JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jared Bridegan was the kind of father who turned everyday life into a lesson, a project or an adventure. The kind of “active dad” who built a gymnastics bar in his backyard for his oldest daughter and learned to skateboard as an adult to spend time with his son.
He loved family bike rides, Mario Kart race nights, silly games, creative rainy day projects, spontaneous trips to Disney World and ice cream cake on his birthday.
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But his youngest daughter, London, won’t get to experience those memory-making moments with her father. She was just 6 months old when Bridegan, 33, was killed two days after Valentine’s Day in 2022.
Her sister, Bexley, who was 2 years old at the time, was with their dad when he was ambushed and shot while driving home from dropping off his two oldest children at their mother’s home in Ponte Vedra Beach.
In the years since, prosecutors have described the deadly shooting as a murder-for-hire plot, which they say was orchestrated by Bridegan’s ex-wife and her second husband.
As the first of three trials in the case gets underway with jury selection this week, News4JAX wanted to highlight what family members and friends have shared about who Jared Bridegan was before that fateful February day.
His widow, Kirsten, has publicly shared memories of Jared on the JusticeforJaredB Instagram page since his death, and we have leaned heavily on those posts and information from his obituary in this report.
“I want people to know WHO Jared was,” Kirsten Bridegan wrote. “I want his memory to live on. I want his life to mean something for those who didn’t get the chance to know him like we all did.”
Early life
Jared Galen Bridegan was born on June 29, 1988, as the youngest of four siblings to Gaylord and JoAnn Bridegan in Warrensburg, Missouri.
As a child, Bridegan moved with his family to Jacksonville, and he graduated from Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in 2007. He later attended Utah Valley University, earning a bachelor’s degree in digital media in 2014 with an emphasis in cinema production.
While he was studying in Utah, Bridegan met and married his first wife, Shanna Gardner, in 2010. They had twin children, a boy and a girl, and divorced in 2015.
NOTE: For privacy reasons, we will refer to Bridegan’s eldest daughter as A.B. and her twin brother as L.B.
Two years later, when the twins were 4 years old, Bridegan met his second wife, Kirsten, on a dating app. They married in October 2017 and had two daughters together by 2021. In one of her posts, Kirsten reflected on the short time she had with her husband.
“If I could have known what would happen 5 short years after meeting you, I’d still say yes,” she wrote.
Professionally, Bridegan had a longtime interest in videography and became an accomplished user experience designer. He worked as senior UX designer at Canopy, director of UX at Web.com, chief technology officer at Clean Simple Eats, and, at the time of his death, was a senior design manager at Microsoft.
‘The best dad’
Jared Bridegan’s highest purpose was at home in his role as husband and father.
“Jared was quiet, full of love, and one of the best fathers you can imagine,” his father, Gaylord, said in a 2023 statement.
Jared and Kirsten lived with their daughters in St. Augustine, while Gardner and her second husband, Mario Fernandez, lived in Ponte Vedra Beach with the twins when they had custody.
In interviews with News4JAX in the weeks after the shooting, Kirsten Bridegan said Jared built his life around his children.
“The minute you met him you just fell in love with the kind of guy he was,” she said in March 2022.
In one of her Instagram posts, Kirsten shared a video of L.B. on Jared’s last birthday in June 2021, describing what he liked about his dad as little Bexley sat on his lap and he fed her Jared’s traditional ice cream cake birthday treat.
“If I try to take apart something or if it doesn’t work, he always cheers me up and either turns it into something better than I thought or he would cheer me up and make me feel better,” L.B. said. “He is also very kind to others, and when people are mean to me, he would always stand up for me.”
In another post, Kirsten shared a video from a previous Father’s Day that shows Jared reading A.B.’s “Fun Facts About Dad.” A.B. wrote “I love my dad because he’s the best,” and said cuddling was her favorite thing to do with Jared.
Bexley also had a special relationship with Jared and “followed him around everywhere.”
“She was a total daddy’s girl and soaked up every second she got to spend with him,” Kirsten wrote.
But love wasn’t all about snuggles for Jared. It was also about learning.
The do-it-yourself “jack of all trades” poured hours into projects meant to give his children a place to imagine and be kids – like a laser tag arena in the garage -- and he often got the children involved.
When Kirsten mentioned she wanted to grow fresh strawberries and vegetables, Jared built her garden boxes, then pulled in the twins so they could learn and work beside him.
“This is the kind of Dad Jared was,” Kirsten wrote on Instagram. “They loved working in the garage with Dad.”
Then, there was the playhouse.
Jared created the labor of love from the ground up -- dropping a handful of rare curse words along the way. It took countless hours over a few weeks and lots of trips to the yard during breaks between work meetings.
Jared built the frame, hauled and hung cement siding and got cuts on his hands from the roofing materials. And after it was done, he had to cut the roof off when the family’s HOA complained that “the beautiful pitched roof popped over our fence by less than a foot,” Kirsten wrote.
“But, he wanted to give his kids a place to imagine, to create, to be kids - so he did it. He changed the roof, he hung pictures inside, he let me paint the door blue and ‘girly it up’ a bit. He even put house numbers on it and a welcome mat outside the door,” Kirsten shared. “When I say he was ‘the best dad’ it’s because I mean it. He was. Nobody did more for their children than him, me included.”
But the projects weren’t just for the children, he also made handcrafted wooden beams for a master bedroom ceiling, built a custom fireplace and office desk, shiplapped walls and more.
Kirsten and Jared loved tackling home projects together, often with country music or old-school punk playing. When they built that custom fireplace in 2020, they left a note on the studs before closing the wall.
And Jared wasn’t shy about offering his skills to his neighbors.
“He was also the guy in the neighborhood who would loan you his tools and then show up to help you with your project,” his obituary said.
Focus on faith
Those closest to him said faith shaped the way Jared Bridegan tried to live -- and parent.
In a note shared on social media and in his obituary, his family described priorities that guided his decisions: his relationship with his Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, his marriage to Kirsten, and the privilege of being a father.
“Jared found joy in serving others and teaching his children to do the same,” Kirsten wrote.
He also served as a Sunday School teacher in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, teaching 11- and 12-year-olds.
His obituary said youth expressed gratitude for the fun he brought through creative object lessons and humorous stories as he taught them about his faith.
He shared those same lessons with his own children.
In a note to A.B. just months before he was killed, Jared wrote:
“Every good thing in my life has come the closer I follow Christ. Follow him and you’ll always be happy.”
“He took every opportunity to teach his kids about the power of Jesus Christ and encouraged them to make decisions in life based on His teachings,” Kirsten wrote in the post sharing Jared’s note to A.B. “Every good thing in life he credited to his Savior and tried to be better every day as a result.”
That faith has been something his widow and children have clung to in the years since Jared’s murder.
Kirsten often shares about the comfort of the family’s belief that “we will see him again.”
“We’re all looking forward to that reunion,” she wrote.
But she acknowledged that explaining to her young daughters why their dad isn’t here with them has been difficult.
She wrote that shortly after Jared was killed, Bexley asked: “Why is Daddy with God?” and “Why couldn’t Daddy get better?”
Worst nightmare
Again, Bexley was with her father on Feb. 16, 2022, when he was shot and killed while driving home after dropping the twins off at Gardner’s Ponte Vedra Beach home.
Kirsten recalled what it was like that night in a previous interview with News4JAX, saying when Jared hadn’t arrived home by 8:30 p.m. like usual, she tried to reach him, but he wasn’t responding to her calls or texts.
She had a gut feeling something wasn’t right, so she started driving his route to see if maybe he’d been in an accident with Bexley.
“I took the route we normally take to get to the beach,” she said. “And I kept calling his phone. And then one of the policemen answered it. And that’s when I knew my gut feeling was right and something was really wrong.”
The officer didn’t answer her when she asked if Jared was OK. He just told her Bexley was alright and waiting for her at the Jacksonville Beach Police Station.
“Details of that night are still so vivid,” Kirsten wrote on Instagram. “I remember finally seeing Bexley at the station - wrapped in a blanket a bystander had given her and coloring at a table with an officer. Other than a small toy and a coloring book, there wasn’t much for her to do or eat and drink. Stations just aren’t equipped with that.”
Thanks to Kirsten and Bexley’s efforts, a growing number of them now are, but more on that later.
Investigators have since explained that Jared’s route home through the Sanctuary neighborhood in Jacksonville Beach was interrupted by a tire left in the road. When he got out of the SUV to move it, he was shot at close range near the driver’s door.
Police said it was “a miracle” that Bexley, who was strapped into her car seat in the back, was not hit.
In interviews with other news outlets, Kirsten said Bexley described the loud noise of the gunfire, calling it “the boom.”
“She says, “Boom! Boom! Boom! Daddy on the ground,’” Kirsten explained.
Neighbors’ surveillance cameras from the Sanctuary subdivision caught the sound of those gunshots just before 8 p.m.
Kirsten said it was several minutes after the gunfire when bystanders found Jared on the ground by the black Volkswagen Atlas and Bexley still strapped into her car seat.
A kind stranger pulled the little girl out of the SUV and wrapped her in a blanket.
“She was terrified and so, so confused,” Kirsten wrote on Instagram.
‘Light always wins’
Bexley’s experience in the aftermath of her family’s gut-wrenching loss led Kirsten toward a purpose, and “Bexley Boxes” were born.
Each curated kit, designed like a large toy box with a hinged lid, includes simple toys, blankets, snacks, diapers and other necessities to make sure that stations are equipped to comfort children when the unthinkable happens.
A local social worker helped Kirsten add a card for the underside of the lid that gives first responders quick tips for interacting with traumatized children.
“I know that will make such an impact on their experience,” Kirsten wrote.
The initiative, which began as a simple social media ask, blossomed into The Bridegan Foundation, which has placed dozens of boxes across Florida and in other states.
Kirsten’s goal now is to get a box in every station in the country and to make sure they’re resupplied as needed.
“Being able to find something good in this horror is such a blessing to our family” Kirsten wrote. “This is what Jared would’ve wanted. He would want us to smile, to spread happiness, to help others.”
Earlier this year, just before what would have been Jared’s 37th birthday, the community dedicated a Japanese maple tree and a plaque in his honor in the Sanctuary neighborhood where he died.
“A place once marked by tragedy now testifies of healing,” Kirsten wrote.
She also highlighted the addition of streetlights in 2023 to the stretch of road where Jared was killed.
“They not only light up the once dark stretch of road, but stand as a symbol of what happens when people choose to stand up and stand together. Of how we can respond when something breaks,” she wrote. “Of how light always wins.”