Jared Bridegan and Shanna Gardner. (Image of Bridegan: Jacksonville Beach Police Department; screenshot of Gardner: WJAX)
The tangled web of Jared Bridegan’s murder reached its final thread on Thursday, with a grand injury indicting his ex-wife for the killing.
Shanna Gardner is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, solicitation to commit first-degree murder, and child abuse, State Attorney Melissa Nelson of the Fourth Circuit of Florida announced.
ATF agents arrested her in Richland, Washington, the prosecutor said. She will be extradited to Duval County, Florida, to face charges.
Bridegan had been driving home the evening of Feb. 16, 2022, with his and his new wife’s 2-year-old daughter in the backseat of his SUV.
He would never make it. Police in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, said he encountered a tire in a dark area of Sanctuary Boulevard. Investigators believe someone put it there on purpose to make him stop. Bridegan opened his SUV door, presumably to move the tire.
“It was then that he was gunned down in cold blood,” Jacksonville Beach Police Chief Gene Paul Smith previously said.
Before the ambush, Bridegan had been having a routine weekly dinner with his daughter as well as the twins that he shared with Gardner.
Almost a year after the killing, authorities first charged Henry Tenon, 62. Then followed Gardner’s new husband and Tenon’s landlord, Mario Fernandez Saldana, 35.
Prosecutors seek the death penalty against Saldana and will do so too against Gardner.
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“Henry Tenon did not act alone. Mario Fernandez did not plan alone. And Shanna Gardner’s indictment acknowledges her central and key role in the cold, calculated, and premeditated murder of Jared Bridegan,” Nelson said Thursday.
Tenon pleaded guilty on March 16 to murder in the second degree with a weapon. He admitted to being the gunman and agreed to testify against those he had worked with to kill Bridegan, Nelson has said.
Gardner has denied any wrongdoing in Bridegan’s murder.
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A company owned by Garnder’s parents has said that she and Fernandez Saldana separated.
Tenon, Fernandez Saldana, and Gardner each faced a count of child abuse because the shooting put Bridegan’s daughter in danger.
“Bullets struck the interior of the vehicle, in close proximity to where the child was strapped into her car, an act that reasonably could have been expected to cause physical or mental injury to her,” an affidavit stated. “Witnesses advised that the child was crying when they arrived on scene.”
Fernandez Saldana is scheduled for a hearing to take place Sept. 12.
A judge has yet to sentence Tenon. The 62-year-old is scheduled for a status hearing to take place on Oct. 9.
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