Utah Supreme Court overturns murder conviction for girlfriend of man who shot, killed sergeant

Meagan Grunwald is sworn in before she takes the witness stand on Wednesday, May 6, 2015, in Judge Darold McDade’s courtroom in Provo. | Al Hartmann

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s high court has reversed a murder conviction for the teenage getaway driver whose boyfriend shot and killed Utah County Sheriff’s Sgt. Cory Wride in 2014.

The Utah Supreme Court found there is a reasonable probability a jury would not have convicted the now 23-year-old Meagan Grunwald if not for errors in jury instructions during her trial, so “our confidence in the guilty verdict is undermined,” Chief Justice Matthew Durrant wrote an opinion released by the court Friday.

Three of his colleagues concurred; Justice Thomas Lee dissented, writing he doesn’t believe a properly instructed jury would have reached a different verdict.

Grunwald, who was 17 years old at the time of Wride’s death, did not fire a shot that day, but was found equally liable as an accomplice to the crimes of her boyfriend, 27-year-old Angel Garcia-Juaregui.

Garcia-Juaregui shot Wride as he was sitting in his parked patrol vehicle, after he pulled over behind Grunwald’s truck to check on the stopped vehicle. Grunwald testified at trial she initially believed the glass on the police vehicle was bulletproof, but as the chase went on, began to fear for the officer.

Garcia-Juaregui later died in a shootout with police in Juab County.

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At oral arguments in the case almost a year ago, the justices parsed Grunwald’s role in Wride’s death, trying to determine the extent to which she knew Wride would be fatally wounded in the gunfire on Jan. 30, 2014.

“She had to be reasonably certain of death” in order for her actions to fit her conviction of aggravated murder, Justice Deno Himonas said at the time.

Her attorneys argued the jury received improper instructions that led to a different outcome in her case than if the paperwork had been correct. The faulty instructions “fundamentally distorted the law” and improperly directed jurors to pronounce her guilty if they found she acted recklessly, Grunwald’s defense team argued.

They said the standard for an aggravated murder conviction is higher, requiring a person to act knowingly and with intent to aid in the crime.

Grunwald testified at trial that she pulled over on state Route 73 in Eagle Mountain because she and Garcia-Juaregui were arguing. Wride spotted the truck’s emergency lights and stopped to see if anyone in the truck needed help and then returned to his patrol vehicle to look up a fake name Garcia-Juaregui gave him.

Grunwald’s boyfriend told her to put her foot on the brake, opened the back window and suddenly began to shoot, she testified. When police later located the truck, with Grunwald still behind the wheel, Garcia-Juaregui shot and wounded Utah County sheriff’s deputy Greg Sherwood in the head. He survived.

In 2018, the Utah Court of Appeals tossed Grunwald’s convictions for attempted murder of Sherwood based on the jury instructions, but upheld her convictions of aggravated murder and aggravated robbery, saying “the error was harmless” on those counts.

The Utah Supreme Court agreed to hear her appeal of that part of the lower appeals court’s ruling.

This story will be updated.

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