, encountered a stranger she did not know, was attacked and required hospital treatment. People nearby intervened, police made an arrest, prosecutors brought felony charges and the defendant later pleaded guilty. The courts have now converted that sequence into a final criminal judgment carrying 12 years of incarceration.
No additional court proceeding arising from the restaurant assault has been identified in the public material reviewed for this report. San Souci’s reported sentence remains 12 years in the New Mexico Corrections Department followed by three years of supervision.
Author note: Last updated Aug. 29, 2026.