4 years after alleged murder-for-hire of Microsoft executive involving his ex-wife, suspect goes to trial in Florida
Florida Courtroom Set to Hear Case of Alleged Contract Killing Targeting Microsoft Executive
Bizeconanalysis.com – A Duval County courtroom in Jacksonville, Florida, will open proceedings Monday against a man accused of orchestrating the drive-by shooting that killed a 33-year-old technology executive outside his parked car in 2022. The case, which has drawn sustained attention because of the victim’s role at one of the world’s largest software companies, centers on a supposed murder-for-hire arrangement allegedly brokered through the victim’s ex-wife and her subsequent husband.
The accused, Mario Fernandez Saldana, 38, faces a first-degree murder count. His trial marks the culmination of a multi-year legal process that has already produced guilty pleas, plea withdrawals, arrests in another state, and a judge’s pointed written summary of what prosecutors describe as a deeply personal motive rooted in a bitter custody dispute.
The Victim and His Life
Jared Bridegan worked as a design manager at Microsoft, the Redmond, Washington–headquartered technology giant. Before joining that company, he served as chief technology officer at Clean Simple Eats, a Utah-based food-delivery startup, according to his obituary. At the time of his death in 2022, he was 33 years old and had recently begun a new chapter in his personal life: he had married Kirsten in 2017, and the couple had two young children together.
He also shared two older children — a pair of twins who were nine years old at the time of the shooting — with his ex-wife, Shanna Gardner, 39. The couple had been divorced since 2015, but the separation did not end the conflict between them. Years of contentious co-parenting followed, a pattern that prosecutors and the court would later identify as the emotional engine behind the alleged plot.
How the Ambush Unfolded
Police reconstructed the evening of the killing as a sequence of deliberate steps. Bridegan had completed a routine “date night” with his twin children and was returning them to Gardner’s residence. Shortly after dropping the boys off, he was driving home toward St. Augustine with one of his two younger children, aged two, secured in a car seat.
Investigators say a tire had been positioned in the roadway ahead of his vehicle. The intent, they allege, was to force a sudden stop or swerve, creating a window of vulnerability. Once the car slowed or halted, shots were fired into the vehicle. Bridegan was struck repeatedly and killed. His toddler sat in the back seat during the exchange.
After the alleged gunman, Henry Tenon, was taken into custody in 2023, Jacksonville Beach Police Department Chief Gene Paul Smith characterized the event in blunt terms:
“This was a planned, targeted ambush and murder.”
The Alleged Conspiracy
Prosecutors’ theory of the case ties together three individuals. Gardner, Bridegan’s ex-wife, is said to have wanted him dead. Her then-current husband, Fernandez Saldana, is accused of carrying out the arrangement. Tenon, a 65-year-old man, is identified as the person who pulled the trigger.
Authorities stated that Tenon received at least $10,000 from Gardner and Fernandez Saldana following the killing. His DNA was recovered from the tire that had been placed in the road, linking him physically to the scene.
In a written summary issued after a 2024 bond hearing, Judge London Kite distilled the evidentiary picture into a single, striking observation about the ex-wife’s state of mind:
“[Gardner] hated Mr. Bridegan, hated having to share custody of the children with him and wanted him dead.”
Charges and Procedural Posture
Gardner was taken into custody in August 2023 in Washington state. She now faces four counts: first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, solicitation to commit murder, and child abuse. She has entered a not-guilty plea, and her trial is scheduled to begin in September.
Tenon’s path through the courts has been more circuitous. He initially entered a guilty plea to second-degree murder in 2023 and agreed to testify against Fernandez Saldana at trial. Earlier this year, however, he withdrew that plea. He will now stand trial separately, with proceedings expected in 2027.
Fernandez Saldana’s trial, beginning Monday, is the first of the three to reach a jury verdict. Last week, attorneys completed the process of screening the jury pool. The final panel comprises 12 seated jurors and four alternates, per court records.
A Family’s Grief
Kirsten Bridegan, the victim’s second wife, marked the couple’s 2024 anniversary with a public tribute that captured the shock of losing a partner at the very start of a new life together:
“I am so sorry that once you had found happiness and fulfillment in life, your life was taken from you. 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.”
The case has drawn attention beyond Jacksonville Beach because of the victim’s employment at Microsoft and because it illustrates how custody disputes, when left unresolved, can escalate into lethal violence. Murder-for-hire schemes tied to domestic disputes remain relatively uncommon in Florida, making the layered conspiracy alleged here — spanning two states, multiple charges, and a withdrawn plea — a matter of particular interest to observers of the state’s criminal-justice system.
As the jury enters the Duval County courtroom Monday, the question before them will be whether Fernandez Saldana played the role prosecutors describe: the man who, together with his wife, arranged for a stranger to place a tire in a Florida road and wait for a father driving home with his toddler, then pull the trigger.
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