On January 30, 2014, Utah County Sheriff's Sergeant Cory Blake Wride, a 44-year-old Caucasian male, was shot and killed after he stopped to check on what he believed to be an abandoned vehicle on Highway 73 near Eagle Mountain, Utah. Sergeant Wride, a 19-year veteran of the sheriff's office and a Utah National Guard veteran, had approached a pickup truck with its flashers on. After speaking with the occupants, he returned to his patrol car.
It was at this point that a passenger in the truck, Jose Angel Garcia-Jauregui, 27, opened fire with a handgun through the truck's rear window, striking and fatally wounding Sergeant Wride before he could exit his own vehicle.
The initial stop, which lasted for about 20 minutes while Wride tried to verify Garcia-Jauregui's identity, ended tragically with seven shots fired into the sergeant's patrol car. After shooting Sergeant Wride, Garcia-Jauregui and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Meagan Grunwald, who was driving, fled the scene, initiating a multi-county crime spree. Before he was shot, Sergeant Wride had relayed a description of the vehicle to dispatch, which allowed other officers to spot the truck a short time later.
A pursuit ensued, during which another deputy, Greg Sherwood, was shot in the head but survived. The suspects continued to flee, carjacking another vehicle in Nephi. The chase came to a violent end after the suspects crashed on I-15 following an encounter with Juab County deputies. In the ensuing shootout, Garcia-Jauregui was critically wounded and later died from his injuries. Grunwald was taken into custody at the scene. She was subsequently charged as an adult and, on July 8, 2015, was convicted of murder, receiving a sentence of 30 years to life in prison.
