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PROVO — The young woman charged in the shooting death of a sheriff's sergeant claims she was kidnapped and threatened by her boyfriend who was killed in a shootout with police.
In new court motions, her attorneys refer to previously unreleased statements Megan Grunwald allegedly made that they believe prove she was a victim.
But prosecutors have also filed a motion to have statements admitted in court that they believe show that Grunwald was a willing participant in the shooting death of Utah County Sheriff's Sgt. Cory Wride.
Grunwald, now 18, faces aggravated murder and several other charges for her alleged role in the crime spree that resulted in 27-year-old Jose Angel Garcia-Juaregui's death.
Among the statements prosecutors hope to admit are a phone call Garcia made to an uncle in Texas shortly after Wride was killed. Garcia allegedly told the uncle, "I'm with my girlfriend's people. They are protecting me. … I'm going to California."
But in his response, defense attorney Rhome Zabriski wrote, "Much of what the state offers in those eight paragraphs is speculative, argumentative, and theoretical. In order for the court to fairly adjudicate this matter, its analysis should be limited to intrinsic facts, undiluted by speculation and inflammatory argument.
"To admit some amorphous 'statement' without any foundation, offered in another language and in some secret code, by a person that is now deceased, would serve no other purpose than to promote prejudice, confusion and (possibly) a misguided jury verdict," he wrote.
Furthermore, the defense argues that Grunwald's first words to police when she was apprehended were, "He kidnapped me! He had a gun and he told me if I didn’t come with him, he would kill me!”
He kidnapped me! He had a gun and he told me if I didn't come with him, he would kill me!
–Megan Grunwald
The police officer who filled out his report noted, “She then said that the subject had told her that if she didn’t come with him, he would kill her and her family," according to the defense motion.
"Angel had told her 'stuff was gonna happen' if she didn’t go on a ride," another motion states.
Grunwald also told a second officer she had been kidnapped while also adding that Garcia had "shot himself," the motion states.
“I felt bad and tried to tell him to stop," Grunwald told the officer, according to court documents. She says Garcia then told her that "if she wanted to leave, he would kill her and her family. He said if he died, he would make sure she died, too."
A fourth officer reported that after Grunwald was taken to the hospital, she was overheard saying, "I was just in the wrong place, with the wrong person, at the wrong time," the defense motion states.
In another motion filed Tuesday, the defense maintains that a blood sample collected from Grunwald on the day was unlawfully obtained and should be "suppressed and excluded from being introduced at trial."
Defense attorneys argue that the warrant was unlawful because the Utah Highway Patrol trooper who wrote it showed a "reckless disregard for the truth" by exaggerating the facts of the case in requesting his warrant. They also say the trooper failed to show probable cause for the crime of murder, which the search warrant was purported to be investigating.
Grunwald, who was 17 at the time of the alleged crime, rejected a plea deal in November. She is charged with aggravated murder. She could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted at her upcoming trial.
