New Motions Filed in Megan Grunwald Aggravated Murder Case
In a recent development in the aggravated murder case of Megan Grunwald, defense attorneys and the prosecution have filed new motions to try to prove the intentions of Grunwald. The defense maintains that Grunwald was an unwilling participant in the Jan. 30, 2014, crime spree that led to the shooting death of Utah County Sheriff Sgt. Cory Wride and ultimately the death of Grunwald’s boyfriend, 27-year-old Jose Angel Garcia-Juaregui.
Juvenile Faces Adult Aggravated Murder Charges
According to a report from KSL News, the new defense motions refer to previously unreleased statements made by Grunwald at the time of the arrest. The defense claims that several different statements Grunwald made to arresting officers seem to indicate that she had been kidnapped and forced to go with Garcia, including Grunwald’s first words to police when she was apprehended.
“He kidnapped me!” Grunwald reportedly stated. “He had a gun and he told me if I didn’t come with him, he would kill me!”
The police officer to whom Grunwald made those statements went on to report that she said Garcia told her “he would kill her and her family” and that “stuff was gonna happen if she didn’t go on a ride.”
Other motions filed in the case included statements from Grunwald to similar extents, including saying that she tried to tell Garcia to stop and how she felt like she was “just in the wrong place, with the wrong person, at the wrong time.”
Another motion filed by the defense stated that the blood sample collected when she was arrested was unlawful and should be suppressed from trial. The defense claims that Utah Highway Patrol trooper exaggerated the facts and failed to show probable cause for the crime of aggravated murder required for the warrant.
The prosecution has also filed a motion which includes a phone call made by Garcia to an uncle in Texas shortly after Wride was killed, during which Garcia allegedly said he was with his “girlfriend’s people. They are protecting me.” However, defense attorney Rhome Zabriski called the information in the motion “speculative, argumentative, and theoretical.”
While she is 18 currently, Grunwald was a juvenile at the time she was charged with aggravated murder and other charges, but because of the nature of the crime, she is being tried as an adult. If convicted of aggravated murder at her upcoming trial, which is scheduled for the beginning of February, she could be sentenced to life in prison.
