JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Four and a half years ago, a 33-year-old father of four from St. Johns County was gunned down in the street in Jacksonville Beach right in front of his toddler daughter.
For months after Jared Bridegan’s murder, his widow and those who loved him in the community pleaded for answers about who would fatally shoot the Microsoft employee with his 2-year-old daughter watching from the back seat.
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A little over a year after the deadly ambush shooting, investigators announced the arrest of Mario Fernandez Saldana, the estranged husband of Bridegan’s ex-wife, Shanna Gardner.
Prosecutors say Bridegan was killed in a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by Fernandez and Gardner, who they say hired Henry Tenon, a tenant at one of their properties, to be the gunman.
All three are now indicted on first-degree murder charges in Bridegan’s death.
Fernandez is the first of the three to go on trial. As that trial begins with opening statements on Monday, News4JAX is taking a look at everything we’ve learned about Fernandez since his arrest in March 2023.
NOTE: The details below are compiled from court documents and previous reporting.
Who is Mario Fernandez?
Mario Enrique Fernandez Saldana was born in April 1988 and attended Sandalwood High School in Jacksonville.
(NOTE: His attorneys refer to him as Mr. Fernandez in court, so News4JAX will use only Fernandez for him on second reference.)
As an adult, Fernandez joined the Army and eventually became a drill sergeant. But in January of 2018, he faced an allegation of sexual assault from a recruit under his charge. The charges were dropped, but Fernandez was given a less-than-honorable discharge.
A few months after the allegations, in April 2018, Fernandez married Gardner, whom he met while working as a maintenance worker at her CrossFit gym.
Gardner and Fernandez both later told investigators in separate interviews that they did not know each other very well when they got married. Gardner said the marriage was suggested by her mother when Gardner took Fernandez to Utah to meet her family.
Gardner and Fernandez both indicated that the main reason for their marriage was Gardner’s children and the contentious ongoing custody disputes with Bridegan over their twins after their 2015 divorce.
Gardner told at least one friend she knew it would look better for her in court during those custody fights if she were married again.
Relationship with Bridegan
Multiple witnesses said Fernandez described those custody and legal battles with Bridegan as tense.
Fernandez told investigators he tried to reach out to Bridegan after he married Gardner, with no response. He said the families typically communicated only through text messages.
Bridegan’s widow said her husband interacted with Fernandez mostly at court hearings, school events and doctors’ appointments for the twins.
But Fernandez and Gardner said the two couples rarely acknowledged each other at events involving the children.
Multiple witnesses said Fernandez often complained about the ongoing conflict with Bridegan.
One friend of the couple even said they talked about getting guys to “to take care of” Bridegan and that Fernandez told her, “You know I’ve killed people before,” apparently referring to his military service.
Despite siding with Gardner in the custody disputes and telling investigators after the murder that the twins were “better off” with Bridegan “out of the picture,” Fernandez admitted that he and Gardner also clashed over parenting styles, which made their marriage rocky.
Financials
Gardner’s parents own a successful multi-level marketing craft supply company called Stampin’ Up! After their daughter married Fernandez, the Gardners made Fernandez the trustee of Shanna’s irrevocable trust.
That gave Fernandez administrative and financial control of the trust, which included a clause that Shanna could only become trustee of the fund when she had “no further legal entanglements with her ex-husband, Jared G. Bridegan.”
According to records, Fernandez and Gardner were listed together as owners of First Choice Home Rentals LLC, which received incoming transfers from the trust that was funded by Gardner’s parents.
Investigators said the LLC was used to manage at least one rental property on Potomac Avenue in the Biltmore neighborhood of Jacksonville’s Westside.
The ownership of the property became key during the investigation into Bridegan’s February 2022 murder.
The murder
Bridegan, a Microsoft design manager, was fatally shot on Feb. 16, 2022, while on his way home after dropping off the twins he shared with Gardner at her home in Jacksonville Beach.
Investigators say a tire was placed in the road in a plot to distract and kill Bridegan, 33, in Jacksonville Beach.
When Bridegan stepped out of his SUV to move the tire, he was ambushed by gunfire. At least one bullet missed his 2-year-old daughter by mere inches in her car seat.
Eventually, detectives tracked down the man they say pulled the trigger: Henry Tenon. Investigators say Tenon’s DNA was on the tire that was blocking Bridegan’s path.
Investigators said the single link between Tenon and Bridegan was Fernandez, who is accused of paying Tenon, now 65, at least $10,000 for fatally shooting Bridegan.
Rocky relationship
By the time of Bridegan’s murder in 2022, what Gardner referred to as a marriage of “convenience” was ending. She and Fernandez had decided to divorce and even told the twins’ school in early January 2022 that they were separating.
Fernandez and Gardner told investigators in April 2022, just months after Bridegan’s murder, that despite attempting counseling, their parenting styles were too different and they were divorcing, though Gardner planned for Fernandez to remain in their shared home through that summer.
The pair later told the twins’ school, however, that they would not be separating after all.
By January of 2023, Fernandez and Gardner publicly claimed to still be living together as a couple, but investigators said surveillance revealed they were separated, with Fernandez living in Orlando and Gardner living in Washington state with the twins.
Arrests
Exactly one year and one month after Bridegan’s murder, an indictment was filed against Fernandez on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, solicitation to commit a capital felony and child abuse.
He will only face two of those charges after prosecutors dropped the conspiracy and child abuse charges shortly before jury selection began.
Fernandez was arrested in Central Florida before being transferred to Duval County to face the charges.
According to the indictment, the conspiracy to kill Bridegan began as early as November 2021 and involved a tenant at the Potomac Avenue property named Henry Tenon.
Investigators zeroed in on Tenon, who was the first to be arrested, in part through the rental home owned by Fernandez. Detectives visited the property in July 2022 and collected a spare tire that they said later matched a tire used in the roadway setup on the night Bridegan was killed.
When police obtained Tenon’s bank records, they found three checks totaling $10,000 written from First Choice Home Rentals LLC — all signed by Fernandez. They were for $2,000 and $3,000 dated March 28, 2022, and $5,000 dated April 4, 2022. The memo lines described work such as landscaping, roof upkeep and “Kickstarter Good Luck!!,” according to copies released by prosecutors.
Tenon initially pleaded guilty in the case on March 16, 2023, and agreed to testify against any “co-conspirators.” That same day, Fernandez was arrested in the Orlando area.
Gardner was arrested in West Richland, Washington, on Aug. 17, 2023, and was eventually extradited to Florida to face murder charges.
Records show investigators focused on Fernandez and Gardner early in the case, interviewing Gardner the night of the killing and subpoenaing her and Fernandez’s phones within days.
Those phone records, according to investigators, showed Fernandez and Tenon were together the night of Bridegan’s murder.
Who drove the truck?
Investigators say GPS evidence showed Tenon twice drove the route prosecutors say mirrored Bridegan’s normal drive home, in what prosecutors described as a “practice run of the homicide route.”
The first “practice run” was on Jan. 5, 2022, and the second was on Jan. 29, 2022.
The report said Tenon’s cellphone tracking data and surveillance video placed him along the route the night of the killing in a dark blue Ford F-150, and that the truck and tire were later recovered.
Another set of documents said Fernandez’s phone “pinged” at the Potomac Avenue rental property the day before Bridegan was killed, for about 15 minutes in the morning and about an hour in the evening.
Recently, prosecutors pointed out that Tenon could not have been alone the night of the murder, because he was captured by multiple surveillance cameras running from the scene on foot -- and someone else drove away in the blue truck.
A truck that was later tracked back to Tenon, who had inherited it from his father.
1st of 3 trials
Tenon withdrew his guilty plea earlier this year and will get his own trial in 2027. He will not testify in Fernandez’s trial, which is scheduled for Aug. 17-28.
Gardner will go on trial after Fernandez, with jury selection from Aug. 31-Sept. 4, and the trial from Sept. 8-25. She will be represented by high-profile attorney Jose Baez, who is best known for defending Casey Anthony and getting an acquittal in the death of her 2-year-old daughter.
Tenon will go on trial in March 2027.
Neither Gardner nor Tenon will testify in Fernandez’s trial.