This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Provo • Testifying Wednesday in her own defense, Meagan Dakota Grunwald said she spent over two terrifying hours driving her truck on a snowy, foggy January afternoon last year as her boyfriend threatened her as he shot at police officers and passing motorists.
Jose Angel Garcia-Jauregui threatened to kill her and her family, Grunwald, 18, testified between sobs. But then her 27-year-old boyfriend would tell her he loved her and that he would never do anything to hurt her, she testified.
"The barrel [of his gun] was aimed right at my face," the sobbing woman testified. "… It was like looking at the devil."
Grunwald testified for more than five hours about Jan. 30, 2014, when Garcia-Jauregui shot and killed Utah County sheriff's Sgt. Cory Wride and shot and severely injured Deputy Greg Sherwood — all while the then-17-year-old girl was behind the wheel.
Her testimony came during the second week of her trial, where she is charged as an accomplice with 12 criminal counts, including first-degree felony aggravated murder in Wride's death.
Grunwald said there was no talk between her and her boyfriend that day about hurting anyone or being violent toward police. She said Garcia-Jauregui asked her to go on a drive that morning because he "needed to talk" to her. The couple fought about her impending move to St. George and how she wanted to break off the relationship, she said.
While on their drive, Grunwald said, Garcia-Jauregui also received a phone call from his mother. After he hung up, he was "really, really white," she testified, and told her, "They got a warrant out for me."
As she continued driving on Highway 73 near Lehi, she said, she suddenly heard two gunshots ring out — Garcia-Jauregui was shooting out the passenger window.
She pulled the truck over — turning on her emergency flashers so she wouldn't get hit by another car — and demanded he get out of the car, she said.
That's when she heard a tap on her window. It was Sgt. Wride.
"He asked if I was OK," Grunwald cried as Wride's family members sobbed in the courtroom gallery. "… He was really, really nice."
Grunwald said Wride asked her multiple times if she was OK, and each time she said she was fine.
After Wride went to his vehicle to check her driver license information, Grunwald said Garcia-Jauregui told her, "If the officer asks again if you are OK, you better make sure you say you are OK."
When Wride came back, Grunwald said, he turned his attention to Garcia-Jauregui, and asked his name. She said her boyfriend lied about his identity because of the warrant.
Grunwald said she told Garcia-Jauregui they could take care of the warrant now with Wride, but he just rolled his eyes at her.
Wride then went to the passenger side of the pickup and again asked Garcia-Jauregui his name. The man told the officer a recent concussion affected his memory, Grunwald said.
When Wride returned again to his own vehicle, Garcia-Jauregui demanded she put her foot on the brake, and he reached over and put the truck in drive, she testified.
"He points the gun at my head and says, 'If you don't do what I tell you to do, I'm going to kill you and your f—-ing family,' " Grunwald testified. "… I sat there and I was thinking I was never going to see my family again."
Grunwald said Garcia-Jauregui then turned toward her back window and told her, "I'm going to buck him."
When she told him that she didn't know what that meant, he said again, "I'm going to buck him in the f—-ing head," she testified.
Then Garcia-Jauregui opened the back window and started shooting at Wride. He then yelled to the girl, "Go! Go! Go! Go!"
"I put my foot on the gas," Grunwald said, sobbing.
Grunwald testified that she asked Garcia-Jauregui several times if she could get out of the truck.
"Any talk in that cab about, 'Hey, this is a great adventure, let's go for broke?' " defense attorney Dean Zabriskie asked.
"No, nothing like that," Grunwald answered.
"Did you encourage him in any way?"
"No, sir," the girl cried.
As the girl continued to drive, she said, Garcia-Jauregui insisted that they go back to their Draper home to get more bullets. She said she agreed to take him only if he promised not to harm her mother or her uncle.
"He said he's either going to tie up my Uncle Buck and light him on fire or he's going to shoot him," Grunwald testified. "And I said, 'I'm sorry Angel, I can't let you do that.' "
Then, Grunwald testified, "I basically decided to risk my own life to save my Uncle Buck and my mom. And I turned off the exit in Santaquin."
It was there that they encountered Utah County sheriff's deputy Greg Sherwood, whose dash-cam video shows that as he gave chase to the white truck, Grunwald hit the brakes and closed the gap between the pickup and the patrol vehicle — at which point Sherwood was shot and wounded.
Prosecutors contend Grunwald braked so Garcia-Jauregui could get a better shot, but Grunwald said that wasn't the case.
Zabriskie asked Grunwald, "Did you do that so that Officer Sherwood would get closer to you?"
"No," said Grunwald, adding that she braked for a car in front of her.
Grunwald said that after Garcia-Jauregui fired at Sherwood through the rear window, hitting the officer in the head, he ordered her to turn the pickup around and again threatened to kill her and her family unless she followed his orders.
She said she stopped at an empty gas station — "hoping everything would be over" — and saw several police cars zoom past her.
Grunwald said that after she headed back south on Interstate 15, Garcia-Jauregui opened the back window and fired at another officer. Eventually, her tires were spiked by a Utah Highway Patrol officer, she testified, and the truck became disabled at a Nephi off-ramp. The couple fled from the car.
"He's like, 'You better f—-ing follow,'" Grunwald testified. " 'You better remember what I said and follow.' I said OK."
The girl said she did run behind her boyfriend, but didn't run as fast as she could, saying that she hoped "he would take off and leave me there."
After they hijacked a car from a woman who had a baby in the back seat, they got back on southbound I-15, with Garcia-Jauregui at the wheel.
Grunwald said after that car was disabled by tire spikes and began to slow down, Garcia-Jauregui told her, "If I don't die today, I'm going make sure you and your family die."
Dash-cam video shown in court Wednesday showed the couple flee from the stolen vehicle.
"Why did you follow him?" Zabriskie asked.
"I was trying to save my family," Grunwald said.
During a subsequent shootout with police, Grunwald said, she saw police officers with big guns and thought she was going to be shot. She said she saw Garcia-Jauregui fall and roll down an embankment, gun still in hand.
Grunwald said she eventually laid down on the road, and yelled at officers "He's shot in the f—-ing head!"
Grunwald said this was her way of telling officers to stop shooting.
Grunwald said in that moment she was "a little" angry at the officers for shooting in her direction, and as she sat handcuffed in a UHP patrol car, "I felt like they thought I did everything."
Dash-cam footage of her arrest shows her telling the arresting officer, "He said if I didn't go with him he was going to shoot me and my family!"
Prosecutors claim Grunwald's words, demeanor and actions during the deadly spree show she was a willing accomplice who would do anything to be with her boyfriend, who died the day after he was wounded.
Earlier in Grunwald's testimony, she recounted that she had met Garcia-Jauregui when she was 16. Asked by Zabriskie about herself, she began talking about her involvement in 4-H and how she raised pigs that were kept on her Mormon bishop's property.
She was an honor roll student, but struggled with reading and writing and took special classes in high school. She had completed her certified nursing assistant program, and said her goal in life is to be a life-flight nurse.
She said she worked two or three jobs at a time, paid for her car and insurance, and contributed money to her parents' bills. Both of her parents are disabled, she said, and live off government assistance.
Grunwald said she met Garcia-Jauregui at church through a mutual friend, who referred her to Garcia-Jauregui for homework help. Her mother has a brain injury, the girl said, and her father also has a brain injury and can't read or write.
"All I knew was that he was a very nice, respectful man," Grunwald testified. "He was really, really quiet — like more quiet than I usually am."
Grunwald said Garcia-Jauregui initially lied about his age, telling her he was 22 or 23. The age difference bothered her a little, she said, but they never studied in private so she wasn't overly concerned.
She said it was in November 2013 — about six months after they met — that Garcia-Jauregui told her he had been to prison on an attempted-murder conviction.
"He said it was self-defense," Grunwald testified. "He never told me the story. He never told me what happened."
She said Garcia-Jauregui frequently spent nights at her house, adding that she did not recall him "all the way moving in."
"Did you love this man?" Zabriskie asked.
"I did care for him," Grunwald answered.
"Did you love him?"
"I did."
Grunwald said she eventually quit all her jobs at Garcia-Jauregui's request; he said he would pay her bills if she focused on school.
Looking back, she said, she believes Garcia-Jauregui was getting "more and more controlling."
She said their relationship did become sexual, but they were intimate on only a few occasions. Grunwald also said he introduced her to methamphetamine to relieve her tooth pain. She used the drug the night before the shootings, she said.
"It worked a little and then it made me really, really ill again," she said.
Grunwald said she knew Garcia-Jauregui kept bullets in a lock-box safe in her house, but said she had never been around guns and they were not allowed in her house.
"To be honest, they kind of scare me," she said, adding that she had never shot one.
Around January 2014, Grunwald said, she wanted to break off the relationship with Garcia-Jauregui because she was bothered by the age difference and had found out he had multiple girlfriends — one who was pregnant — and had children, as well.
Grunwald is charged as an adult with first-degree felony aggravated murder and 11 other counts: 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.
Her trial is scheduled to end Friday, after two weeks of testimony. She is expected to resume her testimony Thursday.
If the jury convicts Grunwald of any of the first-degree felonies, she could be sentenced to up to life in Utah State Prison. She is not eligible for the death penalty because she was a minor when the alleged crimes occurred.
Garcia-Jauregui served 4½ years in prison for a 2008 attempted murder charge, according to the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole.
According to court records, Garcia-Jauregui stabbed a man 21 times with a Phillips screwdriver after running him over with his car in Springville in 2008. After the stabbing, he assaulted another man with a tire iron or crowbar.
The day before the fatal shootings, an arrest warrant was issued for Garcia-Jauregui for not reporting where he was living and not reporting that he had just lost his job, Adult Probation and Parole agent Danny Platis testified Monday.
Twitter: @jm_miller