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Jared Bridegan was born on June 29, 1988 to parents Gaylord & JoAnn. He was born in Warrensburg, Missouri but relocated to Jacksonville, Florida with his family when he was young. He graduated from Utah Valley University with a B.S. in Digital Media with an emphasis on cinema production. Jared had a longtime interest in videography & was an accomplished User Experience Designer & ultimately moved on to the Senior Design Manager position at Microsoft. Despite his personal successes, his main priority in life was his family which included his wife Kirsten & his four children, Liam, Abigail, Bexley & London.
Jared was described as a happy-go-lucky & funny guy who could be shy while maintaining a positive presence in the lives of those he loved. He recently served in the LDS Church, teaching 11 & 12-year-olds in Sunday school & was said to bring fun into the lessons.
Before marrying Kirsten, Jared had met a woman named Shanna Gardner while she was visiting Florida in 2009; she grew up in Utah in a wealthy family who founded Stampin’ Up! which was a multi-million dollar paper craft company. The couple married in Salt Lake City in 2010 & initially lived in Utah until they relocated to Connecticut & later to Florida where they welcomed their twins, a boy & a girl. Their son had a heart condition which required that the family live at sea level.
During Christmas of 2014, Jared gifted Shanna a package for personal training sessions at a gym. Weeks into starting her sessions, a romantic relationship began between her & her trainer. The trainer later indicated that a few months into their sessions, their affair began. It was the trainer’s understanding that the couple’s relationship was strained & they had been living on opposite sides of their home. Jared ended up discovering sexually explicit text messages between Shanna & her trainer & despite the fact that this caused a huge rift, Jared was willing to work on their marriage for the sake of their children. However, on February 23, 2015, Shanna filed for divorce as well as custody of their twins & a nearly constant litigation over their divorce & the custody of their children continued until the time of Jared’s death.
Shanna denied any involvement with her trainer but the day after the couple’s divorce, she listed her trainer as an emergency contact when she went to a tattoo shop for a piercing. An employee of the shop indicated that while there, Shanna said that she wanted Jared to “shut up” & was said to ask the staff if they knew anyone who could shut him up.
Shanna admitted to making these comments, but said it was only because she was in the midst of a contentious divorce & that she hadn’t actually meant them as a threat. A staff member from the twin’s school said that whenever she discussed her ex-husband, Shanna spoke of Jared with disdain.
The court filings for their divorce contained approximately 300 entries that included Shanna accusing Jared of “disturbing & abusive behavior,” such as regularly interrogating & recording their children on what to say & then threatening to use these recordings against her. On the other side, Jared accused Shanna of treating him in a disparaging way in front of their children as well as installing surveillance devices in his car & the kid’s bedrooms. One document stated that “the parenting plan is clearly an issue & the parents are unable to agree. The disagreement of the parents on this point now extends well beyond mere timesharing & goes to issues of mental health & well being of the children.” Another motion for relief indicated that Jared was a stay-at-home father while working as a full-time student throughout the marriage while completing his Bachelor’s of Art degree as well as an online Master of Arts program while Shanna worked to financially support the family with the help of additional funds from her family. It specifically indicated that they received $8,500 per month allowing Jared to continue his education while staying home with their children.
In 2022, Jared’s twins from his marriage with Shanna were 10-years-old & he had two daughters with his current wife Kirsten, a 2-year-old & a 1-year-old.
On February 16, 2022, 33-year-old Jared was in the Sanctuary neighborhood in south Jacksonville Beach at about 8 pm, after he’d dropped his twins off at Shanna’s after taking them to dinner. He had his 2-year-old child with him from his marriage with Kirsten. As they drove along, heading back to his home in St. Augustine, Jared took the same route he took each week. He turned out of the subdivision onto a narrow, dimly lit street & came across a tire in the middle of the one-way street that blocked the road. At this point, he was about two miles from his ex-wife’s house. When Jared stepped out of his black Volkswagen Atlas SUV in order to move the tire, he was gunned down execution-style as his 2-year-old daughter Bexley sat helpless, strapped in her car seat only feet away.
When a police investigation began, police tried to determine if the killer or killers purposely placed the tire in the road in order to lure Jared from his car. After reviewing surveillance videos from area homes & businesses, a dark Ford F150 pickup truck was captured on a surveillance camera near the scene at the time of the shooting. Police indicated that nothing was stolen from Jared’s car & Kirsten had just spoken to him & indicated that nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The area where Jared was gunned down was very safe & violence of this type was exceptionally shocking which led investigators to believe that this was a targeted murder.
Kirsten was obviously shocked & devastated by the sudden death of her husband & father of her children & couldn’t imagine who would want to hurt him, saying that he was a loyal friend & a fantastic husband & father. She said that their 2-year-old daughter was utterly smitten with her father & wanted to be with him from the moment she woke up, until the moment she went to bed. Since Bexley was in the car as her father was gunned down & watched her father lay dead in the road, she had developed a fear of loud noises & sirens.
Shanna as well as the twins didn’t attend Jared’s funeral, but Shanna later said that she’d held a private memorial with family & friends “to show support for my littles.” After Jared’s murder, the twins were isolated from Jared’s family who were denied any interaction with them. Kirsten begged Shanna to allow them to reconnect with the family & asked that they think about the twin’s well-being & allow the siblings to be siblings again. Shanna spoke out & said, “I feel for Jared’s family & what they are going through. I can’t even imagine. I have tried to be respectful. I have tried to give them space.”
31-year-old Kirsten, who had been married to Jared for five years at the time of his death, said that grief of losing her husband was unbearable at times, but she focused on caring for her daughters & bringing Jared’s killers to justice. In order to be sure that Jared’s story wasn’t forgotten, she created the Instagram account, “JusticForJaredB” & indicated that she was living in fear. She’d been working as an account manager but took on the role as a full-time mom after Jared’s murder. Kirsten also created the Bridegan Foundation & project “Bexley Box” in order to help children who are taken into law enforcement & awaiting the arrival of their family. The box will be filled with diapers, sippy cups, snacks, toys, blankets & pre-mixed formula & was working on getting them to local police stations. She indicated that on the night she received the devastating news about Jared’s murder, she’d rushed to get to the Jacksonville Beach Police Department & didn’t know what to bring or how long they would be there.
Kirsten spoke out & acknowledged that it was very clear that someone must have known Jared’s schedule & the route that he took. She felt that from the beginning, it was a planned murder specific to Jared.
On Wednesday, January 25, 2023, police announced that they had arrested 61-year-old Henry Tenon on charges of conspiracy to commit murder, second-degree murder with a weapon, accessory after the fact to a capital felony & child abuse. Tenon was pulled over on a routine traffic stop for speeding on Jacksonville’s Westside in August of 2022. Police soon realized that the man driving the car was wanted for something far more sinister. As his car was searched, he was found to have an old shotgun in the trunk of the car & was questioned about Jared’s murder & the Ford F-150 truck they had been searching for since the murder. The gun found in the car was not believed to have been used in the murder. At the time, he was arrested for driving on a revoked license & being a felon with a firearm. He had been in prison for a year decades earlier in 2000 for habitual traffic offenses. After Tenon was brought it, investigators revealed to him the real reason why they wanted to speak with him.
Henry Tenon initially pleaded not guilty to all counts on February 13, but on March 16, 2023, Tenon pleaded guilty to being the gunman & agreed to testify against 34-year-old Mario Fernandez Saldana, Shanna’s husband, who was arrested that same day in Orlando, Florida. According to Tenon, Shanna & Mario hired him for the murder. With this agreement, several charges would be dropped & he would be sentenced to at least 15 years in prison & up to life. Mario was charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, solicitation to commit a capital felony & child abuse & on April 4, he pleaded not guilty to all counts. Henry Tenon was Mario’s former tenant who had rented a home from him & this was the single link that tied Jared to Tenon. On August 17, 2023, 35-year-old Shanna Lee Gardner was indicted on the same charges & arrested in the state of Washington where she had relocated to & was living at the time. She was extradited back to Duval County, Florida & booked on October 20, 2023.
An arrest warrant stated that Tenon’s financial records from his bank showed three handwritten checks from Mario in October 2022 & phone records prove that the two spoke 35 times in February, the month that Jared was murdered. The warrant also indicates that the motive for murder was the “highly acrimonious divorce” between Shanna & Jared as well as a contentious relationship between Mario & Shanna.
Henry Tenon was someone who had nine arrests in Jacksonville for minor offenses, according to jail records. He was already in jail awaiting charges of possession of a weapon by a felon & driving with a suspended or revoked license on another conviction. He was being accused of pulling the trigger of the gun that killed Jared.
When Shanna didn’t come to Jared’s funeral with her children, she drew immediate scrutiny. She had married her second husband Mario Fernandez Saldana in 2018 & began running a baking company called beachbaked904. Mario worked, managing rental properties & had met Shanna in 2018 at a CrossFit gym where he worked as a maintenance man. He’d previously been accused of intimidating a neighbor for feeding stray cats which is something that he didn’t agree with. The neighbor indicated that he would intentionally walk his pit bull up to where she was feeding the cats, but he claimed he was simply walking his dog & nothing malicious was happening. The officer responding to the complaint advised him about the municipal ordinances involving dangerous dogs & advised him to contact animal control if he had an issue with the feral cats.
Before Mario was arrested, Shanna quietly moved to Washington with her twins into a home that her parents had recently purchased. Mario didn’t move with her & at that point, she dropped the hyphenation in her last name & rather than going by Gardner-Fernandez, she simply went by Gardner. Early on, she’d hired a prominent Jacksonville defense attorney, Hank Coxe, to assist in protecting her family from the publicity that included photos of her & her children at a local park as well as implications that she was involved in the murder. She said that the intense media coverage had become “very loud” which made her children feel unsafe.
When the arrest of Henry Tenon was announced, Kirsten said this was a name she’d never heard & someone that Jared didn’t know & believed from the get-go that he hadn’t been alone in what happened. When she spoke about Shanna, she said that she’d never found her to be a truthful person so she never put a lot of weight into the things she’d said. She pointed out that when she tried to be emotional about Jared’s murder, there were no tears, no real emotion & did not present as genuine. She had believed from very early on that Shanna was somehow behind what happened to Jared. Her arrest indictment specifies that Shanna & Mario are accused of conspiring between November 1, 2021 & February 16, 2022 to have Jared killed. Shanna’s involvement may have gone as far back as May 2015 which was a few months after she filed for divorce.
Jared’s older brother, Adam Bridegan said that he’d had several conversations with Jared before his death & he’d voiced that he was concerned that something like this could happen & he absolutely felt fearful for his life.
On May 3, 2023, it was indicated that the prosecution is seeking the death penalty against Fernandez Saldana. On Friday, November 3, 2023, Shanna pleaded not guilty to capital murder. Her new attorney is Jose Baez who has represented high-profile clients that include Casey Anthony & former tight-end for the New England Patriots, Aaron Hernandez. Future hearings will be held with Mario, who was indicted by a grand jury on the same charges as Shanna, & he has also pleaded not guilty. Although they are being tried together, Mario & Shanna have separate attorneys. The trial is expected to begin on April 13, 2024.
Shanna’s attorneys are currently requesting that all charges against her be dropped. There is a 24-page filing that accuses the prosecution of willfully, intentionally & knowingly violating attorney-client privilege. It also takes issue with the way that the state handled a court-ordered process intended to ensure privileged electronic communications did not make their way into the hands of the state. Her attorney’s claim that prosecutors gained access to electronic documents from Shanna’s phones, computers & cloud that should have been protected under attorney-client privilege.
Reports indicate that there is confusion as to whether or not information that the government should not have had access to, had access to & if the allegations are true, the communications or information would not be allowed to be used as evidence during the trial. The legal filing also requests that the case be moved to another jurisdiction. Reports indicate that it’s likely that none of these requests will be granted. A hearing is set for Thursday, March 7.
According to the Bridegan Foundation website, in a Facebook post, Jared summed up his life’s priorities: Number one was his relationship with Jesus Christ, second was his relationship with his best friend & wife, Kirsten & the third was the privilege of being father to his four children. The Bridegan Foundation carries on his legacy by finding the good amidst hardship while providing love & comfort to children in need during a traumatic time.
References:
- St. Johns Family Funeral Home: Jared Galen Bridegan
- Independent: Widow of Microsoft executive gunned down in front of 2-year-old daughter prays ‘evil & cowardly’ killers are brought to justice
- Independent: Microsoft exec Jared Bridegan was shot dead in a chilling ambush. Did his ex wife arrange it?
- Jacksonville.com: Jared Bridegan’s death: Here’s what we know about the fatal shooting in Jacksonville Beach
- Jacksonville.com: Jared Bridegan’s ex, Shanna Gardner, charged in Jacksonville Beach murder plot
- ABC 7 Chicago: Ex-wife of slain Microsoft exec extradited back to Florida to face murder plot charges
- Jacksonville.com: A plot to kill Jared Bridegan: Here’s everything to know about the Jacksonville Beach murder
- ABC News: Ex-wife of slain Microsoft exec Jared Bridegan pleads not guilty to his murder
- News 4 Jax: Admitted gunman in Jared Bridegan murder-for-hire plot makes brief appearance in court
- Bridegan Foundation
- CBS 47 Fox 30 Action News Jax: Jared Bridegan’s ex-wife, accused in murder-for-hire plot to kill him, seeks dismissal of charges
- News4Jax: ‘It ain’t looking good’: New evidence shows arrest, calls, interview of triggerman in Jared Bridegan murder
