(CNN) — The young Microsoft executive had just dropped off his twins at his ex-wife’s home in Jacksonville Beach on a warm, late-winter Florida evening. Towering live oaks draped with Spanish moss lined the neighborhood, casting long shadows across the pavement as the sun began to set.
He started driving home with his 2-year-old daughter in the backseat when he came upon a tire in the middle of the road. He stopped his car and got out to move it. But before he could get back behind the wheel, someone shot him dead in the street and fled.
Jared Bridegan, 33, had made the drive from Jacksonville Beach to his home in nearby St. Augustine countless times before. And that Wednesday in February 2022 had unfolded like any other: dinner with his toddler and twins, handing off the twins to their mother, and the evening drive home to his wife and baby.
But prosecutors say Bridegan’s killer knew his routine, too, and had planted the tire to lure him out of the car. Jacksonville Beach Police Chief Paul Smith called it “a planned and targeted ambush and murder.”
Multiple bullets pierced Bridegan’s body and vehicle – one just inches from his toddler, Bexley, who was uninjured and crying, still strapped into her car seat, according to CNN affiliate WJXT, which cited prosecutors. Shell casings littered the dark residential street after the shooting.
Bridegan’s body was left splayed in the street, with his car, wallet, wristwatch and other personal items untouched, according to police. Nothing appeared to have been taken.
Investigators say the incident was part of a monthslong murder-for-hire plot set in motion by Shanna Gardner, Bridegan’s ex-wife, and her husband, Mario Fernandez Saldana, whose trial began Monday.
“The killer was a stranger to Jared Bridegan. The murder was personal,” Assistant State Attorney Christina Simak Stifler said in opening statements, The Associated Press reported.
Defense attorney James Hill told the jury that Fernandez Saldana had no motive or desire to get rid of Bridegan, the AP reported.
Alleged murder-for-hire plot amid contentious custody fight
Investigators have said Gardner was tired of sharing custody of the twins with Bridegan, CNN affiliate WJXT reported, citing detectives, and court documents say the former couple had been in a contentious custody battle for several years.
“They fought over everything. … It was nasty. It was petty. It was not good on both sides,” Stifler said Monday of the relationship, the AP said.
On the night of the killing, Gardner told police “the divorce was not amicable” between her and Bridegan, and they communicated only by text, according to WJXT. Police that night also spoke to Kirsten, Bridegan’s widow, who said Gardner and Fernandez Saldana were the only people “who had ill will toward him,” according to prosecutors’ court docs, as reported by WJXT.
According to court documents, Gardner’s father was willing to pay off Bridegan to get rid of him, WJXT reported. Prosecutors have also pointed to statements from a friend recounting Fernandez Saldana once telling her, “I’ve killed people before,” and Gardner saying her husband could “take care of (Bridegan) and no one would ever know.”
Police have said that’s exactly what Fernandez Saldana tried to do in hiring a man to shoot and kill Bridegan.
After Bridegan was shot in the street, prosecutors have said, one person fled on foot and another fled in a vehicle, WJXT reported.
In early 2023, nearly a year after the shooting, investigators arrested the person they say pulled the trigger: 62-year-old Henry Tenon, who had rented a property from Fernandez Saldana.
Three trials, one shooting
Fernandez Saldana, now 38, is the first to stand trial in the case. He was arrested in Orlando in March 2023 on charges including first-degree murder and solicitation to commit a capital felony. He has pleaded not guilty, and CNN has reached out to his attorney for comment.
Tenon’s arrest was a key break in the case, according to police.
“Our investigation has revealed a single link between Jared Bridegan and Henry Tenon,” Melissa Nelson, Fourth Judicial Circuit state attorney, said. “That is Mario Fernandez Saldana.”
Tenon was charged with conspiracy to commit murder, second-degree murder with a weapon, accessory after the fact to a capital felony and child abuse, Nelson said at the time.
GPS evidence released by prosecutors shows Tenon allegedly driving Bridegan’s route twice in the month before the shooting, in what they called “a practice run of the homicide route,” WJXT reported.
The affidavit in the case says investigators found three checks Fernandez Saldana wrote to Tenon in October 2022, CNN previously reported, and phone records show the men had more than 60 phone contacts with each other.
Fernandez Saldana “was integral to the solicitation, conspiracy, and murder of Bridegan,” prosecutors said.
Ex-wife set to stand trial next month
Tenon pleaded guilty only to second-degree murder with a weapon in March 2023, under a deal that required he testify against Fernandez Saldana and Gardner in exchange for dropped charges and a reduced sentencing range, WJXT reported.
In January 2025, however, Tenon backtracked, saying his testimony as part of the deal was “false.” A judge granted Tenon’s request to take back his guilty plea and proceed with a trial instead, with no objections from prosecutors.
At a bond hearing earlier this year, Fernandez Saldana’s attorney said there was no proof his client’s guilt was evident, CNN affiliate Action News Jax reported. Attorney Jesse Dreicer suggested Tenon made false statements and his confession to the shooting was coerced.
The defense then showed the court a police interview. In it, Fernandez Saldana says he was home at an hour the defense argues would have made it impossible for him to assist Tenon in the shooting.
Tenon’s trial is scheduled for March 2027.
And five months after Fernandez Saldana’s arrest, Gardner was also taken into custody. A grand jury indicted her 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 her ex-husband.
Gardner has pleaded not guilty and is up next for trial, with a start date planned for early September.
“This investigation has uncovered the truth of Jared’s murder. Henry Tenon did not act alone. Mario Fernandez did not plan alone,” Nelson said in August 2023, after Gardner’s arrest. “And Shanna Gardner’s indictment acknowledges her central and key role in the cold, calculated and premeditated murder of Jared Bridegan.”
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