Slain Florida man’s ex-wife arrested over murder-for-hire plot

Police: Murder-for-hire plot to kill Microsoft executive involved his ex-wife, her new husband and tenant

Detectives accused Shanna Gardner-Fernandez, left, and her husband Mario Fernandez, of being behind the murder of her ex-husband, Jared Bridegan, the father of her twins. (Facebook)

Jared Bridegan was a long-time practicing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Bridegan and Shanna Gardner, both Mormons who both grew up in Utah, got married in 2010 in Salt Lake City. They lived in Connecticut with their twins before moving to Florida.

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One of the kids was diagnosed with a heart condition that made high-altitude locations dangerous, so living at sea level in St. Johns County was safer.

Gardner filed for divorce in 2015 citing they didn’t “love each other anymore.”

They also didn’t get along. They had been fighting over custody of their twins until last year when a man fatally shot Bridegan, 33, in Duval County. On Thursday, over a year after the murder, detectives arrested her in Washington after a grand jury indicted her.

Gardner’s second husband, Mario Fernandez, who she had met at a Crossfit gym where he worked, hired his tenant Henry Tenon to kill Bridegan, a Microsoft executive who lived in St. Augustine, according to detectives.

Detectives accused Fernandez, then 34, of hiring Tenon, then 62, to fatally shoot Bridegan — just two days after Valentine’s Day in 2022, in Jacksonville Beach.

Mario Fernandez, left, is accused of hiring Henry Tenon, right, to kill Jared Bridegan, center, on Feb. 16, 2022 in Jacksonville Beach. (Duval County - Jacksonville Beach Police Department - Orange County -)

Tenon confessed to placing a tire on a one-way street to force Bridegan to stop while he was driving his Volkswagen Atlas back home to St. Johns County, according to police.

Bridegan had just dropped off his 9-year-old twins at the Gardner-Fernandez’s home. He got out of the car to move the tire out of the way and Tenon shot him at close range, according to police.

Bridegen had remarried to a North Carolina woman, who also worked for Microsoft, in 2017. They had two daughters, so he was a father of four.

Their 2-year-old daughter was with him when he was killed. She was still strapped in a car seat in the Volkswagen, which still had the emergency flashing lights on when a person found them, called 911, and deputies arrived, according to police.

Bridegan, a senior design manager for Microsoft, had left his 7-month-old baby back home with his wife, Kristen Bridegan, in St. Augustine.

Jacksonville Beach Police Chief Gene Paul N. Smith described the murder as a “planned and target ambush” when he announced in January that Tenon had confessed.

Duval County prosecutors first charged Tenon with conspiracy to commit murder, second-degree murder, accessory after the fact to a capital felony, and child abuse.

Tenon later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder as part of a plea agreement that included testifying as a witness in court, according to prosecutors.

Federal agents and deputies arrested Fernandez in March, in Orange County. Duval County prosecutors charged him with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, solicitation to commit a capital felony, and child abuse.

Gardner-Fernandez was awaiting extradition to face charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in Duval County.

News conference on the case 6 months ago


About the Author
Andrea Torres headshot

The Emmy Award-winning journalist joined the Local 10 News team in 2013. She wrote for the Miami Herald for more than 9 years and won a Green Eyeshade Award.

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