The fatal shooting of a Microsoft design manager on a dark Florida road was a “targeted ambush” hatched by his ex-wife and her husband after years of post-marriage strife over religion and how to raise twin children, a prosecutor told jurors Monday.
Jared Bridegan, 33, was killed in Jacksonville Beach in 2022 when he got out of his vehicle to remove a tire that was placed in the road while his 2-year-old daughter from a second marriage was strapped
in her car seat.
More than four years later, Mario Fernandez Saldana, 38, is on trial for first-degree murder and solicitation of murder. He’s accused of arranging the death by hiring a gunman. Bridegan's ex-wife, Shanna Gardner, 39, faces her own trial in September. The alleged gunman, Henry Tenon, is slated to go to trial next year after backing out of a guilty plea.
“The killer was a stranger to Jared Bridegan. The murder was personal,” Assistant State Attorney Christina Simak Stifler said in Duval County court.
“A tire in the road, a dark place,” she said in her opening remarks. “No one would see and no one would know and no one would trace it back to those responsible. ... The architects of Jared Bridegan's murder intended it to be a perfect crime and it almost was.”
But defense attorney James Hill told jurors that Fernandez Saldana, an Army veteran, had no motive to get rid of Bridegan and his actions shortly after the killing — a road trip to Pennsylvania and back — didn’t resemble that of a criminal schemer “running from the law.”
“He had access to a lot of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Hill acknowledged, referring to his wife Gardner's trust fund. “He could have fled the country.”
While addressing the jury, Stifler traced the bitter relationship between Bridegan and Gardner, the execution-style killing and the difficulty of trying to solve a shocking homicide with no witnesses. The victim, she said, had no obvious enemies and was a devout member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Bridegan and Gardner were divorced in 2015. The end of the marriage, however, led to years of acrimony about how to raise their twins, from disputes about religion to doctor's appointments and even school conferences, Stifler said.
“It was pretty terrible,” Bridegan's second wife, Kirsten Bridegan, testified. “There was absolutely no trust so everything was in writing. Texts, email. We did not speak in person, like at school events. Didn't do phone calls.”
Bridegan married Kristen in 2017, and they had two children. Gardner, meanwhile, married Fernandez Saldana, who was a maintenance man at a gym where she worked out.
Bridegan was attacked shortly after returning 9-year-old twins to Gardner’s home from his “date night” with the children.
He was driving back to St. Augustine with another child when he stopped his Volkswagen Atlas and put on warning lights to remove a tire from the road. Bridegan was shot twice moments later.
Traffic began to back up. The first trial witness, Jonelle Cruz, said that she comforted Bridegan's daughter with a blanket in a separate vehicle while her boyfriend tried to figure out what had happened.
“She was shaking. She was very worried about her dad,” Cruz testified.
Later that night, Kirsten Bridegan said she followed her “gut instinct” and urged police to investigate Gardner and Fernandez Saldana.
Stifler said police a few months later discovered a lead “that blew the case open.” A tire at a rental property owned by Fernandez Saldana was very similar to the tire that had blocked Bridegan's vehicle when he was shot.
Police matched DNA on those two tires to Tenon, a former tenant with a criminal record and financial problems. Records revealed that he was paid $10,000 by Fernandez Saldana after the murder, though the checks said the work was for landscaping, roof repair and a business idea.
Hill, the defense lawyer, disputed anything nefarious, telling the jury: “Mario Fernandez has hired him to do work, not murder.”
Tenon, 65, was charged with shooting Bridegan. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and had agreed to testify against Fernandez Saldana. He withdrew the plea earlier this year and will have his own trial.
Stifler said Gardner, who was from a wealthy family, relocated to Washington state with her children after Bridegan's death. Fernandez Saldana, meanwhile, moved to Orlando.
“Ms. Gardner got what she wanted: full control over her children and the freedom to move out of Jacksonville, Florida,” the prosecutor said.
Bridegan was chief technology officer at Utah-based Clean Simple Eats before working at Microsoft for less than a year before his death, his wife said.
