The Murder Of Jared Bridegan: The Case Against Shanna Gardner

Mario Fernandez is going to prison for killing Jared Bridegan. What happened one day later changed the case against his co-defendant entirely. 
Fernandez was convicted of first-degree murder and solicitation after a jury deliberated less than four hours. He's facing life without parole for the 2021 shooting staged to look like a carjacking outside Bridegan's Jacksonville Beach home. Then, one day after the verdict, prosecutors filed two new felony charges against Fernandez — both involving children, both unconnected to Bridegan's murder, one tied to a girl who was around eight when the alleged conduct began. 
Shanna Gardner's trial was set to start days later. Instead, Judge London Kite granted a continuance, pushing jury selection to May 2027 so her defense can dig into whether the new charges point to a motive of Fernandez's own. Fernandez had already told police the twins were "better off" with Bridegan "out of the picture" — a comment that predates the new allegations by years and raises the question of whose plan this really was. 
None of that erases the evidence prosecutors already built against Gardner: her own text messages, which prosecutors say read as intent rather than venting. A friend texted a contact about finding Gardner "a guy" who "performs permanent disappearing acts on certain people." A detective testified the plot traces to 2015. Gardner still faces murder, conspiracy, solicitation, and a fourth charge tied to her twins. 
Her attorney, Jose Baez, got Casey Anthony acquitted on every major count, and he's already accusing the state of mischaracterizing evidence. The jury pool has been doubled to 500. May 2027 feels far away — and this case keeps proving nothing about it is settled. 
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Fernandez's murder conviction was one day old when prosecutors filed two new felony charges against him involving crimes against children. One charge involves a girl who was about eight in April 2020. The second involves a different child at the home Fernandez shared with Gardner in March 2022.

Gardner's trial collapsed within hours. Jury selection was set for Monday. The defense asked for a continuance, citing the new charges and recently disclosed witnesses. Kite granted it. New trial date: May 2027. The defense indicated it wants to investigate whether the allegations give Fernandez an independent motive for the murder.

The marriage sits at the center. Gardner called it "convenience." Fernandez called it helping with "the Jared situation." The prosecution called it "a deal." The new charges raise the hardest question heading into May. Did Gardner conspire with a dangerous man, or did she unknowingly marry one?

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Four hours. That's how long the jury needed to convict Mario Fernandez of first-degree murder in the killing of Jared Bridegan. Five days later, the case turns to Shanna Gardner.

Gardner faces four charges — two more than the husband just found guilty. Prosecutors have evidence Fernandez's jury never saw. Gardner's own texts expressed violent desires about Bridegan. Jensen's messages discussed finding someone to carry out "permanent disappearing acts." Johns testified at a 2024 hearing that the plot dated to 2015.

Gardner's defense is Jose Baez, who won Casey Anthony's acquittal and has already accused the State Attorney's Office of withholding evidence and mischaracterizing the text messages. Baez argued that "funeral potatoes" is a real recipe in Gardner's LDS community and that the prosecution turned humor between friends into evidence of a murder plot. Whether the jury buys that reading may depend on a legal shift the Fernandez trial previewed: the witness blocked by marital privilege in that courtroom may testify freely in this one.

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Both sides rested on Day 7 of Mario Fernandez's trial for the murder of Jared Bridegan. The defense called two schoolteachers and Fernandez chose not to testify. Closing arguments followed the same afternoon.

Prosecutor Stifler told the jury that alleged gunman Henry Tenon had no motive, no means, and no connection to Bridegan. Fernandez had all three. The trust clause, the checks, the phone gaps, and the January visit to the man who once owned a 10mm Glock all point to one man. Dreicer told the jury the prosecution was asking them to fill in gaps the evidence doesn't support and that the state's own witnesses couldn't place Fernandez at the scene.

In rebuttal, Mizrahi asked whether Fernandez gets to walk away because he paid someone else to commit the crime. His final line to the jury: this defendant is not the unluckiest man on the face of the earth — he's just guilty. Deliberations begin Wednesday morning after jury instructions.

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The prosecution rested its case against Mario Fernandez on Day 6, and the defense immediately tested whether six days of testimony met the legal standard for the charges. The solicitation count requires evidence of a communicative act — proof that Fernandez asked Tenon to carry out the killing. No direct evidence of that request was introduced at trial.

John Biggerstaff, the longtime friend investigators believe once possessed the 10mm Glock matching shell casings from the scene, denied giving Fernandez any weapon. Biggerstaff is a convicted felon who surrendered his firearms in 2016 and says he hasn't seen the gun since. His son Juan, who wore a department-ordered wire to record his father, testified to the same. But both carried credibility issues the prosecution highlighted. Juan filed an inaccurate stolen-gun report using the 10mm's serial number. Biggerstaff himself told his son "the only thing they care about is the 10mm."

The prosecution responded to the acquittal motion with a theory that may define this trial: the killing itself proves the hire. Fernandez is the sole link between gunman and victim. The financial records, the trust clause, and the phone data gaps form a web the state says replaces the direct proof solicitation charges normally demand. Judge Kite denied the defense motion. Deliberations could begin Wednesday.

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The August 21 session of Mario Fernandez's murder trial broke in half before the first witness finished. Cross-examination of an FBI cell-data analyst was underway when Judge London Kite cleared the room at 9:30 a.m. over a deadline Kirsten Bridegan had just missed: her cellphone was due to the court at 9 for extraction on behalf of Shanna Gardner's defense team. Kite, who says she has ruled on this dispute across at least seven hearings, gave the widow 30 minutes and set a contempt hearing for the lunch break. Kite has said she might not have granted the subpoena if Kirsten were only a victim, but the widow is also a witness, and Gardner's confrontation rights carried the ruling. Kirsten's lawyers petitioned the Fifth District Court of Appeal, which stayed the order and shelved the contempt question for three business days.

Between those two rulings, jurors heard the state's most detailed walk through the digital record so far. A former ATF analyst mapped Fernandez's 2022 communications with accused gunman Henry Tenon, from heavy contact surrounding the February ambush down to total silence by summer's end, including a 27-minute call the day after the getaway truck's photos went public. She also described 5,000-plus Google deletions the morning of Fernandez's police interview. A JSO digital forensics detective closed the day with the August 2022 factory reset of Fernandez's phone and the 35 accounts restored afterward, none of which ever messaged Tenon again.

With jurors gone for the weekend, prosecutors put inmate Javell Ponder before the judge alone, and he claimed Fernandez identified the murder plan as his own. Defense counsel told Kite no human being would believe him, and she has not ruled. Testimony resumes August 24, another proffered witness is waiting, and Kirsten Bridegan's three days are already counting down.

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Henry Tenon told investigators he killed Jared Bridegan. He took the plea that came with that confession — second-degree murder, fifteen years minimum, and a promise to testify against the two people prosecutors say hired him. In February 2026, he stood in front of a judge and asked for a trial instead. Whatever he says next, it won't be as a cooperating witness. 
Mario Fernandez, Tenon's former landlord, is the one on trial now, charged with first-degree murder and solicitation to commit a capital felony. Jurors have heard an FBI agent trace Tenon's phone on a Saturday eighteen days before the murder — a drive from Fernandez's rental property toward Bridegan's neighborhood and his kids' gymnastics facility, ending in Jacksonville Beach, while Fernandez's phone never left the house. Prosecutors call it a practice run. The defense calls it a renovation errand, backed by video of Fernandez meeting contractors at the property. Still, nothing — no DNA, no fingerprints, no surveillance — ties Fernandez to the truck linked to the ambush, and the property where that truck turned up was never searched. 
Add the money: three checks from Fernandez to Tenon, ten thousand dollars total, written weeks after Bridegan died, marked "landscaping" and "Kickstarter Good Luck!!" And a prosecutor's admission that a second person was at the scene that night — someone still not charged. 
Jared Bridegan was thirty-three, a father of four, killed on a dark road after stopping to move a tire while his two-year-old daughter sat feet away. Gardner's trial starts in September. Tenon's is set for 2027. His widow has spent four years getting to this point. 
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Mario Fernandez's defense can show exactly where he was on January 29, 2022: at his own rental property on Potomac Avenue in Jacksonville, meeting contractors, hauling construction materials, on camera. In the Jared Bridegan murder trial's fourth day of testimony, prosecutors used that same day against him. FBI Agent Bobby Blythe traced Henry Tenon's phone leaving that exact property and running a route through Bridegan's life — his neighborhood, his children's gymnastics facility, Jacksonville Beach — eighteen days before Bridegan was shot dead beside a tire left in the road. The state calls it a practice run launched from the defendant's own address. The defense calls it a workday.

The rest of the day belonged to what investigators don't have. No DNA, fingerprints, or surveillance connect Fernandez to the blue Ford F-150. No physical evidence shows John Biggerstaff supplying him a 10mm, and records showed six 10mm purchases at a single Jacksonville gun store. Nobody ever searched the property where the truck was found — an omission detectives explained with 2023 information, disputed by the defense, that the weapon was destroyed shortly after the shooting.

Fernandez is charged with first-degree murder and solicitation as the alleged hirer, and the state's proof runs through a lease, a route, and $10,000 in checks to Tenon written in the six weeks after the murder. Jurors heard Fernandez's recorded calls from the days around Tenon's arrest and his 2022 police interview calling Bridegan "a keyboard warrior more than anything." Tony Brueski breaks down which side actually won Day 4 — and why the answer depends on which job the jury thinks is on trial. Testimony runs through August 28.

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In February 2026, Henry Tenon stood in front of Judge London Kite in Duval County and said he wanted a trial. He had already confessed to killing Jared Bridegan. He had taken a deal. He had agreed to testify that Mario Fernandez and Shanna Gardner hired him to carry out the shooting. Then he took all of it back. Tony Brueski and retired FBI Special Agent Robin Dreeke sit down with the listener questions this audience cannot stop debating. What would make a man who admitted to murder reverse course and risk life in prison? The prosecution says the only link between Tenon and Bridegan is Fernandez, and that three checks totaling ten thousand dollars prove a murder-for-hire arrangement. The defense says Tenon was a handyman who did real work at the property and showed video to prove it. A prosecution filing revealed that someone else was at the scene the night Bridegan was killed — a detail that raises questions about who else was involved and whether additional charges could follow. Jared Bridegan was shot with his two-year-old daughter in the back seat. A bullet narrowly missed her. Fernandez is on trial now. Gardner starts September 7. Tenon in 2027. Three juries will hear three different versions of the same night.

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Taylor Kutis testified via Zoom on Day 3 of the Jared Bridegan murder trial and described conversations with Mario Fernandez that preceded the killing. Fernandez told Kutis he had "a special set of skills" from his time in the Army and mentioned "a contract with Gardner's family." After Bridegan was shot and killed on February 16, 2022, Fernandez described the murder to Kutis as "a hit-and-run."

Kutis never called law enforcement. She heard what amounted to advance knowledge of a killing and a reframing of the murder afterward, and she never reported any of it.

ATF agent Glenn Fahrig testified about DNA recovered from shell casings found at the murder scene. The DNA on the casings matched Jared Bridegan — not Mario Fernandez, not Shanna Gardner-Fernandez.

Detective Johns faced cross-examination that targeted the prosecution's physical evidence. No cell phone data places Fernandez with Henry Tenon during the alleged rehearsal drive or on the day Bridegan was killed. No Fernandez DNA was recovered from the truck used in the ambush. Tenon originally pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and agreed to cooperate but later withdrew the plea and faces his own trial in 2027. The prosecution's "dry run" theory took direct fire, with Johns conceding gaps under questioning.

Three Glock 10mm handguns were sold at Beaches Pawn Shop one month after the murder. Bridegan was killed with a 10mm round, but no forensic link to the murder weapon has been established. Victor Quiroz testified he met Fernandez a month after the killing with no discussion of the murder. Custody documents and family group chats framed Fernandez as an involved stepfather.

The jury will not be sequestered. The trial continues with the prosecution's words set against a physical evidence trail full of gaps.

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