PROVO, Utah, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- A Utah teen charged as her boyfriend's accomplice in the slaying of a police officer made a brief first court appearance Monday to have another court date set.
Meagan Grunwald's attorney, Dean Zabriskie, told reporters afterward his 17-year-old client was "traumatized."
"She's scared to death," he told Salt Lake City's KUTV.
Grunwald, who the Provo Daily Herald reported appeared in Provo 4th District Court shackled at the wrists and ankles and wearing a bright yellow jumpsuit, is accused of aggravated murder and 13 other charges for allegedly driving her pickup truck while Jose Angel Garcia-Jauregui, 27, allegedly shot and killed a police officer and injured another on Jan. 30, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. Garcia-Jauregui was later shot to death by law enforcement officers.
In court Monday, it was established Grunwald, who is being held on $1 million bond in the Salt Lake County Jail, will return to court March 3, when it will decided if a preliminary hearing will be held. The amount of her bail also may be revisited at that time, the newspaper said.
While authorities say it was Garcia-Jauregui who fatally shot Utah County Sheriff Sgt. Cory Wride and wounded Deputy Greg Sherwood, prosecutors contend Grunwald is equally responsible. She is being charged as an adult, although because she is a minor she will not be eligible for the death penalty if convicted.
The fatal encounter started when police pulled pulled up to the pickup on the side of a road near Lehi. While Wride sat in his patrol car with documents Garcia-Jauregui gave him, Garcia-Jauregui opened fire on the police car through the rear window of the truck, killing Wride, court documents allege.
Grunwald, in the driver's seat of the pickup, drove away with Garcia-Jauregui shooting at trucks and police. After their truck was disabled by road spikes, they allegedly carjacked another vehicle. After it, too, was stopped by spikes in the road, the pair took off on foot, and four sheriff's deputies cornered Garcia-Jauregui and shot him to death, court documents said.
