Story by Ben Stockton
When two passers-by happened upon Jared Bridegan’s car on a dark road near a gated community in Florida, they assumed the driver had needed help with a flat tyre.
But, to their horror, they found the father of four lying face-down on the pavement in a pool of blood; his daughter Bexley Bridegan, then 2, was sitting in the backseat of the car.
“Something happened to my daddy,” she said. “My daddy’s hurt, my daddy’s on the ground.”
Mr Bridegan, a 33-year-old Microsoft executive, had been shot, after allegedly being lured out of his vehicle by someone who had placed a tyre in the middle of the road.
Multiple bullets had struck him and his vehicle, including one that narrowly missed Bexley.
Prosecutors now believe it was a meticulously planned ambush allegedly orchestrated by the only two people who knew his schedule, his route home and had a motive: his ex-wife, Shanna Gardner, and her new husband, Mario Fernandez Saldana.
Jared Bridegan, a 33-year-old Microsoft executive, was killed in February 2022 – CNN
It’s a case that has rocked the quiet, coastal neighbourhood of Jacksonville Beach.
At the opening of Mr Fernandez Saldana’s trial for first-degree murder and solicitation of murder on Monday, Christina Stifler, a Florida assistant state attorney, described the community known as Sanctuary near where Mr Bridegan was found as “a small, residential enclave of nice homes with golf carts and boats in the driveway.
“But on the night of Feb 16, 2022, Sanctuary was anything but that for Jared Bridegan. Instead, Sanctuary Boulevard South was the site of his execution.”
Just like he had numerous times before, Mr Bridegan dropped his nine-year-old twins off at his ex-wife’s house and made his way back home in nearby St Augustine, where his wife, Kirsten Bridegan, and their six-month-old baby, London, were waiting.
When Mr Bridegan didn’t arrive home, Ms Bridegan called him. A police officer answered and told her to go to the station. There, she found out her husband had been fatally shot. She immediately told police to look at Ms Gardner and Mr Fernandez Saldana.
“The only people I knew had a problem with him were those two,” she testified Monday.
The twins had been the subject of a fierce custody battle between Mr Bridegan and Ms Gardner. The couples reportedly often clashed about co-parenting, religion and money.
“They fought over everything,” Ms Stifler said. “It was nasty. It was petty. It was not good on both sides.”
“We did not like each other,” Ms Bridegan told the jury of the two couples’ relationship.
The ambush had apparently been months in the making. According to a former co-worker of Ms. Gardner’s who spoke to the police, she once said Mr Fernandez Saldana had a military background and could “take care of him [Mr. Bridegan] and no one would ever know”.
Ms Gardner in a booking photo – Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office
Police say the alleged gunman, Henry Tenon, 65, drove Mr Bridegan’s route twice in the month before the shooting.
At the time, Mr Tenon was apparently a tenant of Mr Fernandez Saldana – according to police, the only link between Mr Tenon and Mr Bridegan.
Mr Tenon pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2023 as part of a deal in which he also apparently agreed to testify against his former landlord and Ms Gardner. But earlier this year a judge allowed him to withdraw his guilty plea and granted his request for a trial.
Ms Gardner has been indicted by a grand jury on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, solicitation to commit first-degree murder and child abuse related to the killing of Mr Bridegan.
Mr Fernandez Saldana was key to the murder-for-hire plot, prosecutors allege. He apparently wrote Mr Tenon three cheques in October 2022, eight months after the shooting, and had frequent contact with him.
A photo of Henry Tenon is shown in court – Corey Perrine
He was arrested in March 2023; five months later, his wife, Ms Gardner, was also taken into custody. Her trial is scheduled to begin next month. Both have denied the allegations.
Ms Stifler on Monday characterised Ms Gardner and Mr Fernandez Saldana’s relationship as “a marriage of convenience”.
Ms Gardner came from “wealthy parents” and when they got married “a trust was set up for her, and she made Fernandez Saldana the trustee”.
A week after the killing, Ms Stifler claimed he transferred $50,000 into his own account. The couple then separated, and Ms Gardner moved to Washington with the twins.
“Gardner got what she wanted,” Ms Stifler said, suggesting her motive for plotting the killing of Bridegan was so she no longer had to share custody of their children.
“Bridegan had no criminal issues, drug addictions or affairs. He lived a quiet life and attended church regularly,” she added. “Nobody else had a motive.”
