JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. — Hundreds of pages of documents have been released in what prosecutors call a murder-for-hire case of a St. Johns County father named Jared Bridegan. Many of the documents are from the Jacksonville Beach Police Department in the weeks following Bridegan's murder in February 2022.
The documents shed light on the tumultuous relationship between Bridegan and his ex-wife Shanna Gardner, as well as the tension between Gardner and her new husband, Mario Fernandez Saldana. Both are suspects in Bridegan's murder.
Two weeks after the shooting in Jacksonville Beach, Gardner had her first sit-down interview with Jacksonville Beach Police.
According to police reports, she said her marriage with her ex-husband, Bridegan, was strained and she accused him of draining their bank accounts. They were also in a custody battle over their two children.
Regarding the night of the shooting, Gardner said Bridegan picked up their children from her home and later dropped them off. There was no interaction between the two except for Bridegan's text to indicate he was at Gardner's house.
In the reports, Gardner also mentions her new husband, Fernandez Saldana, telling police, “Good luck with Mario. He is like a pit bull.”
During the police interview with Fernandez Saldana, he said that on the night of the murder, he did not see the children come back inside the house, but he heard them arrive.
He said he was "really out of it" because he took a medicine called Gabapentin. He also told police he felt the children would be better off if Gardner had custody over the kids, not Bridegan. Fernandez Saldana also described himself as “confrontational”.
The documents reveal police interviewed a woman named Elizabeth Smith, who is a friend of Gardner's. Smith told police she heard Fernandez Saldana say, "You know I've killed people before."
Smith also told police that Gardner told her, "Mario offered to get four guys and break into Bridegan's residence in the middle of the night and 'take care of him and nobody would ever know.'"
The documents also detail how Bridegan's daughter, Bexley, reacted moments after her father was shot and killed. One of the first people who found Bridegan dying also saw Bexley in the car, picked her up and carried her away to his car to keep her safe, documents show.
“Worried about her father," is how Bexley was described in the documents.
Bexley, just 6 months old at the time, was sitting in a car seat in the back of her father's car when he went outside to move a tire from the middle of the road. The tire that was left in the middle of the road was later connected to a home leased by Fernandez Saldana.
According to the documents, investigators went to a home on Patomac Avenue in Jacksonville. It was a building that Saldana leased to tenants. Police saw a truck tire leaning against the house, but there was no truck in the driveway. Police determined that the tire had the same DOT number and manufacturing date as the tire found in front of Bridegan’s car when he was shot in Jacksonville Beach.
A man named Henry Tenon used to live at the home. Tenon has now pleaded guilty to shooting Bridegan. He will testify against Fernandez Saldana and Gardner. The couple has pleaded not guilty to murdering Bridegan.
Fernandez Saldana and Gardner will be in Duval County court for a hearing on Wednesday at 9 a.m.
Gardner's attorney has filed a request for the judge to set a bond for her.