4 years after alleged murder-for-hire of Microsoft executive involving his ex-wife, suspect goes to trial in Florida

A man charged with arranging the fatal ambush of a Microsoft design manager is headed to trial Monday in Florida, more than four years after the victim was repeatedly shot outside his vehicle while his 2-year-old child was strapped in a car seat.

Investigators say a tire was placed in the road in a plot to distract and kill Jared Bridegan, 33, in Jacksonville Beach in 2022. They allege it was a murder-for-hire scheme involving his ex-wife and her current husband.

The husband, Mario Fernandez Saldana, 38, is charged with first-degree murder in Duval County court.

Bridegan’s former wife, Shanna Gardner, 39, was arrested in August 2023 in Washington and is facing charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, solicitation to commit murder, and child abuse, CBS affiliate WJAX-TV reported. She has pleaded not guilty and her trial will start in September.

Bridegan and Gardner were granted a divorce in 2015. But it was followed by years of acrimony over the parenting of their two children.

Police found that Gardner “hated Mr. Bridegan, hated having to share custody of the children with him and wanted him dead,” Judge London Kite wrote, summarizing evidence after a bond hearing in 2024.

The alleged gunman, Henry Tenon, had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2023 and agreed to testify against Fernandez Saldana. But he withdrew the plea earlier this year and will get his own trial in 2027.

Authorities said Tenon, 65, was paid at least $10,000 by Gardner and Fernandez Saldana after Bridegan’s death. Tenon’s DNA was also on the tire blocking Bridegan’s travel.

Bridegan was attacked shortly after returning 9-year-old twins to Gardner’s home, following a regular “date night” with the children, police said.

“This was a planned, targeted ambush and murder,” Jacksonville Beach Police Department Chief Gene Paul Smith said after Tenon was arrested in 2023.

He was driving home to St. Augustine with one of the two children he had with wife Kirsten, whom he married in 2017.

“I am so sorry that once you had found happiness and fulfillment in life, your life was taken from you,” Kirsten Bridegan wrote on social media on their anniversary in 2024. “But I am so grateful I got to be part of those short years and that we shared so much happiness before it was too late.”

Bridegan was chief technology officer at Utah-based Clean Simple Eats before working at Microsoft, according to his obituary.

Last week, lawyers finished the work of screening the jury pool for Fernandez Saldana’s trial, WJAX-TV reported. The final panel includes 12 jurors and four alternates.