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SALT LAKE CITY — A teenage getaway driver whose boyfriend shot and killed a sheriff's sergeant in 2014 has admitted to reduced charges after the Utah Supreme Court threw out her murder conviction last year.
Meagan Grunwald, 24, pleaded guilty earlier this month in Provo's 4th District Court to manslaughter and aggravated assault on a peace officer, both second-degree felonies.
A jury in 2015 found her guilty of aggravated murder in the death of Utah County Sheriff's Sgt. Cory Wride. Grunwald, who was 17 years old at the time of Wride's death, was found liable as an accomplice to the crimes of her boyfriend, 27-year-old Angel Garcia-Juaregui.
She appealed and Utah's high court ordered a new trial, in part because faulty jury instructions permitted the conviction based on reckless actions, but the offense requires a higher standard of knowing and intentional behavior.
Grunwald has remained in prison on a remaining conviction of aggravated robbery tied to the car chase. The charge carries a prison term of at least five years and up to life behind bars.
She pleaded guilty to the reduced charges on May 18, admitting that she helped Garcia-Juaregui by putting their car in drive, placing her foot on the brake and watching traffic while he crawled toward the rear window with a gun and fired, killing Wride, court documents say. A short time later, she slowed down when Utah County sheriff's deputy Greg Sherwood was just behind the car, and Garcia-Juaregui fired again, striking Sherwood in the head and causing life-threatening and permanent injuries.
Grunwald testified at trial that she pulled over on state Route 73 in Eagle Mountain that day 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, then returned to his patrol vehicle to look up a fake name Garcia-Juaregui gave him, prosecutors said.
Grunwald testified that her boyfriend had told her to put her foot on the brake, opened the back window and suddenly began to shoot.
She faces one to 15 years in the Utah State Prison on counts she pleaded guilty to. Sentencing is scheduled for June 21.
