The Murder of Jared Bridegan: Indictments and Arrests

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[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_00] I'm Anya, and today on The Murder Sheet, we're going to be talking about the Jared Bridegan murder and sort of wrapping up the discussion of the investigation so we can move on to trial. Content warning, this episode contains discussion of violence and murder, as well as possible discussion of rape and sexual assault and violence against animals.

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_00] All right, so today we're mixing things up. We just took you through, I believe, eight episodes of our Jared Bridegan miniseries, where we hopefully gave you all the ins and outs of this kind of sprawling investigation that lasted for months, and took you through all of these different suspects and strange goings on as far as the 2022 murder of Jared Bridegan, which occurred on February 16th of that year.

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_00] And now we're going to be going into the ultimate culmination of the investigation. It's going to, we're going to go up to the arrests. And then tomorrow, or not tomorrow, when the trial begins, we'll kind of start our coverage of that with a bit of a recap of the pretrial phase, so you can kind of get caught up.

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_00] But this, a big part of what we're going to talk about is the, is essentially an affidavit that went to support a wiretap in this case. So when detectives are asking for a wiretap, obviously that's a pretty, I mean, would you say, Kevin, that's a pretty big infringement of one's privacy?

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_07] Kevin Patton Yes, because when you're talking about something like that, you're literally listening in on people's private conversations. And obviously, that's not something anyone takes lightly. And the first thing any judge in that situation is going to want to know, you have a good reason. And you better have a very good reason to make that sort of infringement on someone's privacy rights.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_00] That's right. And so what this affidavit, what this whole sprawling document gets into is a lot of the evidence in the case at that point, although we should note there may have been more gathered since. And just kind of an approximation of what the police feel happened to Jared Bridegan, the victim in this case. We're going to go through all of that. We're going to discuss it. We're also going to discuss arrests at the end, who ultimately went down for this, because I'm going to tell you,

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_00] it's very clear when you read through this case that while three people ultimately were charged in this murder conspiracy, there were others that police felt were involved who have not been charged. So that is very clear. And it's pretty obvious who those people are. And we can talk about that. And then we'll talk about the indictments and sort of the arrests, what happened with that. And that will get us at least up to the pretrial phase, which will then continue in our in our future coverage.

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_00] But we'll be going through this. We'll be this is kind of a kickoff to our coverage of the trial, the first trial, which begins, I believe, on Monday. So we're right there. As a reminder, we're going to be covering the trial. We're going to be going back to do some trial coverage, kind of getting back to our our old our old ways. Right, Kevin. Yes. And we are looking forward to that. We are not going to be covering it every single day.

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_00] But, you know, we are definitely going to be covering it as we think important things are coming up and getting into it with all of you. And I think it's going to be great. So we really hope you tune in. If you're interested in this case, I think it could be a really interesting set of trials, series of trials rather. All right. Without further ado, let's get into it. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_07] And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_00] And this is the murder of Jared Bridegan, indictments and arrests.

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_00] So I want to essentially start out by talking a little bit about something I've been thinking a lot about, because I feel like it's interesting. You know, this isn't really to do directly with the murder. But when we when we talk about this case, Jared Bridegan is, of course, the victim. He was murdered. He was ambushed as he was leaving a daddy date night with his twins from his ex-wife, Shannon Gardner's home.

[00:08:43] [SPEAKER_00] And, you know, Shannon Gardner and her husband, her then husband, Mario Fernandez-Saldana, really said a lot of negative things. Her friends and family said a lot of negative things about Jared. And I you know, we didn't say this as we were initially covering it. But my viewpoint is and I just think this is always important to state regardless of what happens when somebody is murdered or even has violence perpetrated against them.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_00] The other person's moral high ground goes out the window for me. Like, I don't care how annoyed you are about somebody. You don't get to kill them like and frankly, when you do kill someone, that makes me think like. Maybe you were exaggerating how awful they were to you or maybe you were manipulating the situation to make it worse. So I just want to state that. Like, I feel like reading some of that about so that about Jared or like how always Jared Bridegan is so awful.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_00] Like to me, I was like, I don't to me, like I automatically just don't buy that. If then people are in a murder conspiracy against that person or like whatever grievances you had were certainly like. Maybe they had a maybe they had a problem with you because you're an awful person. Because you're kind of the person who would go kill somebody. So I just want to state that.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_07] Great point.

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_00] Just, you know, hot take. Don't murder people. Let's talk about. So as I mentioned, names you need to remember for this. Fernandez, Mario Fernandez Saldana, the new husband of Shanna Gardner, Jared Bridegan's ex-wife. Jared Bridegan and Shanna Gardner hate each other. And have a terrible co-parenting relationship and are constantly sniping at each other. And she makes a bunch of comments to people about how basically she wants him dead.

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_00] And he gets into conflicts with Fernandez Saldana as well. So that's them. And on the other side, you have Mario Fernandez Saldana has a rental property in Jacksonville, near Jacksonville Beach where they live. And that is at some point rented out to a man named Henry Tennant. And at some point it's also rented out to another man named Jeremy Ordway.

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_00] And Mario Fernandez Saldana is also connected with a man named John Biggerstaff who is a former law enforcement officer. Briefly was a reserve officer with the Jacksonville County, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. And he also was a career Navy man. So that's, those are some of the names we're going to talk about when we're looking at this affidavit. Okay. Detective Christopher Lee Johns, who is the lead detective on this case, is the one who is the affiant for this. It's a very extensive document.

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_00] He starts out by describing the route taken by Jared Bridegan the night of his murder after dropping his two young twins off with Shanna Gardner. Talks about how he goes southbound on 15th Street, eastbound on Fairway Lane, which veers southward, eastbound on Seabreeze Avenue, southbound on America Avenue,

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_00] westbound on Jacksonville Drive, southbound on Sanctuary Boulevard, where he's killed is approximately the intersection of Jacksonville Drive and Sanctuary Boulevard, a very dark residential area.

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_00] And what they find when they do this canvas is video surveillance from nearby homes shows a truck, a specific truck, what they call the suspect truck, traveling that entire homicide route in very close proximity ahead of Jared Bridegan minutes before the homicide.

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_00] So this suspect truck, whoever was riding in it, would have to know where he's going, would have to know the route he usually takes to get home to St. Augustine after dropping off the twins at their Marsh Inlet home with their mother. So that's going to be important later.

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_00] When the investigators looked at Tenen's Google data, they show that this guy, who has no ostensible connection to Jared Bridegan aside through his relationship with his landlord, Fernandez Saldana, drove that exact homicide route two prior times in January, the month before the murder. Interesting.

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_07] Very interesting.

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_00] Pretty specific route. And this was something that Jared did not deviate from. Even his wife would say she would argue with him, like, can we go a faster way? But this is just what he drove. All right. Then they talk about some technology stuff, which I always, frankly, struggle with. But, I mean, this is important as far as, you know, understanding the case.

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_00] They talk about PCMD. I think this is call, this is a per call measurement data. And it basically measures the distance of a cellular device from the cellular tower based on the speed of the signal. Now, I just want to note, I think it's important to note, like, this stuff can be a little bit, it's not necessarily, like, putting you in a specific place, is my understanding.

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_00] But it's still something. Especially if you're dealing with people who don't really live in the area. Yeah. So, when they're looking at that, that's going to be something that they're going to be looking at with, you know, with the tenant data as well. From there, they talk about what did the suspect truck look like. They were able to get some pretty good, I believe, shots of this where they felt confident that it was a 2004 Ford F-150 Lariat.

[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_00] And they thought it was blue with a lighter trim around the bottom. That's what they were observing on the surveillance. And he admits in police interviews that that is his truck. So, you know, witnesses who know him and know the truck say that looks like his truck. And, yeah. And also that truck is registered, a truck exactly like that, is registered to him. After his father died, he inherited it.

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_00] So, that was his truck. Belongings inside the truck are tied to tenant. You know, they find a truck, they track down this truck that he has. I mean, it looks identical. So, I mean, bad for him about the truck.

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_07] Very bad.

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_00] Now for the kind of the reveal, if you're not aware. The people that they're targeting in this that are named are Mario Fernandez-Saldana, Shanalee Gardner. And, you know, at this point when this affidavit comes, you know, is put into the hands of a judge, Tenen is already incarcerated for other charges and, you know, kind of definitely in trouble for the murder. But they also have a couple of names redacted here.

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_00] Two names are redacted that sort of seem to be people they are targeting as well. But at this time, only Tenen, Fernandez-Saldanae, and Gardner have been charged with murder. Fernandez-Saldanae's trial will be first, then Gardner's, then Tenen's.

[00:16:03] [SPEAKER_00] And what they're looking at as far as offenses is murder, conspiracy to commit murder, solicitation to commit murder, tampering with evidence, and possession of firearm by a convicted felon, which is Henry Tenen. All right. So, I want to go over the summary of the murder. Kevin, do you want to read the summary on page two? Why don't you, I'm going to highlight what I want you to read.

[00:16:32] [SPEAKER_07] Okay, and I'll begin. Shortly before 8 p.m. on Wednesday, February 16, 2022, Jared Bridegan was murdered in what is best described as a contract murder or hit. Immediately before his murder, Brightigan was driving home on a dark, isolated road named Sanctuary Boulevard with his two-year-old daughter. He stopped, put on his hazard lights, and stepped out to remove a large tire lying in the roadway. It was then that he was shot multiple times.

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_07] Casings were recovered from the crime scene. Other than the murderers and the victims, the only other witness to the murder was Brightigan's two-year-old daughter, who told Child Protective Team investigators that a man came up to the car. She heard, boom, boom, boom, and then, quote, daddy hit the ground. Without context, Brightigan's murder appears to be completely random. He was not armed. There's no evidence of a struggle.

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_07] His murderers did not steal his wristwatch, wedding ring, phone, money, or wallet. Brightigan's truck was not stolen, and Brightigan's daughter was unharmed. In contrast to the stark randomness of the murder, there are relationships, circumstances, and investigative facts and evidence suggesting Brightigan's murder was anything but random.

[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_07] Instead, the investigation reveals Brightigan's murder is the culmination of events that began on February 23, 2015, when his wife at the time, Shannon Lee Gardner, filed for divorce.

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_00] Thank you. And they list the following people as being involved or likely involved in a murder conspiracy against Jared. They list Gardner. They list her husband, Fernanda Saldana. They list Henry Tennant. And then they list two other people who are not named. So that's kind of interesting. This message is sponsored by Greenlight.

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[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_00] When I want to read this next part that gets into what they feel the motive of this murder was, quote, Through the investigation, it became clear Gardner possessed a motive to murder Bridegan, whom she met and married in 2010. At the time, both were devout Mormons. They produced twins born in 2013. They relocated to Northeast Florida because of a medical condition that required one of the twins to live at sea level.

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_00] Through their initial dissolution decree, though their initial dissolution decree was entered in 2015, Bridegan and Gardner returned to court yearly, litigating various contested issues. Their dissolution decree did not permit Gardner to move the children out of state without an agreement of the parties or a court order. While they shared their Mormon faith when they married, Gardner either began to leave or abandon her faith around the time she and Bridegan divorced and into her second marriage.

[00:22:42] [SPEAKER_00] After her divorce, Gardner married Mario Enrique Fernandez Saldana in April of 2018. By her admission to law enforcement and others, her marriage to Fernandez Saldana was one of convenience. She told police she did not know him well when they married. She wanted him to help with the kids but knew Bridegan would not allow it unless she married Fernandez Saldana. Like Gardner, Bridegan remarried. Bridegan and his new wife, KB, were married in 2017 and had two children. KB agreed to raise their children in the Mormon faith, unlike Gardner.

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_00] Two weeks before the murder, on January 24, 2022, Bridegan sent Gardner an email telling her he was planning to have one of the twins baptized in the Mormon church. Their twin daughters started to favor Bridegan and his new wife, KB, and wished to be more involved in the Mormon faith. End quote. So that is what they're saying is the buildup to the murder.

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_03] Yes.

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_00] You have one of the twins kind of drifting closer to Jared and his wife. You can certainly see with that twin, there's a lot of discussion in the investigation about how she's very close with her two young half-siblings. Is interested in being baptized. And they're talking about how, like, Fernandez Saldana is talking about how the kids were better off with Bridegan dead. I mean, or out of the picture, I think was the statement. And so that's the motive.

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_00] That's what they're saying the motive is, is to get Jared out of the way because of this contentious relationship. I just think that's one of the most, like, disgusting things anyone can do to their children is kill the other parent. Like, whatever drama is going on, I don't understand how people in this situation don't simply stop and think, like, I won't just be hurting this person I don't love anymore. I will actually be hurting my children.

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_07] My own children.

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_00] You know, who love their parent, presumably. Even if you don't think they're that good of a parent, it's still, it's not that simple. You know, I mean.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_07] This is something that would affect your children for the rest of their lives and would be something that would potentially scar them. And you'd also have to consider the possibility that at some point they might find out that you were the one responsible.

[00:24:48] [SPEAKER_00] Also, unless you just happen to get away with it, which most people do not, you will be potentially tried and convicted and lost to your children forever. So they're losing both parents. I don't understand how people don't think. I understand how people come to hate their exes or whatever, like, you know, don't get along. I don't really, again, as I made clear, I don't really buy a lot of Gardner's charges against Jared about being a bad parent or only caring about money.

[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_00] I mean, that's coming from somebody who I think their credibility is at a low. But I also, I just, I don't get it. I don't get it. It's horrible. But anyways. So they're saying that's the motive. Then they get into how basically, so Gardner is the match and Fernandez Saldana is the gasoline spread out all over the room. The accelerant.

[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_00] Because what they say is basically he and his associates provided her with the opportunity to carry out murderous fantasies on killing her ex-husband. They noted that Fernandez Saldana, as I mentioned, owned this, in the Biltmore neighborhood of Jacksonville, this Potomac Avenue residence. And that, through that, he knew Tenen. And that was going to be what happened.

[00:26:05] [SPEAKER_00] So some clues and some facts I think are important to note that they point out here. They said that when you look at the surveillance of Sanctuary Boulevard prior to and during and after the murders, especially prior to, what the detectives noticed was that the vehicles are going through it just fine. Okay. Right before the murders, they're going through it. They're fine. What does that mean?

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_00] Well, the tire that was found in front of Jared's car that was blocking him, if that's just kind of just a random tire that fell out, has nothing to do with the murders, or if the murderer just wanted to kill someone in a car, neither of those scenarios make any sense. Because the tire seemingly, by showing that the traffic was free-flowing right before then, the tire was meant for Jared specifically. That somebody very shortly before he got there put it out.

[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_00] That it was a trap for him and not just for anybody and not just a random thing. So that's one thing about the tire. Another reason why that tire is really crucial is because Tennant's DNA has been identified on that tire. So Tennant's DNA is on the tire, and he also admitted to owning it when he was showing a picture of the tire. So both of those things are pretty bad for Tennant.

[00:27:26] [SPEAKER_00] But the thing about Tennant is Tennant has no reason to murder Jared unless he's being used as a gunman, unless he's being used as a shooter. So that's one thing. Another thing is investigators showed Tennant some surveillance pictures of the truck near the homicide scene. He says, that's my truck. And they also show him an item in the truck's bed. You know, that's what the surveillance items show, an item in the truck's bed. He says that that was a spare tire.

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_00] And yeah, that seems notable. What do you make of the fact that this truck was traveling to and from the air of the murder an hour before the murder, kind of practicing the route? Does that seem significant to you?

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_07] That does seem significant to me because, again, it's hard. In and of itself, a lot of these things don't mean much. But when you have so many of them, they start to stack up. And along with everything else, it raises questions. Not only why was he there at all, why was he there doing this exact route an hour or so earlier if not to do a practice run?

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, and they note that, you know, five minutes before the murder, his truck is seen directly, you know, driving in front of Bridegan's car and even trying to seemingly create some distance. And what the detectives feel was that he was trying to get there a little bit ahead of time so he could put down this tire and stop the guy right behind him, Bridegan, from getting out of there. So, you know, he was trying to block him in, not just any driver. This is not a random attack. Okay.

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_00] So, other broader data points that investigators are looking at. They say that the conspirators are all connected with telephone records, cellular telephone records. They're connected with toll records, which shows a very significant increase in contact immediately before the murder and after the murder compared to, you know, the six weeks before that and whatnot. Like, suddenly we're all getting together.

[00:29:39] [SPEAKER_00] Mm-hmm. And then, you know, the other staff who I mentioned and possibly Jeremy Ordway. Like, from the context clues of who they're talking about, it's pretty clearly those guys. And that suddenly they're in touch a lot. So, they talk about the day before the murder. Fernandez Saldana is calling and texting Tenen. And so, that's notable. But, I mean, nothing by itself that crazy.

[00:30:05] [SPEAKER_00] What's very interesting is the night of the murder, during the period of the murder, suddenly Fernandez Saldana and Tenen's phones stop communicating with their networks. Okay? Which is totally antithetical to how they're usually using their phones. They're usually not just going dark randomly. It's notable that they're going dark during the murder.

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_00] This is a thing we saw with the perpetrator in the University of Idaho murders, where suddenly someone who's constantly using their phone has suddenly gone dark. And I think criminals think they're being smart with this. I mean, and they are to a certain extent. Yet, you don't want to bring your phone on a murder trip. Dumb idea. But it also doesn't look very good if, like, you're normally using your phone a lot and then suddenly, like, you're not using it. And, like, that's when someone you were out to get got murdered.

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_00] It raises questions. Yeah.

[00:30:58] [SPEAKER_07] Because one thing investigators look at is changes in a person's normal behaviors. And if your phone is usually always on and it's suddenly off, that raises obvious questions.

[00:31:10] [SPEAKER_00] They're saying that the phones would have either been in airplane mode or off. They talked about how Tenen had two phones. And both phones had data location gaps the night of the murder before 6 p.m. And then one of them came back 40 minutes after the murder in the area of the Beaches Baptist Hospital, 1.4 miles away from the murder scene. As a reminder, the murder occurred in Jacksonville Beach. He is from Jacksonville.

[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_00] You know, he's not – he doesn't really have a reason to be in that area. So very odd. And I looked up Beaches Baptist Hospital. It's very close. You know, that's not very far away. So suddenly he's over there after his phone's been on. Look, it's adding up to something that really doesn't look very good for him. The investigators do know that there was attempted contacts between the two phones at that time. Location data show that they were physically separated.

[00:32:04] [SPEAKER_00] And he believes – so what Detective Johns is saying here is he believes Tenen was on foot with one of his phones seeking to figure out where his truck was, which was where his other phone was. So I don't know exactly how that makes sense with the choreography of this murder, but, like, at some point he's on foot and maybe someone else is driving his truck. So it's interesting. They talk – now they go more into what happened in January. This is the kind of test runs we were talking about.

[00:32:33] [SPEAKER_00] They talk about January 5th, January 29th, 2022. Tenen drives to Jacksonville Beach. His cellular telephone location data is very clear. He drives a strikingly similar route to the one Breitigan drove. He, you know, and so, like, that doesn't look good because why is he doing – like, he has no reason to be over there. And they also note that 45 days after the murder, he deposited three checks that were all written to him by Fernanda Saldana.

[00:33:01] [SPEAKER_00] $2,000 deposited March 28th. $3,000 March 29th. $5,000 deposited April 4th. So he gets a total of $10,000 from this guy shortly after the murder. Now, the one important thing to note is that Tenen was not a wealthy man. His account was usually less than $400 in it. These deposits were really out of the norm.

[00:33:28] [SPEAKER_07] And so, again, when things are out of the ordinary, that's something that naturally captures the attention of investigators because they want to know why. Why is he suddenly having all this extra money in his account?

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_00] And those checks were from First Choice Home Rentals, which was an LLC founded by Gardner and Fernanda Saldana. And the money they got to put into that came from Gardner's trust account, which is funded by her parents, Stellia and Sherling Gardner, who are both powerful business people in Utah who run the multi-level marketing scheme Stampin' Up. So they're tracking the flow of the money here. They are, you know, they also talk about when they raided.

[00:34:08] [SPEAKER_00] Remember in the previous episode we talked about how they raided the Potomac Avenue address. And in there, they kind of found some indications that maybe Tenen was not the only guy getting paid off. They talk about going into somebody's room. It's redacted. I believe they're referring to Jeremy Ordway because he was the one living there at that time. They get into a safe. They find $2,000 in cash. And they're like, he does not usually, like, when they look at his financial records, he does not normally have $2,000 in cash lying around.

[00:34:36] [SPEAKER_00] Like, that's not, he's not a wealthy man either. So that's interesting. In that same raid, in that same search, they get this, one of Tenen's phones. And they find an audio recording in that. And in the audio recording, which seems, I think they think this was accidentally made, they get a call between Tenen and someone who's redacted.

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_00] And they say that he is heard discussing, Tenen is discussing a money transfer to Redacted and to Tenen's brother. And Tenen explained that he was waiting for $5,000 to clear from the bank and then he would pay with that money. So this is two days after Tenen deposited his last $5,000 check from Fernandez Saldana. So they talk about Fernandez Saldana knowing John Biggerstaff.

[00:35:28] [SPEAKER_00] Biggerstaff, again, it's redacted, but it's very clearly John Biggerstaff based on everything we know. Talk about how Biggerstaff admitted to law enforcement that he owned a 10-millimeter caliber gun. We heard this in the bizarre interview he did with police where he's like, yeah, I owned a gun. Notably, Breitigan was killed with a 10-millimeter gun. I don't know where it is. You know, he seems to know where all his other guns went to after his felony conviction. He doesn't know where this one is.

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_03] Not where this one is.

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_00] He didn't seem to be even willing to answer it. And his son's a police officer in Arlington, Texas, apparently. But like, God, wouldn't that be embarrassing?

[00:36:03] [SPEAKER_03] Yes.

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_00] You know, but they're acting like, you know, he's acting like he doesn't know where that is. And he was also searching for 10-millimeter guns on guns.com that they found like in January. And it's like, why? And they were like, why are you even doing that? You're a felon. Like, you can't have these. Like, oh, Google search isn't always right. I don't understand how he's not been arrested, honestly. But I don't know. Who knows? So, yeah. They were looking for that.

[00:36:35] [SPEAKER_00] So, they also talk about how, you know, they talk about the daddy date night. They go through all of that. And they talk about how Fernandez—I'm going to actually just have you read this, if you don't mind, this paragraph here on page six.

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_07] Quote,

[00:37:30] [SPEAKER_00] So, again, this is kind of making it clear that these folks would be the ones who knew his driving route. The driving route that then suddenly one of their tenants suddenly knows and is practicing in the month before the murder and is seemingly doing in his truck the day of the murder. So, that's significant. Second, they also talk about how Fernandez Saldana and Gardner were in the process of divorcing. I'm going to read how that was kind of playing out as far as finances went. Quote,

[00:38:27] [SPEAKER_00] End quote. So, one thing. At that point, Fernandez Saldana had moved to Orlando, Florida, away from Jacksonville Beach. And Gardner had moved to Washington State. So, they had gotten out of there after the murders. And, you know, I think it's interesting that he's her trustee. She's not allowed to be the trustee, according to her parents, because of the risk that Jared poses to her finances.

[00:38:53] [SPEAKER_00] She had long accused Jared of, like, hiding stuff or, like, quitting his job so he didn't have to pay child support. But it seemed like there was some money maneuvering on her part as well to kind of firewall the Gardner empire, it sounds like. At least that's what investigators think.

[00:39:12] [SPEAKER_07] Exactly.

[00:39:13] [SPEAKER_00] They talk about how in Washington, Gardner's living a pretty cushy lifestyle at this point. She's in a house that's valued over a million dollars that was paid for her by her parents. And that she doesn't even have a Washington State driver's license, but she got the twins enrolled into school there. And she hasn't even sold off her Jacksonville Beach home at that point. Like, it's not on the market. It's just sitting empty.

[00:39:40] [SPEAKER_00] Because, like, I guess, unlike normal people, she doesn't have to, like, get the capital of selling your house in order to move. Rich people, man. I don't even know. They live in a different reality from the rest of us, I think. And so, okay. So, you know, you have that's going on. They're kind of breaking down all of this.

[00:40:01] [SPEAKER_00] So, they talked about how on February 23rd, 2022, a week after Jared was murdered, and then apparently seven years after she filed for dissolution of the marriage, something called the suggestion of death appeared in the records of the dissolution case with the St. John's Clounty Clerk of Court. And so, and I remember this.

[00:40:27] [SPEAKER_00] There was an email from Gardner to Kirsten, like, early on, like, very cold. Like, oh, can you send the death record to my lawyer? Like, it was really, like, whoa.

[00:40:37] [SPEAKER_07] I remember that.

[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_00] Yeesh. And apparently what detectives say is that when they were interviewing people, they got the sense that Gardner very much wanted to take her children out of the state of Florida for years. And because she wanted that, she couldn't do it because of the dissolution decree. She could not leave the state permanently with her children without getting an explicit agreement from Jared Bridegan or a court order.

[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_00] Now, Jared, I mean, I don't think a court order was going to be forthcoming because they would be basically like, you need to work it out with your co-parent. And Bridegan was not going to be okay with her taking the kids out of state because he lived in Florida with his family. And so what they're saying here is, quote, with Bridegan's death, she became free to leave the state with her children, which she has done. And with no legal entanglements with her ex's ex-husband, she can now control her trust fund.

[00:41:33] [SPEAKER_00] And that's very important. This whole case is very reminiscent of Wendy Adelson, Dan Markell, religious disputes, custody disputes, Florida, people who are kind of, you know, well off doing crazy stuff. So, you know, this is all this is all kind of a little bit familiar because of that case to me. They talk about how at this point they don't know exactly who pulled the trigger.

[00:42:01] [SPEAKER_00] But, you know, at this point Jacksonville Beach Police Department had an arrest warrant for Henry Tennant for conspiracy to commit murder, second degree murder, tampering with evidence and child abuse. And they feel like I think they were looking at him, which makes sense given the evidence that they've stated so far. So they talk here about how the police are going to be really sneaky and they're going to try to engineer a situation where they can gather more evidence. Is that bad, Kevin? Is that bad that they're doing that?

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_07] No, it's appropriate and accepted investigative technique.

[00:42:35] [SPEAKER_00] So how are they going to trigger this? Well, what they're going to do is they're going to put out a formal press advisory to media outlets saying, hey, this is going to be a press conference in this case. We're going to put it out all over social media. We're going to do this. This is a high profile case. People are going to be interested in it. They're going to get the public talking about it. And what they feel is that is going to start the five suspects chattering amongst each other with maybe the exception of Tennant, who is already incarcerated at this point.

[00:43:05] [SPEAKER_00] They think that they're going to start talking because when there would be stuff going on in the case in the past, that would seemingly happen according to the records. And what they would then do is do a wire intercept of those conversations and figure out exactly what the details were, who did what role in the murder, and we can actually kind of go after these people at that point. So that's what they're doing.

[00:43:32] [SPEAKER_00] Next is the probable cause affidavit in support of all of this application. They kind of broke down what they wanted to do with it first. This one might have some interesting details here and there that I can kind of breeze through a little bit. They talk about how the initial gunshot, you know, calls came in at 7.59 p.m. on the night of the murder. They talk about how officers arrived at exactly 8.03 p.m. And, you know, we kind of went through all that.

[00:44:01] [SPEAKER_00] Life-saving measures didn't work. They found, you know, the tire blocking the way to the extent that somebody would actually have to either drive in the grass on the median or move the tire to get around it. Like there's no, you're not just stopping randomly. And they talk about the lack of slowing or evasive maneuvers shown on the camera. So it's not like the tire's been there for a long time. They're pretty confident of that.

[00:44:28] [SPEAKER_00] Quote, Affian believes the tire was placed in the roadway just before Brightigan's vehicle in order to get Brightigan to stop. End quote. They talk about the DNA swabs from several areas of the tire matching Tennant's DNA. So this is not like your typical DNA case in that, like, not a lot of direct contact with the victim. It's a shooting death. But at the same time, you have this key piece of evidence that's tied to the murder. This tire seemingly just shows up when Jared's driving. DNA links Tennant to that.

[00:44:59] [SPEAKER_00] Also, he admitted to it being his tire. Exactly. Bad move, right, Kevin?

[00:45:04] [SPEAKER_07] That's a very bad move. You don't want to help the state prove its case against you.

[00:45:10] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. They talk about how when they looked at the trajectory of the bullets, they felt that Brightigan was shot with his door open, like as he's getting out. And his toddler said that she didn't hear any sort of argument preceding the shooting. So it's not a situation where someone comes up. Hey, what are you doing? You know, like this is something where it's like he opens the door to probably move the tire, help this guy in front of him and immediately gets shot.

[00:45:43] [SPEAKER_00] So, you know, Detective Johns describes the whole area where this took place, how it's, you know, very dark, woods on the left and right. The road is used to get to J. No businesses in the immediate vicinity. It's very dark, dimly lit. And the road he was on was one way and separated by a median, a grassy ditch. There's nothing of value missing from him.

[00:46:10] [SPEAKER_00] He still has his wedding ring, his Apple watch, phone, debit cards, everything. And they talk up here about some of the surveillance footage, which I think is really interesting. There's a ring camera on American Avenue, which is motion activated, which captured the murder from a distance. You can see a gunshot muzzle flash at 7.52 p.m.

[00:46:33] [SPEAKER_00] And after that shot, after that muzzle flash, you see a figure moving in front of Bridegan's car past his headlights and then southbound on Sanctuary Boulevard for five to six seconds before that person runs out of view.

[00:46:46] [SPEAKER_07] Unfortunately, the quality of that video is not good enough for us to be able to make any positive identification from it.

[00:46:54] [SPEAKER_00] Which is unfortunate, but with, you know, it's not necessarily too damaging to the case. But it's interesting. One thing I'm curious about is they're saying Tenen is kind of this is his truck. He's running around. It sounds like he may like if he's the gunman, he may have like booked it at that point on foot. And that's what they kind of hinted at first. So I would be curious, like, who would have been driving? One thing they talk a little bit about here is the Shelley and Sterling Gardner.

[00:47:23] [SPEAKER_00] Talking about how they're a devout LDS couple, Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter-day Saints, which they call Mormons here. They talk about how they are the parents of five daughters. How Shelley founded this small craft business with her sister in the 80s. And then now it's stamping up and now it's a multinational corporation in 10 countries with 500 employees with an estimated revenue annually of $250 million.

[00:47:52] [SPEAKER_00] And, yeah, so it's an MLM, too, which is notable.

[00:48:00] [SPEAKER_03] Yes.

[00:48:00] [SPEAKER_00] You know how I feel about those. But they talked about how in the basically so Jared Bridegan's marrying into that family. They talk about how they had a premarital agreement with the Gardners that he and Shanna did and that they basically noted that the Gardners were going to let Shanna inherit wealth.

[00:48:23] [SPEAKER_00] They did not want that subjected to any claim by Bridegan if they were to separate or divorce. And, yeah, so they listed different foundations for interests or property to go to their daughter. And before they married, Shelley Gardner's family trust had a scholarship and stipend agreement with Gardner and Bridegan to fund his higher education expenses with a monthly stipend.

[00:48:53] [SPEAKER_00] But he was required to be an active member of the Mormon church and remain married to Gardner. And that was about $8,500 per month with health care coverage equivalent to what the Stampin' Up! employees would receive. Wow. That's a pretty cushy lifestyle.

[00:49:09] [SPEAKER_03] It really is.

[00:49:12] [SPEAKER_00] Why aren't my parents MLM robber barons? No, I'm just kidding. I like that my parents earned their money, honestly. They – anyway, so they talk about from there, you know, the reason they moved to Florida was for Bridegan's family. But the Gardners continued to financially support them significantly.

[00:49:34] [SPEAKER_00] They gifted them a home for $370,000. I can't talk for a minute. That's – okay, that's wild. In 2011. And that in 2013, Gardner redeemed an interest in one of the umbrella companies of Stampin' Up! for $440,000. Jeez.

[00:49:57] [SPEAKER_00] And then they would get cash gifts of $25,000 from the Gardners on numerous occasions between 2011 and 2014. They had funds for the twins set up by the Gardners. So, yeah. They get into the divorce here a bit. How on February 23, 2015, Gardner files for divorce in St. Johns County, Florida.

[00:50:22] [SPEAKER_00] In May of that year, she filed a plea seeking exclusive possession of the marital home and said, you know, she had no family in the area.

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[00:51:00] [SPEAKER_00] Now, this is interesting. With Jared Bridegan's response, he said Gardner had locked him out of the master bedroom and installed surveillance cameras in the children's bedroom and also disparaged him in front of the children. Why is that? Why can you not do stuff like that in a divorce, Kevin, especially disparaging the other parent in front of the children?

[00:51:20] [SPEAKER_07] It really puts the children in an unfair position because, like what you were saying earlier, the children love both their parents and it's just really unkind to put them through that emotionally.

[00:51:34] [SPEAKER_00] When we're looking at the surveillance footage claim, one interesting thing is that when Brad Bird, a tattoo parlor owner who Shanna Gardner knew after her divorce, when he came forward to police, he indicated that she said she did that. So we're getting it from looking at kind of an independent third party that like that may be a true allegation. So anyways, the dissolution decree is entered in July 2015.

[00:52:01] [SPEAKER_00] Gardner receives the marital residence but had to buy him out of his interest at $390,000. They entered into a parenting plan that you're supposed to go into when you share children. That called for shared parental responsibility, 50-50 time sharing schedule, alternating weekends, holidays, special occasions.

[00:52:22] [SPEAKER_00] And it called for restrictions on out-of-state and foreign travel to a location more than 1,000 feet above sea level due to the medical condition of their son. And also, I think early in the affidavit, they said like daughters, but he had a boy and a girl twin. And also, it kind of set aside something for religion because in it, Jared noted that he remains a devout member of the LDS faith and said, quote,

[00:52:47] [SPEAKER_00] quote, as to religion and medical decisions, it is important to me that the children be brought up in the Mormon faith, end quote. And the parenting plan accounted for that. So that would mean Jared would get to take the children to services. I don't know. I'm sorry if that's not the right term. On Wednesday evenings and alternating Sundays when he had the twins. So they noted that, you know, if you want to move out of the state, any relocation of the children, quote,

[00:53:16] [SPEAKER_00] is subject to and must be sought in compliance with Section 61.13011, which would mean that Gardner would have to get Jared's permission and consent for the move or a court order saying that she could do it. And she'd have to prove that that was in the best interest of her children by a preponderance of the evidence. And, you know, various factors go into that.

[00:53:43] [SPEAKER_00] And, you know, and what this affidavit said is, quote, you know, this didn't clear anything up. Basically, post-divorce, quote, the angst and anger continued, end quote. Quote, in March of 2016, Jared Bridegan wrote his lawyer an email which said, quote, either she is going to start acting like an adult and co-parent with me or I need to know what we need to do so they know we are done playing softball. End quote. There were 300 entries spanning seven years in this docket.

[00:54:13] [SPEAKER_00] That's a lot.

[00:54:14] [SPEAKER_07] That's a lot of entries.

[00:54:15] [SPEAKER_00] That's a lot of entries. Like this, they, I mean, and it's interesting to me. Like he's like, I want her to co-parent with me. Like that's his, like that's kind of what Gardner was acting like her whole thing was. Like I just want to get along with him. But he's kind of saying that here. So it's kind of like who's, you know, who is really causing problems here. No one ever filed a motion to relocate the children.

[00:54:37] [SPEAKER_00] At some point in Bridegan got a job in Utah in May 2016 for web.com for $90,000 a year. And he wanted to arrange for his son to live with him while he was working there, but that didn't come to be. And he eventually returned to Florida and got hit with the child support request from Gardner at that point.

[00:55:02] [SPEAKER_00] So yeah, they, you know, he talked about marrying Kirsten. She wanted to raise children in the Mormon faith too. So they were aligned on that one. Meanwhile, in September of 2019, the Gardners set up this irrevocable trust agreement with Fernandez Saldana with the Shannon Gardner Irrevocable Trust.

[00:55:23] [SPEAKER_00] And they named him as the trustee and said that Gardner, her twin children, and any children she might have after creating the trust would be the beneficiaries of the trust. And it gave the trustee significant latitude over the distribution of trust assets. And, you know, and it said basically if Fernandez Saldana was removed, died, was incapacitated or resigned, her sister, Shelley Brown, would take over. What do you make of the Gardners making Fernandez Saldana her trustee?

[00:55:54] [SPEAKER_00] It's weird, right?

[00:55:55] [SPEAKER_07] That's a little bit weird. I have a lot of questions about that and their whole relationship, the Saldana-Gardner relationship is something I'm not sure I understand completely.

[00:56:09] [SPEAKER_00] It's like they got together. It was very transactional. Like you think, okay, it's going to be like some steamy romance or something, but it's like very transactional. They just kind of she wants help watching the kids and then her parents deputize him as some kind of trustee for the estate that she has the trust that has access. She has access to. I just I don't. I don't get it. I don't. I'm confused by it. I find the whole thing very odd.

[00:56:37] [SPEAKER_00] But, yeah, they're basically seeming like as long like basically as long as Gardner is entangled with Bridegan in any legal disputes, which she constantly is. They don't want her to have direct access to the money. I guess he could argue Breidigan could argue that that could change the dynamic about like, you know, I don't know. It's it's odd. They talked about the relationship between Fernandez Eldania.

[00:57:03] [SPEAKER_00] We kind of already got into that, how she wanted to be married because he thought it would look better in court. Again, like everything seems to be revolving around like this ongoing battle with Jared Breidigan. They talk about how witnesses said that Gardner would frequently profess her hate of Breidigan and would be very voracious about her frustrations with him, about the custody arrangement, about the different parenting choices they would make.

[00:57:30] [SPEAKER_00] And, you know, basically, Jared was telling his lawyer that he was scared that she was trying to build a case to get full custody of the twins and that she had been coaching them. And then we get to this email that we mentioned before. So January 24th, 2022, Breidigan sends Gardner an email saying, you know, I want to have one of the twins baptized in the church.

[00:57:56] [SPEAKER_00] And forensic download of Breidigan's phone on January 26th, 2022 showed a text from Kirsten Breidigan to Gardner on the group chat with Breidigan, Kirsten and Fernandez Eldania. And this indicated that Gardner had reacted very poorly to the news of this upcoming baptism. The text read that the twin daughter is a bit emotional after date night because she's under the impression you will not allow her to be baptized.

[00:58:26] [SPEAKER_00] Okay. Then one of Jared's relatives said that Gardner had once made a comment to him in 2017 that she thought about hiring a hitman to take Jared out. He didn't think much of the comment at the time, but he did feel she was being somewhat serious. Yeah. Okay. Well, that. And now we get to the statements that Fernandez Sildania had made about Breidigan.

[00:58:55] [SPEAKER_00] Basically, he talked about how the kids were better off without him. He talked about how he would try to be confrontational with him and kind of try to almost provoke a response. Apparently, a witness talked about how Gardner had told them that he talked about getting four guys to break into his house and take care of him and that no one would ever know. And, yeah, just kind of making threatening statements.

[00:59:19] [SPEAKER_00] You have the financials of Fernandez Sildania and Gardner about how first choice home rentals, you know, that was an LLC they had. But most of their income came from the trust funded by her parents. And, you know, it says, quote, apparently in an effort to keep Breidigan from gaining access to any of her trust funds and for Gardner to appear impecunious, she maintained very little money in her personal account and showed almost no personal income.

[00:59:49] [SPEAKER_00] Bank records confirm that Gardner never maintained more than $2,500 in her personal account at any time between January 1st, 2021 and March 3rd, 2022. But as outlined above, Gardner had financial resources affording her the ability to hire and pay Fernandez Sildania to kill Breidigan. Indeed, stark contrast to her regular banking patterns in April 2022, Gardner's rank records indicated an excess of $200,000 in her personal accounts.

[01:00:17] [SPEAKER_00] At the time of Breidigan's murder, Fernandez Sildania had over $400,000 in his account. Investigation further revealed that at the time of Breidigan's murder, Gardner and Fernandez Sildania were separated and planning to divorce, end quote. They also note here that Kirsten talked about talking to the twins on February 17th, 2022, the day after the homicide, where they inquired if their father had had a will. She thought that was very odd.

[01:00:42] [SPEAKER_07] I agree. That is odd. It is odd.

[01:00:44] [SPEAKER_00] Where are they hearing that from, you know? They talk about since all this that as of January 19th, 2023, Gardner had moved her trust account with Navy Federal to an unknown institution and opened five new banking accounts, three in her own name, two in each of her twins' names combined, had half a million dollars in them. And that Fernandez Sildania had three accounts with Navy Federal with $75,000 in them.

[01:01:12] [SPEAKER_00] Now they get into the relationship with one of the redacted people, Anne Tenen. They talk about how this is confirmed through real estate records, phone records, cellular site location information, witness interviews, and suspect interviews. And that all four of these people, they believe, played a role. So Fernandez Sildania and three others, one of whom was Tenen, two of whom were not named.

[01:01:38] [SPEAKER_00] They talked about how he enlisted Tenen and, quote, redacted a trusted associate with police and military training to assist in planning and executing the murder of Jared Breidegan. Okay, so that other person is bigger staff, right? Yeah. Yeah, the military and, yeah, I mean, that's not a mystery. In that he, Gardner basically gave him the money to Fernandez Sildania to compensate at least Tenen.

[01:02:05] [SPEAKER_00] And, you know, Tenen's story about not knowing where his truck was and giving it to an unidentified black male is not, is not at all, you know, credible. They were able to ultimately find it. And, you know, they knew that that was not true. Now they get into a detailed breakdown of the surveillance video that they were able to collect. This is going to be a really crucial bit of the trial. And I'm going to kind of just read through this, if you don't mind, Kevin.

[01:02:32] [SPEAKER_00] And we're going to kind of go over what, you know, what is set here.

[01:02:38] [SPEAKER_02] Okay.

[01:02:38] [SPEAKER_00] 6.25, 33 p.m. At Beach Boulevard, the suspect truck is traveling east, eastbound. And this is .45 miles away from Marsh Inlet Court where Fernandez Sildania and Gardner live and where those twins were dropped off at the end of the night. At 6.42 p.m. on America Avenue, the suspect truck travels southbound on America Avenue.

[01:03:05] [SPEAKER_00] For 6.43, it's going southbound on Sanctuary Parkway. It slows to a stop approximately where the murder took place. It continues southbound on Sanctuary Parkway, conducts a U-turn, and slows down on the opposite end of the road where the murder took place. So that's what happens. 6.44, Grande Boulevard. Suspect truck is going eastbound on Jacksonville Drive and turns northbound onto South Beach Parkway and goes to Shutter Avenue.

[01:03:33] [SPEAKER_00] 6.52, Penman Road South travels westbound towards 15th Street South and Shutter Avenue. And it basically sits there. This is the Pablo Hamlet place where it's basically just sitting there waiting. That's about 19 minutes. 7.50, it goes southbound on America Avenue. It's right in front of Jared Bridegan's vehicle.

[01:04:01] [SPEAKER_00] It appears to be tailgating an unknown white truck, probably to create some distance with Jared Bridegan's vehicle. And this is two minutes before the recorded gunshots. Okay. And then 2.52, America Avenue, they capture the video from Sanctuary Parkway. Bridegan's vehicle stopped in the road with hazard lights activated. A person can be seen walking southbound seconds after the last shot is fired and seconds later running.

[01:04:30] [SPEAKER_00] 6.53, one minute after the shooting, the suspect truck traveled eastbound on Jacksonville Drive. So now we're seeing the getaway. 7.56, Grand Day Boulevard, approximately four minutes after the murder, an unidentified black male was observed walking northbound to the intersection of Jacksonville Drive and Grand Day Boulevard. He's wearing dark colored pants, tan shirt, boots, a light colored hat.

[01:04:53] [SPEAKER_00] And based on Detective Johns' review of the surveillance footage and Google location data, he believes that this is Tennant. That you can see Tenon. And he goes on to Jacksonville Drive and continues eastbound. They note that for the description, Tenon is a black man. He is 61 years old. He's older. He's 6'3". He weighs 259 pounds.

[01:05:19] [SPEAKER_00] And location data puts one of his known cell phones within a few meters of the location of the male observed on camera at approximately the same time. Again, those numbers I don't think are always super exact. But if it's putting him anywhere near that, he's in trouble. It doesn't have to put it. That stuff doesn't have to be exact for that to be a huge problem. I want to remind people. Remember there was an episode called The Man in the Woods?

[01:05:45] [SPEAKER_00] And people were accusing, not accusing, people were saying that a, you know, a guy was spotted in the area, Gabriel Herrett or Harriet. He was a transient man with mental illness. He's also an older black man. I just want to note that. You know, I always thought that was interesting. Like maybe did some people, like was this guy scoping things out and people saw him and assumed it was that guy? I don't know. Just interesting.

[01:06:09] [SPEAKER_00] So at 8 p.m. on Shedder Avenue, the suspect truck goes westbound and it reaches a cul-de-sac, turns around, travels eastbound and leaves the frame. This is 0.2 miles from the Gardner residence. And the truck and the man are separated at this point. So that's kind of interesting. So you got someone on foot and you got someone driving the truck.

[01:06:31] [SPEAKER_00] At 8.13, South Beach Parkway and Riptide Boulevard, the guy that they believe to be Tenen is walking northbound on South Beach Parkway. And it's 0.46 miles away from the intersection of Jacksonville Drive and Grande Boulevard. And they believe one of the target subjects was driving the suspect truck afterwards while Tenen's on foot.

[01:06:59] [SPEAKER_00] They look at all the tower data, all the tower dumps covering the homicide scene. They don't see any activity by any of the target phones, although they did mention some of that data, you know, earlier. But they do find a lot of cellular toll data and sort of contact between some of these target numbers after the homicide and just before that they feel is unusual.

[01:07:25] [SPEAKER_00] A lot of communication between Fernandez Saldana and one of the other people who's redacted, you know, and Target, this is Target, they call it Target Telephone 5. And they were like very much in contact between midnight on February 1st and 1.40 a.m. on February 17th. So that's kind of interesting.

[01:07:50] [SPEAKER_00] And they also note that it's very interesting about that 1.40 time because when did detectives get to the Gardner home to tell her and Fernandez Saldana about the murder? Well, around, I believe, 1.39 a.m. on February 17th.

[01:08:09] [SPEAKER_07] So it doesn't feel like a coincidence, does it?

[01:08:12] [SPEAKER_00] It seems pretty bad for them. They kind of break down phone and location activity on February 15th, the day before the homicide. They talk about Fernandez Saldana reaching out to one of these people at like 2.44 a.m., sending two messages at 9.04 p.m. At 9.04 a.m., he's sending one message to Tenen. And then he's getting some. I mean, they're just kind of showing the back and forth. There's this whole graph. I won't get into all of it, but it's pretty damning.

[01:08:40] [SPEAKER_00] There's a lot of entries here. And if you remember in the investigation, like all of these people wouldn't really have had an opportunity. Obviously, Gardner and Fernandez Saldana have a reason to talk. They're married. But all these other people, like it doesn't really make a lot of sense. And they were all really downplaying the relationship. Like, I just know him as a tenant. I know him as a landlord. It's odd that they're in this much touch when you look at this thing. I think.

[01:09:05] [SPEAKER_07] I agree completely.

[01:09:06] [SPEAKER_00] Then we're seeing all of their communications the day of the murder leading up to the murder. It's a lot. They talk about how Fernandez Saldana at 9.04 at 5.14 p.m. That day travels from his residence northbound towards Beach Boulevard, then westbound on Beach Boulevard before returning to the home address. So, like, is he doing something? They talk about Google location data at 5.41 p.m. showing Tenen's device stopped recording location data.

[01:09:36] [SPEAKER_00] So, suddenly powered off or on airplane mode. And then same at 6.09 p.m., Fernandez Saldana is doing the same. They talk about how at 6.25 p.m., Taco Lou, a local taco place, has security footage showing the suspect truck traveling east past the restaurant on Beach Boulevard. And 6.29 p.m., Jared Bright again picks the children up from the Gardner-Fernandez Saldana household.

[01:10:03] [SPEAKER_00] At that point, 6.36 p.m., security footage shows the suspect truck driving the route from Pablo Hamlet on Beach Boulevard to the scene of the homicide. They have at 6.43 p.m., the suspect truck stops at the scene of the homicide, loops back around before stopping again. It's all very calculated, you know. At 7.45 p.m., Jared drops the kids off at the home on Marsh Inlet.

[01:10:29] [SPEAKER_00] And at 7.47 p.m., two minutes later, suspect truck is driving in front of him on the route. 7.52 is when they believe the shooting took place. They have the gunshot and muzzle flash. And, yeah, and from there, you only have, you know, you have these kind of glimpses of an unknown black male running around and the truck leaving.

[01:10:55] [SPEAKER_00] And at 8.20 p.m., you have Fernandez Saldana get back connectivity in the area of his home address. I'm thinking that they think Fernandez Saldana might have been the driver of the truck and might have been actually in the mix with this. That's what I'm kind of getting. What do you think?

[01:11:16] [SPEAKER_07] Yeah, that's the impression I'm getting, too. But, of course, on both of our parts, that's just speculation.

[01:11:20] [SPEAKER_00] I don't know. Yeah, we're going to learn more at trial, I imagine.

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[01:11:53] [SPEAKER_00] Then they talk about the activity at the, you know, the day after the murder. Again, a lot of discussion. A lot of messages between him and other people who they think may have been involved in this conspiracy, who they're not necessarily naming. And, yeah. They found this. It's, I don't know. I don't want to say. Like, maybe there's some explanation for some of this.

[01:12:20] [SPEAKER_00] Maybe the defense is going to be able to come up with a really good explanation. I think we should be open-minded for that. For sure. I mean, I would love to hear it. What do you think? I mean, do you think, how bad is this case against them?

[01:12:34] [SPEAKER_07] I think this case is devastating, frankly. I don't want to rule out the possibility that they might be able to come up with something that would explain some of this away. I'm struggling, though, to figure out any explanation they could come up with that would indeed explain it away and, more importantly, be plausible. Because this stuff stacks up and it doesn't look good for them.

[01:13:00] [SPEAKER_00] To me, like, the person who might have the best shot is Gardner because there's a lot with implicating Fernandez, Saldana, and Tenen. Tenen literally has DNA at the crime scene. Like, that's bad. He's sunk. I don't know. And we can talk more about the pretrial stuff. I do not know why he was not angling for a deal.

[01:13:27] [SPEAKER_00] People, prosecutors tend to care more about the people instigating versus, like, the gunmen. They want to get the person who instigated. I don't know why he didn't leverage his position more. All I can think of is people who are bright don't get involved in something like this, you know? I mean, like, I'm sorry. They just don't. I don't, you know. It seems baffling to me. Or maybe I would, if I were him, I'd be, like, singing like a canary.

[01:13:54] [SPEAKER_07] Yeah, I would, too. You know?

[01:13:56] [SPEAKER_00] I mean, and also it's like he's old. I mean, like, he's not old. I mean, no offense to all the 63-year-olds. But he's an older gentleman. So it's like he's, you know, if he, like, I don't know. Like, a hefty sentence for him means a death sentence, essentially, unless he's able to really work something out. So I don't know if he wasn't offered it. It sounds like he was. We can talk more about that another time. I don't know why he wouldn't be cooperating.

[01:14:22] [SPEAKER_00] Fernanda Saldana seems very implicated by a lot of the cell phone information and by the money. And because, again, Tennant has no reason to kill Jared. The person who it's like, like, Gardner has the motive to kill her ex-husband more so than her new husband does. But to me, I'll be curious, what do they have with her that really – because, I mean, I could just see it being like, oh, my crazy new husband did something. I didn't know about it.

[01:14:52] [SPEAKER_00] What do you think about that?

[01:14:54] [SPEAKER_07] Yeah, I would agree with that assessment. But I remain surprised that Tennant didn't try to work something out because that does seem like that would be very much in his interest.

[01:15:06] [SPEAKER_00] And sometimes, like, prosecutors are like, whatever, we got you. We're not going to make a deal. Like, you're going down too. But there's certain things that I don't believe that that's what happened here and that I actually believe that he did have an opportunity. And I kind of feel like that was a pretty big missed opportunity for him and his legal team to try to get out of this. Because, I mean, he's really been left holding the bag on this.

[01:15:35] [SPEAKER_00] So, yeah. I want to talk about some other disturbing things that came out in this. And this is January 20 – just January 5th, 2022. This is one of the trial runs that they say that Tennant did. They talked about – they kind of actually have a little map in here that's helpful showing him driving the route. Very disturbing. And how his devices, you know, just – they were able to track him doing this whole friggin', you know, test run.

[01:16:03] [SPEAKER_00] And it's very similar to what Jared would have been driving. I have not cross-referenced it to tell you that it's the exact same route. But it's certainly you're seeing the same street names. Sometimes on January 29th, 2022, it gets even worse. There's another practice run. But get this. Tennant also goes to Jared Bridegan's house. Like, creepy as heck.

[01:16:28] [SPEAKER_00] They're able to see with Google data that Tennant's two phones go do the homicide route again and go to Bridegan Street, where he lived in St. John's County with his family. And it even drove past a gymnastics studio in St. John's County where one of the nine-year-old twins was a student. Like, he's, like, stalking this family. And, like, again, if you're hiring someone to do this, it's like you're putting your own kids at risk.

[01:17:00] [SPEAKER_07] Yeah, this whole thing – that detail is so disturbing on so many levels.

[01:17:04] [SPEAKER_00] You know, this guy is no – I mean, again, Tennant has no beef with Jared Bridegan. He doesn't know him. There's no connection. There's no reason for him to be doing this. There's no reason he would know where the guy lived. There's no reason he'd know what gymnastics studio one of the twins goes to. You know? Yeah. You know, what Detective Johns writes,

[01:17:30] [SPEAKER_00] based on Affian's investigation, there would be no way for Tennant to know where Bridegan lived unless directed there by someone. Based on the information below, Affian believes that someone to be Fernandez Saldana. You know? And even that day at 1.47 p.m., the data shows Fernandez Saldana going to Potomac Avenue. And shortly after he arrives, both of Tennant's phones go and they travel to Bridegan's neighborhood.

[01:17:57] [SPEAKER_00] He gets there, and then that seemingly sparks Tennant into going into St. John's County. And after that trip, he goes to the gymnastics studio, then goes to Jacksonville Beach, and then does the murder route twice. And reducing his speed when he gets to the scene of the homicide, and then goes back to Potomac Avenue. I mean, that's pretty bad for Fernandez Saldana as well as Tennant. Yeah.

[01:18:26] [SPEAKER_00] And they also note that while that's happening, Fernandez Saldana is at Potomac Avenue at the house he owns. But several minutes after Tennant's phone get back to Potomac Avenue, Fernandez Saldana leaves. So it's like he's waiting at the home for this Tennant guy. Okay. So that's pretty bad.

[01:18:49] [SPEAKER_00] One thing they also note in this document is how Fernandez Saldana was, you know, we talked a little bit about how he would brag about getting disability from the military. He had been, you know, had served in the Army, but he was not supposed to be getting benefits from the Veterans Administration. Do you know why? Because he had, he was ineligible because he had been, he got a less than honorable discharge. So he's like a scammer too. Like you can't make.

[01:19:18] [SPEAKER_07] On top of everything else.

[01:19:19] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. One notable thing about the firearms angle of this, I'm not seeing anything here about a weapon of interest or the murder weapon being recovered. But they do talk about how Fernandez Saldana and, you know, seemingly bigger staff were together an hour at the residence approximately, you know, before this person, bigger staff, performed a Google search for 10 millimeter guns on January 25th, 2022.

[01:19:47] [SPEAKER_00] Now, to note, that is the day after Gardner got the email about the baptism. Like, see, like for me, it's like, yeah, like that would, she would be the instigator of this. But at the same time, I'm just curious to see what evidence they have really locking her into that. All right. So I think we've kind of gone through most of the information in these affidavits. Now I want to give you an update about what's happening.

[01:20:12] [SPEAKER_00] So on January 25th, 2023, as planned, as outlined in these affidavits, Henry Arthur Tenen was arrested. He was the first person arrested. And he was initially charged with conspiracy to commit murder, second degree murder with a weapon, accessory after the fact to a capital felony and child abuse. So he was the first domino to fall. The second domino to fall was Mario Fernandez Saldana.

[01:20:36] [SPEAKER_00] March 16th, 2023, he was arrested by federal agents in Kissimmee or Orange County, I believe, in Florida after being indicted by a grand jury. And this was the same day after Tenen entered an initial guilty plea, which he then took back. We'll talk more about that in the next episode. And then August 17th, 2023, Gardner was arrested in West Richland, Washington, following her grand jury indictment.

[01:21:04] [SPEAKER_00] And she was extradited and booked into the Duval County Jail in Florida. Now, before we go, I want to talk about what charges everyone is facing. Although I believe this is what everyone was initially indicted with. We'll talk in our next episode because I believe some of these things have been dropped, at least for Fernandez Saldana. Henry Tenen is facing, or at least was facing in the beginning of this.

[01:21:32] [SPEAKER_00] Again, we'll update you if this has changed. We're trying to go chronologically because I feel like that's the easiest way to understand everything. So my understanding is that Tenen is facing murder, conspiracy to commit murder, child abuse, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, accessory after the fact. And again, he pled guilty at first, withdrew it, is now going to trial. He's going to be the last one tried.

[01:21:57] [SPEAKER_00] You have Gardner is facing murder, conspiracy to commit murder, solicitation to commit a capital felony and child abuse. And for Mario Fernandez Saldana, you have first degree murder, solicitation to commit a capital felony. And with him, prosecutors recently dropped conspiracy to commit murder and child abuse counts. So those aren't going to be tried. Mario Fernandez Saldana is up first. We will be following that trial closely. I want to see what the defense says.

[01:22:27] [SPEAKER_00] I want to see if they feel like this could be any big misunderstanding and what that scenario would look like. Right now it's looking pretty bad, but maybe there are facts about this that we're not aware of that we can take into consideration once we get to know that through trial. So I'll be really curious.

[01:22:43] [SPEAKER_07] Yeah, I couldn't agree more. One thing, obviously, I love our adversarial system of justice, which means basically one side gets to put on their evidence and then the other side, which is very motivated, gets to do everything they can to try to poke holes into that evidence. So I will be very curious to see if the defense succeeds in poking holes or knocking down any of these bits of evidence.

[01:23:10] [SPEAKER_07] But I would be remiss if I didn't state the obvious, which is at this point, it does appear to be a very strong case. That may change if the defense stands up and presents something just extraordinary. So we have to at least be open to that possibility.

[01:23:26] [SPEAKER_00] I completely agree. So while we've said some things like, oh, this looks pretty bad against the defendants in the case, that's not the end all be all. That's my initial reaction. A lot of the stuff sounds pretty bad, but it's not the trial. The trial is where it's all going to come down. So we hope you join us for our trial coverage and we can all kind of piece together this information together as that goes on. But in the meantime, thank you all so much for listening.

[01:23:51] [SPEAKER_07] Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail.com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

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[01:24:35] [SPEAKER_07] Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for The Murder Sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com.

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