The murder on a dark Florida road of 33-year-old Jared Bridegan was a “targeted ambush” hatched by his ex-wife and her husband, prosecutors alleged on Monday. Bridegan, a Microsoft design manager, was driving down a road in Jacksonville Beach with his 2-year-old daughter in the backseat when he got out of his car to move a tire that was in the middle of the road and was killed at point-blank range. Prosecutors told jurors the murder took place after years of post-marriage arguments over religion and how to raise twins.
The murder was personal,” Assistant State Attorney Christina Simak Stifler said. Investigators say the incident was part of a monthslong murder-for-hire plot set in motion by Shanna Gardner, Bridegan’s ex-wife, and her husband, Mario Fernandez Saldana, whose trial began Monday. More than four years later, Mario Fernandez Saldana, 38, is on trial in Duval County court for first-degree murder and solicitation of murder.
He’s accused of arranging Bridegan’s death by hiring a gunman. Shanna Gardner, 39, faces her own trial in September. But defense attorney James Hill told the jury that Fernandez Saldana, an Army veteran, had no desire to get rid of Bridegan and his actions shortly after the killing — a road trip to Pennsylvania and back — didn’t resemble that of a criminal architect “running from the law.” “He had access to a lot of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Hill acknowledged, referring to his wife's trust fund.
The victim, she said, had no obvious enemies and was a devout member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Bridegan and Gardner were divorced in 2015. The end of the marriage, however, led to years of acrimony about how to jointly raise their twins, from religion to doctor's appointments and even school conferences, Stifler said.
She said Gardner did not want her children involved with the Mormon church. It was not good on both sides,” the prosecutor said of the relationship. Bridegan remarried and had two more children.
Gardner, meanwhile, married Fernandez Saldana, who was a maintenance man at a gym where she worked out. Bridegan was attacked shortly after returning 9-year-old twins to Gardner’s home, following a regular “date night” with their children. He was driving home to St.
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