Murderous Wife Thought She’d WALK FREE With Her Lover (She Was WRONG)

New information has been released in the murder case of a father of four who lived in St. Johns County.    A case that investigators are calling arson murder . Shana Gardner entered the courtroom smiling and confident, with a family income.  A subsidiary of a craft supply company that makes over a hundred million a year.

She is being defended by Jose Baez, the same lawyer who acquitted Casey Anthony.  She entered with the posture of someone with resources, strategy, and a carefully constructed story.  She had nothing to do with her ex-husband’s death. The relationship was complicated, but she would never wish Jared harm.  And any suspicion directed at her was sensational speculation.

Her innocence was questioned.  Shana Gardner spoke to me in the only television interview she said she would give to tell her side of the story.  Why were you silent?  I have been asked not to speak to the media or make any public statements, but given the level of speculation, I felt it was necessary to speak out now.

    Did you have anything to do with Jared’s murder? No, I have nothing to do with his murder. She believed that what she had been saying for years, “I had nothing to do with this, ” would still hold true. But don’t let that smile fool you, because while she was smiling with her lawyer in the courtroom , the prosecution had seven terabytes of evidence.

  They had text messages they had exchanged with a close friend over the years.  They had a shooter who confessed to the crime and showed her the way back.  They had a tire.  They had checks.  They had mobile data.  And they had a story about a 2.5-year-old girl who sat alone in a car for 3 minutes, hearing a boom-boom-boom and watching her father fall to the ground .

  Stay with me until the end, because what investigators have gathered over 3 years will show you what happens when a murder that seemed impossible to solve begins to unravel over a tenant, a tire, and text messages that were never supposed to be there. Everything you are about to hear is supported by court records , police affidavits , search warrants, hearing transcripts, and investigative reporting.

This is the story of Jared Bridegan, a 33-year-old father of four from Jacksonville Beach, Florida, killed on a carefully selected stretch of road on the night of February 16, 2022, while his two-year-old daughter was strapped into a car seat in the back seat. Subscribe to the channel. Every week a new case appears here.

  And now let’s go back to the beginning.  Jared Bridegan and Shana Gardner met in 2009 when she was visiting a friend in Jacksonville.  Both were devout Mormons.  They were married in the Salt Lake City Temple in 2010 and moved to Utah, closer to her family.  They bought a house for $800,000 in Highland. At the time, they were both unemployed.

  They had twins, Liam and Abigail, but one of the children was born with pulmonary hypertension and had to live at sea level. The family moved to Jacksonville.  It was there that the marriage began to fall apart.  Jared discovered compromising messages between Shana and a CrossFit trainer he hired and paid her to train.

  The coach says that they had an affair that lasted several months.  Shana denies this.  According to Jared’s friends, he was willing to forgive for the sake of the children.  Shana wanted to end the marriage.  In 2015, she filed for divorce. You could say we had happy moments.  I mean, we have two of the most beautiful children in the world.

  Every time a divorce happens, it’s unpleasant.  It’s just the way it is.  I will say that I think we both love our children.    What followed were 7 years of almost non-stop litigation, 7 years of trials, counter- charges, lawyers, custody battles that never ended. Both sides dragged each other to court on almost any issue.

  According to Kirsten, all communication between the two households took place in writing , as there was no mutual trust between them. Shana accused Jared of interrogating and recording the children, teaching them what to say, and threatening to use the recordings against her.  Jared accused Shana of installing hidden baby monitors throughout the house to spy on him and of installing a tracker on his car.

  In a message to his lawyer regarding the cameras, Jared wrote: “I want the gates of hell to open on her for this. ” Jared and Shana both wanted full custody.    The court documents detail allegations of espionage, fraud, and more.  Ultimately, Shana and Jared reached an agreement. They shared custody, and whenever the children were at one parent’s house, the other would come over on Wednesdays and set up a date.

But no one knew that Shana had been writing to a close friend all these years. The messages used the code .  Jared was called a fool.  When the topic was his death, the code switched to a casserole or funeral potato dish typical of Mormon funeral receptions. The one who was able to carry out the plan was called a magician.

Shana wrote about wanting someone who could make people leave or perform disappearance acts. The newest part of today’s release is an hour and a half police interview with Kim Jensen, a woman who knew both Bright Again and his ex-wife, Shana Gardner.  Jensen is also a friend who has exchanged text messages with Gardner for years.

Conversations that police say indicate Gardner wanted to help find someone to kill Bride again. The prosecution would later claim that Shana had been trying to hire someone to kill Jared for years before the murder finally happened. According to the state attorney’s office , Shana Gardner had been searching for a killer for years before the murder of her ex-husband Jared Brydigan.

Prosecutors today bolstered their case by showing the judge text messages between Gardner and a close friend. Pay attention to this detail about the code names, because when the police matched these reports with the timeline of events, the distance between the funeral potatoes and the tire laid out on the dark road began to shrink .

  They both remarried. Jared is from Kirsten, with whom he had two other daughters, Bexley and London.  Shana with Mario Fernandez Salana, a real estate owner and manager in Jacksonville, whom she met at the gym.  Regarding this marriage, Shana herself told police that it was partly motivated by convenience.  Jared would only allow Mario to be a part of the children’s lives if they got married.

She admitted that she knew it would be an atypical marriage.  Mario , for his part, did not hide his hostility.  During the baby swap, he would sometimes knock on Jared’s door, knowing deliberately that it would annoy him.  Shana said she avoided confrontation, but Mario didn’t .  On the night of February 16, 2022, Jared held his weekly date ritual.

  The custody agreement stipulated that the twins would be with their mother during these weeks.  Jared will take them to dinner.  He drove Liam and Abigail to Shana’s house around 7:30 p.m.  He sat with Bexley, 2 and a half years old, in her car seat in the back.  On the way, he called Kirsten, told her he loved her and that he would be home soon.

  A few minutes from Shana’s house, on a certain stretch of one-way, tree-lined road where there were no residential surveillance cameras in that particular location.  On either side of this area were no houses in a gated community where violence rarely occurred .    There was a tire lying in the middle of the lane.

  Jared activated the emergency alarm.  He carefully stopped the car.  After that, there were no brake marks on the asphalt , confirming his voluntary stop. He went out to remove the obstacle. Someone came out from behind a group of trees and shot him several times at close range, passing bullets through his left shoulder and neck, and also penetrating his right shoulder and right arm.

Other bullets hit the SUV.  Jared Britigan died on this road.  Bixley was alone in the car for 3 minutes until a passerby found the scene.  The first man to arrive, Shane, approached, thinking Jared was changing a tire.  He found him on the ground , he was still moving. He saw that the passenger side window was broken.

  He lifted Bixley out of her car seat and carried her to his car while the others called 911. The little girl kept saying she was worried about her dad.  When the police arrived, they confirmed that the hazard lights were still flashing, that the car was fine, there was no flat tire, and there was no reason for the stop other than an object placed on the road.

  That nothing was stolen. The wedding ring is still on Jared’s finger. Wallet intact, phone intact, SUV intact. No arguments, no raised voices, no sound before the shots, according to a neighbor who only heard the gunfire. Then silence.  Do you see the pattern?    The Jacksonville Beach Police Department immediately determined that the attack was unlikely to be random.

  This section of road was carefully chosen as a one-way street lined with trees.  There were no cameras at this particular point in the secure gated community, where violence rarely occurred . The characteristics of the location indicated someone who had studied it beforehand.  Cameras at other nearby locations captured a blue Ford F-150 leaving the area around the time of the crime.

  Police have asked the public for help identifying the vehicle. Kirsten, Jared’s widow, has begun speaking out publicly. She said that Jared has virtually no enemies, but there is one exception.  When asked who might have had a motive, she said that Shana and Mario were the only people she knew who had any ongoing conflict with Jared.

  This was not a direct accusation .  It was an observation that any investigator would investigate.  Shana responded by calling these assumptions inaccurate and sensational.  She said she cooperated with detectives.  She said she didn’t know who could have done it. She said that no matter what, Jared was the father of her children and she would never wish anything bad on him.

    Did you have anything to do with Jared’s murder? No, I had nothing to do with his murder. I asked her if she thought she would be prosecuted.  She says no, that she cooperated with the detectives.  Do you have any idea who could have done this? I have no idea.  As I said, we are divorced. We don’t move in the same social circles.

  All I know is that I would never want anyone to go through that. And this is where things get really dark. Henry Tenan was 61 years old.  He lived in Jacksonville for two decades.  Neighbors described him as the hardest working person they knew, working 6 days a week, rarely home, never having any trouble with the law other than traffic violations.

  He drove an old two-tone blue Ford F1 150. He was a tenant in a house owned by Mario Fernandez.  This detail–one property, one tenant–and began the investigation. The investigation took almost a year to reach Tenon. He had been arrested months earlier for leaving the scene of an accident.  And during this parallel investigation, the connection to the murder began to become clear.

Surveillance data established that he had been following Jared in various locations in the weeks before the shooting, including a gym where Jared’s daughter had some classes. Mario’s phone rang at the place where Tenan lived on the morning and evening of the day before the crime.  There were handwritten checks from Mario to Tenan, and there was a tire.

  The Jacksonville Beach Police Chief, accompanied by the State Attorney and the Brydigan family, announced the name of Henry Tenan.  The charges included conspiracy to commit murder, second-degree murder with a firearm, and accessory to a capital offense .  The state prosecutor added: “We know that Henry Tenan did not act alone.

    ” We know that Henry Tenan did not act alone,” Tenan’s adult daughter told the press.  ” I’m in shock.”  I never thought my father would do something like this.  “I sincerely believe he is being framed.” Tenan was arrested a few months ago for leaving the scene of an accident with a weapon.  Surveillance data established that he had been following Jared in the weeks leading up to the shooting, including at the gym where Jared’s daughter attended classes.

Mario’s phone rang at Tenan’s location the morning and evening before the crime.  And in the house belonging to Mario, where Tenan lived, the police found a tire, the same type as the one that was placed on the road that night. Tenan confessed to the shooting.  He pleaded guilty to second- degree murder, agreeing to testify against his co-defendants in exchange for 15 years instead of life in prison.

He later withdrew the agreement, claiming he was not informed that his statements could be used against him if he changed his mind.  The question of what to do with these statements was referred to the court.    The defense now says the tenant believed those conversations were protected as part of plea negotiations, and says no one ever warned him that those statements could later be used against him if he reneged on the deal.

  At one point, Tenan stood up and spoke, answering questions from both his attorney and the state. Have you ever been told that anything you say can be used against you? No.  Did you consider that you were talking to them for… Yes. Mario Fernandez Salana was arrested in March 2023. Charges: first- degree murder, conspiracy to commit first- degree murder, incitement to commit a capital crime , child abuse.

  Bexley was in the car when her father was killed, and bullets hit the SUV.  When police confiscated his laptop and phone, their contents, including potentially messages protected by attorney- client privilege, were uploaded to a government disclosure server .  Since Mario had hired a lawyer before his arrest, this issue became a critical point in the pretrial proceedings.

  In a police statement a few months after the murder, when asked about how Kristen blamed him and Shana, Mario replied, “The problem is that I’m running out of zeros and I’m very vindictive.” He said he was thinking about going live on Facebook to destroy her. He asked if the police were teaching Kirsten to do this. No mention of Jared, not a word about the father of four who was murdered.

  No expression of sympathy to the widow or children.  The main focus was on reputation, business, and image, which media coverage could damage. When asked at another point how the children were coping with the loss of their father, Mario replied: “They are thriving.  They are not sad.  They are grieving .

  This difference was called strange by behavioral analysts because it came from a person who had nothing to hide.  Shana, meanwhile, moved to Washington state shortly after the murder without Mario.  In an interview with the press before her arrest, she said she did n’t know who could have done it.  She said she was cooperating with detectives.

  She said the speculation surrounding her was sensational and inaccurate.  She said that despite all the conflicts, Jared was the father of her children.  Do you have any idea who could have done this? I have no idea.  As I said, we are divorced. We don’t move in the same social circles.  “All I know is that I would never want anyone to go through this.

” Shana Gardner was arrested in Washington state, where she moved after the murder, without her husband.  She was extradited to Florida.  Same accusations as Mario.  The prosecution announced its intention to seek the death penalty.  Josee Baez leaves the courthouse.  after one of the first hearings, he said: ” There is no evidence in this case .

”  “He said this after admitting that he had not yet read the 7 tabs of search materials.  During a police search of Shana’s home in Washington, officers began searching for cell phones. Someone present in the house spontaneously mentioned the malfunctioning telephones.  One of the children told police that their mother kept important electronics in a closet in the bedroom.

  Investigators seized an Apple Watch, an iPhone, a Wing Tech phone, an Acer laptop, a tablet, two MacBooks, and a T-Mobile SIM card.  Sealed court documents identified five individuals potentially involved in the conspiracy.  Only three were formally charged.  The other two names remain classified. The best part is that the property has a cure.  Good.

I’m fine.  Good.  We’re going to… we’re going to get you inside quickly.  Pull you out of the wrong car. Good.  And then I’ll just read it to you, since you’re in my custody.  Um, I don’t know what the detectives asked you .  I’m just going to read something to you .  Um, um, so you have the right to a lawyer at this point.

  If you can’t afford a lawyer, you will be entitled to…” Get one for free.  Do you understand this?  Good. Can you understand that if Tennant had not been arrested in a routine traffic accident months earlier, the connections that led to Mario’s checks and Shana’s messages might never have turned out the way they did and when they did.

  What the prosecution has collected over 3 years. Text messages between Shana and Kim Jensen that lasted for years.    A stupid casserole magician.  Someone who could make people leave.  Tenan, Mario’s tenant.  Tenan’s blue F-150 , caught on camera leaving the crime scene.  The same make and color that police were asking the public to identify.

Handwritten checks from Mario to Tenan. Mario’s phone rang at Tenan’s location the day before the murder . Location data from Tenan’s car, indicating surveillance of Jared for weeks prior.  A tire, the same type as the one that was left on the road, was found at Mario’s house, where Tennant lived.  Bexley, two and a half years old, tells investigators that a man approached the car.

  She heard boom, boom, boom, and then Dad fell. Every part is connected.  until the next one.  Tenan connects to Mario.  Mario taps into Shana’s trust fund money.  Shana connects to years of text messages about planning.  Does she know anyone who could realistically carry out this plan? And we see it here, below.  You can also draw on the screen if there is something you want to circle, which Miss Jensen says: ” I know Sue’s husband knows people.

”  “Hmm,” Miss Gardner replies, then replies, “I’m not even kidding.  I want him to go.” “And the conversation continues from there .  At that time, they are having this conversation, and here is the enlarged version. Concurrent with this conversation, did you also find text messages between Ms. Jensen and the person with whom they discussed finding the killer on the previous slide? Right.

  So, while this conversation was going on, Kim Jensen turns to the person they’re talking about and asks if she knows anyone who can do magic, i.e. make someone disappear.  The trial of Shana Gardner and Mario Fernandez was originally scheduled for August.  The question of separate or joint trials was still under discussion.

  Shana and her defense preferred to be tried separately from Mario, which would allow each side to point fingers at the other. Mario and Shana appeared together in court for the first time since their separation following the arrests.  He is in prison overalls, she is in civilian clothes, smiling with her lawyer.    ” He has a withdrawn expression on his face,” State Attorney Melissa Nelson noted quietly.

 ” The man who killed Jared Brydigan had nothing to do with him.” No conflict, no personal reason, no intersection between their two lives until that night.  Henry Tenan killed Jared because someone paid him. And the chain from Tenan to whoever paid runs through rental properties, through handwritten checks, through a trust fund from a wealthy Utah family, and through text messages about funeral potatoes that were stored on a phone for years.

  Shana Gardner entered the courtroom with a smile .  She has the best lawyer family money can buy, Jose Baez, who has acquitted defendants who seemed impossible to defend.  She has a narrative that her representatives constantly repeat publicly. Insufficient evidence, sensational speculation, an innocent woman under media pressure.

  What she definitely no longer has is control over everything that has already been discovered.  Four children lost their father on that road to Jacksonville Beach. Liam and Abigail, the twins Jared took on weekly dates, learn that their mother is accused of orchestrating the murder of their father, a man who, by all accounts, loved them unconditionally and refused to let the end of their marriage mean the end of parenthood.

Bexley was 2 and a half years old when she was left alone in the back seat after hearing gunshots.  And the first thing she said to the man who pulled her out of the car was that she was worried about her dad.  London was 7 months.  She will never have any memory of her father.  Judgment is approaching.

  The evidence has been collected.  And the smile that Shana brought to that courtroom, the same smile she gave the world for years, sending out messages about magicians and casseroles, will have to withstand seven terabytes of footage , a shooter’s confession, a tire, and the testimony of a two-year-old girl who just wanted to know where her daddy was.

If you read this story to the end, tell me in the comments what you remembered most. Encrypted messages between Shana and her friend, a silly funeral potato casserole magician, exchanged years before the murder, as if planning someone’s death was a normal conversation. The tire found on Mario’s property, where Tennant lived, was the same type as the one used in the ambush, a detail that linked the shooter to the financier in a chain that took police nearly a year to piece together.

  The fact that nothing was taken from Jared – his ring, his wallet, his phone, his SUV – all intact – makes it impossible to characterize the crime as anything other than a targeted, premeditated attack.  Or Bexley, who is 2.5 years old, alone in the back seat, hearing the shots, tells the first man who arrives that she is just worried about her dad.

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