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Provo • Utah County sheriff's Deputy Greg Sherwood was nervous as he sat in his patrol SUV on a snowy January day last year.
He was waiting, looking for a white pickup truck whose passengers were suspected of shooting and killing Sgt. Cory Wride earlier that day.
"The adrenaline was going," Sherwood testified Thursday morning — the second day of testimony in a trial for 18-year-old Meagan Dakota Grunwald, who is charged as an accomplice to the murder of Wride, the attempted murder of Sherwood, and a number of other crimes.
"I knew what these people were capable of. And I was angry because of what they had done to Cory Wride, my co-worker," Sherwood testified. "I worked side by side with him on the SWAT team. I was ready to hold these people accountable for their actions."
As Sherwood spotted the pickup in question on the afternoon of Jan. 30, 2014, he followed it down Santaquin's Main Street — not knowing that he soon would also become a shooting victim.
Sherwood testified that he didn't immediately turn on his lights and sirens and give chase to the truck, but followed close behind.
"They killed a cop," he explained. "They were not going to stop."
Sherwood's dashboard camera — played for the 4th District Court jury — showed that once the deputy did engage his police lights, the pickup suddenly slammed on the brakes and two loud pops were heard.
Sherwood had been shot at and was struck in the head. He moans, the dash-cam video shows, uttering expletives between groans.
"You can kind of see them suck me in," an emotional Sherwood explained, choking back tears. " … As soon as the second shot rings out, you see immediately the brake lights go off, they accelerate and make an aggressive U-turn."
Grunwald, then 17, was driving the truck that day, according to prosecutors. Her boyfriend, 27-year-old Jose Angel Garcia-Jauregui, was the accused triggerman.
Sherwood said that immediately after he was shot, he blacked out but somehow managed to stop his vehicle on the Santaquin road.
"I didn't know if they were going to go back and continue firing at me," Sherwood said. "I was in no position to defend myself."
Sherwood was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he underwent his first of three surgeries. He said that, more than a year later, he is only about 60 percent to 70 percent recovered, and still struggles with balance and speech. He has returned to work, but in a limited capacity.
The main question for jurors at the trial is whether Grunwald — who allegedly drove the pickup while her boyfriend fired at police through a sliding rear-window — acted willingly.
Prosecutors say she was a devoted girlfriend who would do anything to be with Garcia-Jauregui.
But her defense attorney, Dean Zabriskie, has called the man a "dark angel," who threatened to kill Grunwald unless she followed his orders by driving the getaway car.
Events began in Utah County at about 1 p.m. that day, when Wride stopped his patrol car on State Road 73 about five miles west of Lehi to check on a pulled-over Toyota Tundra allegedly driven by Grunwald.
Zabriskie said Grunwald had been preparing to move to St. George that day with her mother and had gone for a drive with Garcia-Jauregui. Their relationship was dissolving, the defense attorney said, and the couple got into a heated argument.
Grunwald pulled over because she was crying so hard, Zabriskie said.
That's when Wride pulled up behind them and asked for identifying information.
Garcia-Jauregui knew that an arrest warrant had been issued for him the day before, according to Zabriskie, and gave the officer a false name.
While Wride was in his vehicle, checking the information he had just received from the pair, Garcia-Jauregui opened the back sliding window of the truck and shot and killed the officer.
The girl then sped from the scene, according to court documents, which largely rely on dash-camera footage from Wride's and other police vehicles.
Prosecutors believe Grunwald was still driving the truck when she and Garcia-Jauregui encountered Sherwood in Santaquin.
After Garcia-Jauregui shot and wounded Sherwood, the couple made their way back to the freeway, where they encountered Utah Highway Patrol trooper Jeff Blankenagel. He followed the truck as speeds reached 110 mph. Blankenagel, too, was shot at, he testified Thursday. The trooper wasn't hit, but was forced to end his pursuit after his tires were accidentally spiked.
Farther down the road, Garcia-Jauregui shot out truck driver Alonso Van Tassell's tires, the driver testified Thursday.
Van Tassell wept as he recounted seeing a man leaning out the truck window and firing three shots at him.
"When I realized he was shooting at me, [I thought] 'I need to get away from these guys,' " Van Tassell said. "I hit my brakes. The vehicle continues down the road, and I realized they had a tire blown. They were driving on three tires, sparks flying out the back. I thought, 'Oh my heck, what's going on here?' "
After the pickup became inoperable, the couple hijacked another vehicle — a gold Highlander with Chetney Williams and her 4-year-old daughter inside.
Williams testified Thursday that she stopped her car in Nephi after seeing a young woman waving at her, panicked. After she pulled over, she saw a gunman next to her window.
"He screamed through the door, 'Get out! Get out!' " Williams testified between sobs. "I said, 'Can I please get my baby?' And I opened the door and he pointed the gun towards my torso. And he said, 'You better hurry.' "
Williams — who was pregnant at the time — said she struggled with the buckles on her daughter's car seat and yanked at the child as Garcia-Jauregui put the vehicle into drive. She finally got the child free, slammed the door shut and watched as the couple drove away in her vehicle.
Police spiked that car's tires later down the road, and it was eventually disabled farther south in Juab County.
Juab County Deputy Al Taylor testified Thursday that he saw the couple flee from the disabled car, and a shootout began between several officers and Garcia-Jauregui.
While the parties exchanged gunfire, Taylor said Grunwald fell to her knees and eventually shouted, "You shot him in the head!"
Taylor said he approached the shooter and handcuffed him. After asking for a drink of water, Taylor testified, Garcia-Jauregui asked, "Why don't you let me kiss my girlfriend with my last dying breath?"
"I told him that ain't going to happen," Taylor testified.
Garcia-Jauregui died at a hospital the next day.
Grunwald has been charged as an adult with first-degree felony aggravated murder for allegedly being an accomplice to Wride's slaying.
Grunwald is also charged with 11 other crimes: two counts of first-degree felony attempted aggravated murder, first-degree felony aggravated robbery, three counts of felony discharge of a firearm, two charges of criminal mischief, and one count each of causing an accident involving property damage, failure to stop at command of police and possession or use of a controlled substance.
If the jury convicts Grunwald of any of the first-degree felonies, she could be sentenced to up to life in the Utah State Prison. The defendant is not eligible for the death penalty because she was a minor when the alleged crimes occurred.
Twitter: @jm_miller