VIDEO: Teen Accomplice in Killing of Utah Sergeant Receives 30-Year Sentence
Meagan Grunwald, convicted for her role in the murder of a Utah County Sheriff’s deputy and the shooting of another, will have a chance of being released from prison one day.
At the end of a long and emotional sentencing hearing on Wednesday afternoon, 4th District Court Judge Darold McDade sentenced the 18-year-old Grunwald to serve 25 years-to-life in prison with the chance of parole. He added another 5-to-life for other charges, bringing the total to 30-to life, Fox 13 reports.
“I’m very sorry for any pain or loss I have caused,” Grunwald sobbed as she spoke to the judge. “I do regret all of my actions.”
The sentence came at the request of Sgt. Cory Wride’s family, who offered moving statements of forgiveness.
“You are forgiven,” Sgt. Wride’s widow, Nannette, cried as she spoke to Grunwald. “Sweet girl, I hope one day you can forgive yourself.”
Grunwald was convicted by a jury earlier this year in the murder of Utah County Sheriff’s Sgt. Cory Wride and the wounding of Deputy Greg Sherwood. Wride encountered Grunwald — then 17 — and her boyfriend, 27-year-old Jose Angel Garcia Jauregui, stopped along a roadside in Eagle Mountain on Jan. 30, 2014.