JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Prosecutors and defense attorneys for both Shanna Gardner and Mario Fernandez have agreed that the two should be tried separately in the high-profile Jared Bridegan murder-for-hire case.
Fernandez and Gardner are charged with the killing of Bridegan, a father of four who was gunned down while driving home with his toddler daughter. Gardner was Bridegan’s ex-wife, and the two share twins together.
Until last week, the plan had been to try Gardner and Fernandez at the same time with separate juries, but that was contingent on Henry Tenon, the accused gunman in the case, testifying against the pair as part of a plea agreement.
Tenon has since withdrawn that guilty plea and said that he no longer plans to testify against Gardner or Fernandez.
Gardner, Fernandez and Tenon are all now under indictment for first-degree murder and other charges in the February 2022 ambush shooting. They have each pleaded not guilty.
With the change of Tenon’s plea, defense attorneys for Gardner and Fernandez and state prosecutors have agreed that they should face separate trials, with two separate jury selection periods.
That changes the schedule, which Judge London Kite insisted be set during Thursday’s pre-trial hearing.
Jury selection for Fernandez will be from Aug. 10-14, with a pool of 250 potential jurors. His trial is then slated for Aug. 17-28.
Gardner’s jury selection will run from Aug. 31-Sept. 4 with a pool of 500 jurors. Her trial will then run from Sept. 8-25.
Kite suggested sealing the verdict from the Fernandez trial and publishing both verdicts at the same time to prevent tainting Gardner’s jury pool, but Fernandez’s attorney pushed back, saying if his client is found not guilty, that would mean he would be in jail throughout Gardner’s trial unnecessarily.
Kite said she understood the concern and agreed instead to widen the pool for Gardner’s jury selection to allow for those tainted by pre-trial publicity to be weeded out.
Last week, Assistant State Attorney Alan Mizrahi argued that the original plan to try Gardner and Fernandez together was “logical” because Tenon “was a testifying witness in both.”
“Without him, it becomes less of a priority for the state to keep them together,” Mizrahi said, pointing out that shuffling the separate juries in and out of the courtroom complicates the trial.
“This is not a case or a situation where we’re going to be able to shuffle a jury out for a witness or shuffle a jury out for part of our opening,” Mizrahi explained. “The core of the Gardner case is inadmissible in the Fernandez case. We’re talking about at least six witnesses, if not more.”
Gardner will be in court again on May 4, and Fernandez will be back in court on May 13.
Timeline: How we got here
A little over four years ago, Jared Bridegan dropped his then-9-year-old twin children off at the home of his ex-wife, Shanna Gardner, after a “date night” with their dad.
He left Gardner’s Jacksonville Beach home on Feb. 16, 2022, with his 2-year-old daughter, Bexley, strapped in her car seat in the back of his dark-colored SUV. They were headed back to St. Augustine.
But the 33-year-old Microsoft executive never made it home.
Following his normal route through the Sanctuary neighborhood, Bridegan suddenly had to stop in the area of Jacksonville Drive, America Avenue and Sanctuary Boulevard.
A tire was in the road.
When Bridegan stepped out of his SUV, he was ambushed by gunfire. At least one bullet missed Bexley by mere inches in her car seat.
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Bridegan was left lying in the street next to the SUV with the door wide open, and the shooter seemed to melt into the shadows just as quickly as he had launched his ambush attack.
None of the 911 callers that night mentioned seeing a shooter or a vehicle leaving the scene.
LISTEN: Press play below to hear 911 calls from night of Jared Bridegan’s murder (WARNING: May include graphic content)
But eventually, detectives tracked down the man they say pulled the trigger.
Investigators say that it was all part of a murder-for-hire plot set in motion by Gardner and her new husband, Mario Fernandez. It was a conspiracy that began in November of 2021, according to court documents.
Interactive Timeline
Alleged murder-for-hire scheme
According to detectives, Gardner was tired of sharing custody of her twin children with Bridegan.
Fernandez, she knew, could “take care of him” because of his military background, Gardner told a friend. At least that’s what the friend told investigators as she detailed the strained marriage between Gardner and Fernandez and the contentious ongoing custody battle between Gardner and Bridegan.
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Investigators say that’s exactly what Fernandez did, hiring Henry Tenon, a tenant at one of his properties, to kill Bridegan.
In his initial interview with police in July 2022, Tenon told investigators that he had been renting a home from Fernandez in Jacksonville’s Biltmore neighborhood for several years.
Tenon’s original court records said he became involved in the conspiracy on Jan. 4, 2022 -- just over a month before Bridegan was killed.
Investigators said when Tenon was arrested on an unrelated felony driving charge in August 2022, they questioned him about Bridegan’s murder and a Ford F-150 truck they had been searching for since the shooting.
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Tenon was later arrested in Bridegan’s murder, and investigators said the single link between Tenon and Bridegan was Fernandez.
In 2023, Tenon pleaded guilty and admitted to being the gunman who killed Bridegan, but he has since backtracked, and a judge granted his motion to withdraw his guilty plea.
Gardner and Fernandez have also both pleaded not guilty. State prosecutors initially said they would be seeking the death penalty against both if they were convicted, but they have since taken the death penalty off the table, with the support of Bridegan’s widow, Kirsten, and his family.