The Murder of Jared Bridegan: Part Five: Control

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[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_02] Hi, Mania, and this is part of our deep dive into a murder conspiracy case full of twists, turns, and upcoming trials. This series will take you inside the murder of Jared Bridegan and make you an expert for the approaching trials.

[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_06] Content warning. This episode contains discussion of murder and violence.

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_02] In true crime, the timeline of a crime is one piece of the puzzle that often gets overlooked, and it's easy to see why. A timeline is not sexy or flashy. Certainly not when compared with DNA or the murder weapon or something like that. It takes time to understand and really grasp. One cannot always convey it easily in a quick social short video or a one-minute news hit. But make no mistake, cases are won and lost on timelines all the time.

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_02] To understand what happened to Jared Breitigan, the Microsoft executive and father of four, gunned down in a nighttime ambush on February 16, 2022, detectives needed to lock down his timeline. That meant gathering evidence about the victim's final movements, his financial activity, his routine in the days before the killing. All of that is about ruling things out just as much as it is about finding new clues.

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_02] If something weird was going on, they'd find it. If everything was actually relatively normal for Jared Breitigan, that would tell them something too.

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_06] That is why on Wednesday, February 23, 2022, lead detective Christopher Johns walked into the Navy Federal Credit Union and served subpoenas to assistant branch manager Gresham Bartlus Acosta. He needed to get a sense of what was going on in the lives of Jared's ex-wife, Shanna Gardner, and her new husband, Mario Fernandez Saldana. He would receive the subpoena return from Navy Federal on Monday, February 28, 2022.

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_06] The same day he received evidence and photographs from the medical examiner's office for District 4. He would get discs back with the financial records on March 17, 2022, along with Jared's financial records from JPMorgan Chase. He would need such records in order to rule several possibilities out. Or perhaps rule them in.

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_02] All of that could help build out a timeline. That same concept is also why he emailed Denise Powers, the amenity manager for the upscale neighborhood in St. Augustine, Florida, where Jared lived, asking her for footage from the gym camera there. That's even why he got in touch with a Wendy's employee claim specialist to get footage of Jared at the Wendy's from the night he was killed. That video showed the victim purchasing two junior Frosties at 7.37 p.m. Nothing remarkable. Nothing sinister.

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_02] Jared, at that point, was clearly not under duress. Detectives could start to rule out any idea that something bad had started earlier in the evening, any time before Jared arrived at the intersection of Jacksonville Drive and Sanctuary Boulevard. That same day, Detective Johns went with Detective Brett Burrell to a home on America Avenue to collect footage from a Nest camera. They watched a dark truck move across the screen. It looked like the same dark truck that they had seen in other footage

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_02] coming down the road on the night of the murders. But this video was different. This time, the truck appeared around 6.40 p.m., as if the driver had arrived early in the neighborhood, in anticipation of the carnage that would follow. Detectives would need to figure out exactly who was driving that truck. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_06] 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.

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_02] And this is The Murder of Jared Bridegan, Part 5, Control.

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_06] Technology can be a boon for the modern police detective. On March 1, 2022, Officer Shane Jarman, the evidence technician on the Jared Bridegan case, went back to the murder scene. It was about 9.30 a.m. In the daytime, in the sunlight, the once-darkened intersection of Sanctuary Boulevard and Jacksonville Drive must have looked rather different.

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_02] Officer Jarman set up the OSCR 360 and completed photographing the scene. Two days later, he went back and mapped the whole scene using Farozone 3D and the laser mapping system. In his report, Officer Jarman said, this ends my involvement in this case. But that being said, we are pretty sure we have seen his name pop up again in later reports, so we'll have to see about that.

[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_06] So that is the technology that law enforcement can use to unlock answers about a crime scene. Then there's the tech we all rely on every day. In our pockets and purses, most of us carry around little devices to track our every move. That odd habit can prove helpful for law enforcement when something bad happens.

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_02] On Thursday, February 24th, 2022, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives Special Agent Mark Mutts got Judge Bruce Anderson Jr. to sign off on a search warrant for a cell phone tower dump. He was able to get all the data from the nearby towers covering the area where Jared was murdered. For AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, MetroPCS. That would allow detectives to check up on what cellular devices pinged in the area

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_02] at the relevant time. Now, any tech-savvy murderer knows to turn their cell phone off or leave it at home. But that absence in itself, for someone who rarely goes without their phone typically, that can also be a clue. The next day, that Friday,

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_06] Google sent Detective Steve Currier its geofence data for the scene. Detective Currier and Special Agent Mutts went over it together, and the ATF agent also sent it to the Bureau's analysts for further review. The weekend passed. Then, Monday. On Tuesday, March 1st, 2022, Special Agent Mutts got in touch with Detective Currier about the first Google geofence search warrant. He had news.

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_02] And the analysts thought that they should single out three specific device identification numbers. They needed to look into who those people were. In order to do so, they had to get subscriber information from Google. The owners of those devices simply needed to be identified. So Detective Currier got to work. One search warrant he worked up was for 20 minutes prior to the murder to see who might have been lurking in the area waiting for the ambush. The second one was for February 16, 2022,

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_02] from 6.40 p.m. to 6.50 p.m. After all, that mysterious truck had been prowling around the area at that time.

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_06] Assistant State's Attorney for Duval County, Christina Steifler, approved those search warrants, and Judge Julie Taylor signed off on both of them. Detective Currier submitted them to Google via a portal they have for law enforcement. By then, he had completed three Google search warrants. The following day, he did a fourth for the area around Pablo Hamlet in Jacksonville Beach for the night of the murder from 6.45 p.m. through 7.30 p.m.

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_06] From what we can tell, Pablo Hamlet is an assisted living facility specializing in housing for low-income seniors.

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_02] Now, in one way, the location of Pablo Hamlet is quite notable. It's a seven-minute drive approximately north of where Jared was killed, so it's close by. But it's only a minute drive from Shanna Gardner's house and is separated from Marsh Inlet Court, where she lived at the time, by a narrow, but thick-looking forest. Once again, ASA Steifler approved the warrant and then Judge Eric Roberson signed off on it. On Thursday, March 3, 2022,

[00:12:40] [SPEAKER_02] Detective Currier received the Google Geofence information from the search warrant for the time of 20 minutes prior to the murder. He gave that data to Special Agent Mutts. He also got back an intriguing AT&T subpoena from ASA Steifler.

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_06] The subpoena was for the toll records on a man's cell phone. That man's name? John Biggerstaff. He was well known to local law enforcement. He had once been a reserve officer with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.

[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_02] But unfortunately, that wasn't why law enforcement officers in the area knew about him. No. See, Biggerstaff had been charged and convicted for sex trafficking and drug-related offenses. He had basically gone to the dark side as far as many people were concerned, going from being a cop to being a criminal. So how exactly was he linked to this case? Well, turns out, Biggerstaff was a close associate of someone we've already talked about. Someone we'll be hearing more from in this very episode,

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_02] but we're going to delve into all of that in a future episode.

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_06] Detective Courier got that subpoena to AT&T. ASA Steifler then approved the secondary search warrant for Google to provide those three mysterious device identifications for subscriber information. Judge Roberson signed that and Detective Courier submitted the search warrant to Google via their law enforcement portal once more.

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_02] And he got those back quickly, but the result was probably some disappointment. Two of those phones belonged to Zoraida and Osiris, the witnesses who were sisters in the vehicle behind Jared's SUV. The third belonged to a man who, from my research, seems to simply live on Sanctuary Way. Okay, so that was nothing groundbreaking. Something like a geofence is an amazing tool for law enforcement, but it's not always going to be the thing that cracks the case every time.

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_06] Detective Courier did not give up, though. On Friday, March 4, 2022, he sent Google a preservation letter via the law enforcement portal for bigger staff's information and for the Cradle Creek area of Jacksonville Beach.

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_02] Over a month later, on Monday, April 18, 2022, he received the device identifications for a number of other individuals. None of the names stood out to me. The following day, he went to the Duval County Courthouse to have Judge James Collother sign the search warrant return.

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_06] Detective Courier also had a lot to do around dealing with the technology around an important piece of evidence, Jared's SUV.

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_02] On Monday, March 7, 2022, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Computer Forensic Unit Detective David Ostertag came to pay him a call at the station. Detective Courier brought Detective Ostertag to the property department and showed him the Atlas. The evidence technician team had already smashed up its door pretty good in order to extract a bullet. Now, Detective Ostertag's methods would be a little bit less blunt. He disassembled the vehicle's infotainment system, then removed it. His goal?

[00:15:40] [SPEAKER_02] Use Berla Corporation software to download data and information from the center. As he worked, Detective Courier snapped photographs of the infotainment system.

[00:15:49] [SPEAKER_06] Then, Detective Johns, the lead detective on the case, got behind the wheel of Jared's SUV. He drove it out of the station to the department's city garage. Investigators wanted to check one more thing. If they could take a good look underneath the SUV, they could see if any location tracking devices had been surreptitiously attached. Evidence technicians had already checked, but in the city garage, they felt they could check even more diligently.

[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_02] Around then, Detective Courier got back another Google Geofence search warrant return. But looking at it, Special Agent Mutz realized something was wrong. Google had sent them data for the morning, not the evening. They got their AM mixed up with their PM. Google had goofed. That would need to be corrected.

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_06] On Tuesday, March 8, 2022, Judge Suzanne Bass approved yet another Google subscriber information search warrant for Detective Courier. The following day, Detective Courier got the Pablo Hamlet Geofence data back. It had a ton of devices and a ton of names. He sent that along to Special Agents Mutz and the ATF for further analysis.

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_02] He also submitted a Geofence warrant for the Cradle Creek preservation on Friday, March 11, 2022. That is a public park filled with boardwalks and nature trails. It's about a five-minute drive to the murder scene from there and also just a minute drive from Gardner's Marsh Inlet Court home. Notice the pattern here. Detectives seemed highly interested in places pretty close to the spot where Jared was killed and that makes sense, obviously. But those two places were both even closer to the home

[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_02] where his ex-wife lived.

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_06] That Monday, Detective Courier got the updated, corrected, Geofence return with the PM numbers that he actually wanted. Those went straight to the ATF. The next day, one of the ATF analysts teased out three new device identifications. On Wednesday, March 16, 2022, ASA Christina Steifler helped put together another warrant for that as well as the Cradle Creek warrant. On Friday, March 18, 2022, Judge Most Floyd signed both

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_06] of those warrants.

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_02] One thing is clear. The amount of work it can take just to identify a couple of devices is a lot. And inevitably, most of those devices won't have anything to do with the crime. As we said at the top, this tech can be a boon for investigations. But obtaining the key data is not always easy or fast or even possible. Meanwhile, Detective Jason Lamont was tasked with obtaining a piece of information that could be crucial. Data from the victim himself. On Tuesday,

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_02] March 8, 2022, at about 4.30 p.m., he requested a search warrant for Jared's Microsoft-issued work computer. Jared's work computer was, rather ironically, an Apple MacBook Pro in aluminum color. Detective Lamont placed that into the property room. This message is sponsored by Greenlight.

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[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_06] Unraveling another loose end fell to Corporal Yvonne Santiago. She wasn't getting anywhere with the insurance search. On Wednesday, March 9, 2022, she just subpoenaed all records of the victim's past and present policies. The following day, she sent that in and Detective Johns faxed it to Farm Bureau.

[00:22:38] [SPEAKER_02] Detectives weren't doing all of this alone, though. Members of the public continued to come forward. As February drew to a close, quite a few potential witnesses came forward and stepped up with what they knew.

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_06] On Thursday, February 24, 2022, Corporal Santiago made contact with a witness named Christina. Christina worked at a primary care clinic in Jacksonville Beach. The night of the murder, she left work at 7.50 p.m. While driving on J. Turner Butler Boulevard, she glimpsed a white or light-colored car, flashers on, stopped on the westbound side of the bridge. All she could say is that it was a car, not a truck,

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_06] not an SUV. Some of these witnesses, like Christina, had stories that were worth mentioning, but did not necessarily end up panning out. Still others said things that perked up more interest from detectives.

[00:23:32] [SPEAKER_02] Like later that day, Corporal Santiago got in touch with a man named David, whose son might have witnessed something important. David gave over his son's number and Corporal Santiago called him. The night of the murder, the son said he was driving his white Dodge Ram home, north on Sanctuary Boulevard. He was on the phone with his father for about five minutes when he saw something a bit odd. Multiple vehicles stopped, flashers on, a black Volkswagen SUV with the door open, a man on the ground,

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_02] a tire in front of the vehicle to the left. Probably about four other vehicles, including a silver or white Toyota Tundra parked on the grass. Maybe about four people out of their vehicles. David's son said he saw a man walk over to the figure lying in the road. So, David's son decided to slow down and roll down his window just to ask if everything was alright.

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_06] One of the people there, a man, asked if he was a doctor. David's son said no and replied asking if they had called 911. A woman confirmed that they had. Then, another vehicle pulled up behind David's son and he drove off. Finding himself at the entrance of Lake Sanctuary, he hung around the area. He didn't think he had much real information to provide detectives. So, he then left. Corporal Santiago said other detectives would probably want to talk to him more.

[00:24:52] [SPEAKER_06] She called him twice more that day and left voicemails trying to set up an interview.

[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_02] So, that's a bit of a callback. Remember in past episodes where we talked about a guy who pulled over in a white vehicle? A guy who people saw kind of roaming around looking suspicious claiming his father lived in the area? Witnesses talked about him a lot and a lot of people felt he seemed really suspicious. Well, it sounds like we actually found that guy just now. We understand how the other witnesses felt though. In the wake of a murder, any vaguely odd interaction or statement

[00:25:26] [SPEAKER_02] takes on an incredibly sinister context. But that does not necessarily make it sinister.

[00:25:32] [SPEAKER_06] That same day, Corporal Santiago talked to a different witness called Allison. She learned that Allison and her boyfriend Joseph had been walking their dog the night of the murder. Their route took them from Joseph's residence on Sanctuary North to the northeast corner of Jacksonville Drive at America Avenue. There, Allison said she heard four shots. No pause between any of them.

[00:25:55] [SPEAKER_02] The couple turned to go back to Joseph's house. They reached the center of Sanctuary Boulevard. That is when Allison saw a blue, older model truck with a wide silver trim which had been going south towards J. Turner Butler Boulevard. In the long bed of the truck up near the driver, there were two large black trash bags that looked quite full.

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_06] The truck did a three-point turn and then headed out onto the southbound lane. It was going very slowly. Allison knew the driver was a man but she did not get close enough to tell anything like race.

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_02] Behind that truck there had been a dark car and a tan or gold car behind it. All stopped on Sanctuary Boulevard's southbound lane but it was dark. She didn't see flashing lights or people and she wasn't really exactly sure what they saw. When they'd been eating dinner the previous night, Allison noted that she and Joseph had also seen the same gold or tan sedan parked in the southbound lane of Sanctuary Boulevard on the side of the road.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_06] On March 8, 2022, Allison came to do an interview with the Jacksonville Beach Police Department, specifically with Detective Lamont. She conveyed her story to the detective and went into a little more detail. She'd been frightened by the gunshots. That is why she and her boyfriend went home. She estimated that the time between hearing the gunshots and spotting the blue truck had only been about a minute.

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_02] Detective Lamont looked closer at the surveillance video from Jacksonville Drive and America Avenue. He began to notice something important. There were only two trucks seen leaving the area from the time of the murder. The first truck was believed to be a smaller Toyota Tacoma and that was headed north on America Avenue. The second truck, though, went east on Jacksonville Drive, approximately one minute after the last gunshot. That, thought Detective Lamont, was probably

[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_02] the suspect's vehicle.

[00:27:55] [SPEAKER_06] That same day, Detective Lamont also called a potential witness named Rebecca. She had gone into the sanctuary at around 7.45 p.m. to pick up some things. Without turning off her silver Toyota 4Runner, she got out to grab what she needed, presumably from one of the residences, and then left. Her 12-year-old son rode shotgun.

[00:28:17] [SPEAKER_02] She remembered seeing a vehicle back up, possibly a truck. She had gone into the sanctuary neighborhood around 7.45 p.m. that night, the night of the murder, just to pick up a few things, presumably from one of the residences there. She got out without even turning off her silver Toyota 4Runner. Then she left. As she drove near the intersection of Jacksonville Drive and Sanctuary Boulevard, she noticed something odd. A vehicle with its flashers on midway between J. Turner Butler Boulevard and the intersection.

[00:28:46] [SPEAKER_02] Also, she saw another vehicle reversing from the southbound lane of Sanctuary Boulevard. Something big. An SUV, a truck, judging from the height of the reverse lights. Rebecca turned her vehicle east on Jacksonville Drive. That was the last she saw of the mysterious reversing vehicle. She later asked her son if he remembered the vehicle they saw backing up. A Ford truck, he said. He said he believed that was the case because it had a 4x4 on the back of the truck. That meant he thought it was a Ford.

[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_02] She followed up. Was her son sure it was a truck like his dad had or maybe an SUV like she had?

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_06] Yes, he was sure.

[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_02] Next, she asked her son if he remembered the color of the vehicle.

[00:29:29] [SPEAKER_06] Black, he thought.

[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_02] She asked if it could have been a dark blue.

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_06] No, black. He was pretty sure.

[00:29:35] [SPEAKER_02] And Rebecca told the police that those were the only vehicles they had noticed that night.

[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_06] The more witnesses that came forward, the more people who noticed potentially important things, the more clues detectives could uncover. But of course, the residents and drivers who happened to be near the crime scene that night were not the only potential witnesses. The many surveillance cameras dotting the neighborhood were also potential witnesses, so to speak. But while human beings could come forward of their own accord, police would need to be proactive about getting access

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_06] to those cameras.

[00:30:11] [SPEAKER_02] So, naturally, the hunt for cameras raged on. Detective Alan Ford canvassed different shops on February 24th, 2022, looking for cameras. He hit Marshall's Dress for Less, Orange Theory, and a United Parcel Service store all on Third Street South in Jacksonville Beach, near where Jared had taken his kids for dinner that night. And he also went to the Ocean K community off Ocean K Circle. Detective Ford ended up getting pretty much nothing for those troubles.

[00:30:39] [SPEAKER_06] Detective Burrell had more luck on Monday, February 28th, 2022, starting around 10-11 a.m. That is when he got a call from Scott Lewis of Bates Security, returning his earlier call about getting access to video from Pablo Hamlet. Remember, that's that senior living facility the detective courier filed a geofence warrant for. Back then, it was apparently under construction. Lewis put Detective Burrell in touch with

[00:31:08] [SPEAKER_06] Charlene Alexandra Mayo, the complex's manager. She told him that the complex only had a single working exterior camera.

[00:31:17] [SPEAKER_02] Detective Burrell and Detective Corporal Brian Wallace went out to Pablo Hamlet to meet with Mayo. She accessed the only camera for them. One thing they noticed quickly was that the time stamp and the date was off. It was actually about 17 minutes fast. So keep that in mind when we're discussing time. It's not super clear from the report,

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_06] Detective Burrell and Corporal Wallace watched the footage from the night of the murder. They noticed something. At around 7.10pm, a truck rumbled down Shelter Avenue towards the entrance and exit of Pablo Hamlet. It then backed into the west end of Shelter Avenue and flicked off its headlights. Then, at 7.29pm, the headlights switched back on and the truck crept slowly eastbound on Shelter Avenue and then disappeared.

[00:32:09] [SPEAKER_06] That seemed rather odd.

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_02] Corporal Wallace called Ricardo Pizarro of the city's Information Technology Department. He wanted help extracting the video onto a USB drive and they did so.

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_06] That afternoon, Detective Sergeant C. David Young asked Detective Burrell to call a man a bubble reed. He did so, reaching a witness we will call D.C.

[00:32:32] [SPEAKER_02] D.C. had a rather scandalous tale to tell. He said the victim was having a sexual affair with a married woman living off Lake Sanctuary. Detective Burrell asked a good question. How did D.C. know this? D.C. didn't remember his source. Detective Burrell asked yet another good question. Did D.C. have any other details or bits of information to share? D.C. did not. And that was the end of that.

[00:32:59] [SPEAKER_06] At 3.07 that afternoon, Detective Burrell got a phone call from a federal agent. We already informed you about how Special Agent Buntz of the ATF was helping out in this investigation. Well, he was not alone. United States Postal Inspector Richard Fatschelder had some information to share too. Bad news, really. The nearest post office on Beach Boulevard did not have any video of the nearby roadways. But some local businesses

[00:33:28] [SPEAKER_06] did step up. On Wednesday, March 2, 2022, Detective Burrell got an email from Margaret Trimble, Circle K's loss prevention and safety manager. The video showed the night of the murder, but it didn't have what Detective Burrell was looking for. By now, based on all the statements from witnesses and all the footage they could find, investigators felt they had a decent idea of what they were looking for as far as a suspect's vehicle. They thought it might be a blue older model

[00:33:57] [SPEAKER_06] Ford F-150. That was their vehicle of interest.

[00:34:01] [SPEAKER_02] At the end of that week, on Friday, March 4, 2022, Detective Burrell got an email from Melissa Keating of Alsop Property Management, which is associated with the Sanctuary Subdivision of Jacksonville Beach. She had a video to share, too. All of those pieces of footage were important. Detectives were building, once again, a timeline for that strange truck that seemed to be driving in and out of view for the entire case. And they were also still building a timeline for Jared in the background.

[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_06] On Tuesday, March 1, 2022, at 12.17pm, Corporal Santiago and Detective Johns went to Revolution Chirocratic on Old St. Augustine Road in St. Augustine. Remember, Jared and the Pulp Ridegan family had a regular Tuesday appointment there. It was very important to them. The investigators met with Dr. Lauren Cost. They reviewed the camera footage, which is not very helpful. The footage did not show the parking lot beyond the cars parked immediately

[00:34:59] [SPEAKER_06] in front of the business. But Dr. Cost provided Jared's account information, complete with appointment dates. That didn't show anything unusual.

[00:35:09] [SPEAKER_02] As for Corporal Wallace and Detective Burrell, that same day, they met with a colleague from a whole different jurisdiction, Detective Peter Hernandez of the Orange County Sheriff's Office. Orange County, Florida is over two hours away to the south of Duval County. But Detective Hernandez was on what is known as the Electronic Surveillance Support Team of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Task Task Force, or the ESST slash FDLE Task Force. He had expertise in digital forensics,

[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_02] and he wanted to help. Corporal Wallace gave Detective Hernandez a USB flash drive with the six videos from the shooting that they felt were the most important. And Detective Hernandez watched those and got to work setting up an FDLE report.

[00:35:52] [SPEAKER_06] Now, there may be one question lingering for some of you. What happened with the DNA? Was there a DNA breakthrough? In our view, a case like this one is not always necessarily going to be a DNA case. That may sound odd given that it feels like almost every case we hear about these days has a DNA indole. But let's think about it.

[00:36:15] [SPEAKER_02] Jared was in his vehicle, perhaps in the process of getting out. When somebody shot him, the presence of shells at the scene indicated that he was shot at pretty close range, but there seemed to be no additional injuries that spoke to physical contact with the victim. In other words, unless Detective got lucky and the suspect happened to touch Jared's vehicle or the tire in the road and leave enough touch DNA to find, it was unlikely that the suspect's genetic material would really lead them anywhere at this point. Now, investigators would need to find a suspect and then

[00:36:45] [SPEAKER_02] look into whether they could find additional clues like a murder weapon. Maybe at that point, DNA could help them out.

[00:36:51] [SPEAKER_06] Still, DNA is something that investigators must deal with all the same. A lot of officers had come through the scene, so had a few witnesses. Their DNA needed to be collected and eliminated.

[00:37:03] [SPEAKER_02] A buccal swab is a pretty simple concept and it's also painless. Wearing gloves, the collector holds a little sterile swab by its handle, sticks it in a person's mouth, and firmly rubs it on the inside of one cheek for about a minute. It is meant to capture loose epithelial cells. In these instances, the officers would also do a second swab for the other cheek. Collecting that fell to some of the officers working on the evidence technician team we introduced in past episodes.

[00:37:30] [SPEAKER_06] On Sunday, February 27th, 2022, Officer Aaron Filbert met with Shane, one of the witnesses, the one who took Jared's young daughter from his SUV. Because of that good deed, his DNA and fingerprints might have gotten in the mix. They met at the Jacksonville Beach Police Department and she collected his fingerprints and bottle swags.

[00:37:50] [SPEAKER_02] On Monday, February 28th, 2022, Detective Currier went to the property department, he checked out the swabs collected from the tire used in the ambush, swabs from the rim, the inside of the rim, and the valve stem. With him was Officer Ashley Hawkins, who swabbed evidence technician Officer Jarman. Detective Currier ensured those buckle swabs were provided to Special Agent Mutts. That was important. After all, as the evidence technician who responded to the scene, Officer Jarman had been in close contact with a lot of the evidence.

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_06] While he was working on the forensic evidence side of things, Detective Currier also swung by the Duval County Medical Examiner's office. He got more evidence from there and chucked them into the property room at the police station. That included fingernail clippings, bullet fragments from the victim's left clavicle and sides of his neck, the victim's DNA blood card, the victim's Apple watch, a medical examiner's green body bag tag, medical examiner's office dryer paper,

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER_06] the handbags used to cover the victim's hands, Jared's shorts, his shirt, a second shirt, his underwear, and flip-flops, a transport sheet.

[00:39:00] [SPEAKER_02] On March 18, 2022, Officer Filbert collected buckle swaps from the officers of the A-group shift. Some of their names may be familiar to you at this point. Sergeant Lawrence Smyth, Canaan Officer Benjamin Gray, Officer Harold Corey, Officer Lindsay Lyon, and Detective Sergeant Young. Many of those officers we met in Episode 2. She made sure to change gloves for each buckle swab so she wouldn't cross-contaminate anything.

[00:39:26] [SPEAKER_06] On March 22, 2022, Officer Filbert collected more buckle swaps from those law enforcement personnel who had been present at the scene. Commander Thomas Crumbling, Commander Eric Shaughnessy, Detective Corporal Santiago, Lead Detective Johns, Officer Julie Sparrier. The following day, she also swabbed Officer Jared Langloch. For his part, Officer Langloch selected buckle swabs from Detective Courier that same day.

[00:39:55] [SPEAKER_02] On March 24, 2022, Officer Langloch went beyond the law enforcement personnel to get buckle swabs. He also needed some from other first responders, namely the personnel from the Jackson Fire Rescue Session 60, who were the people who responded to the scene. Lieutenant T. Pickering, W. Judge, E. Courtney, I. Church, J. McGovern, and C. Watkins. As with all the others, he placed each swab back into its original sterile packaging. Then he placed that packaging inside an envelope and sealed it.

[00:40:24] [SPEAKER_06] On March 28, 2022, Officer Filber collected buckle swabs from Detective Jason Lamott, one of the main detectives on the case. The evidence technicians, officers, detectives, and commanders would all need to be eliminated as far as DNA profile. If DNA belonging to any of them went undocumented uneliminated, investigators could end up wasting a whole lot of time chasing down a bad lead. That could prove detrimental to the case.

[00:40:54] [SPEAKER_02] But here's the thing. You might notice that while the investigation is certainly humming away at this point, it was facing some pretty big issues. Witnesses saw some interesting things as far as vehicle movements and other details, but nobody saw enough to identify the person who actually shot and killed Jared. The cameras picked up a mysterious truck consistently, but not a really great image of the face of the person who shot and killed Jared. The technology rounded up devices associated

[00:41:23] [SPEAKER_02] with witnesses and residents. Not very helpful. A lot of DNA collection was more about eliminating law enforcement than anything else.

[00:41:31] [SPEAKER_06] Detectives wanted to know why this happened. Clues pointed to Jared being targeted. They needed to know who might have wanted him dead.

[00:41:46] [SPEAKER_02] We've talked about Shanna Gardner and Mario Fernandez Saldana. Those are two people who Jared, let's just say, did not like. Who did not like Jared? We heard about some pretty serious animosity between Jared, his ex-wife, and her new husband. We even heard from them very briefly when they first talked to detectives after midnight, just hours after Jared's murder.

[00:42:13] [SPEAKER_06] On Monday, February 28, 2022, at 930, Gardner emailed Kirsten. The email was simple, curt. Some might even say it was cold. The subject line was Jared's death certificate. She wrote her ex-husband's widow the following,

[00:42:33] [SPEAKER_02] Kirsten, my attorney has requested a copy of Jared's death certificate for the family court. You can send it to me or to him and is paralegal directly, whichever you prefer. But now, we're going to hear much more from Gardner. We'll hear her side of things. She and Fernanda Saldana will have some extremely negative things to say about Jared Bridegan, just like Jared's loved ones had extremely

[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_02] negative things to say about them. We do not include these negative statements about the murder victim because we wish to cause grief to his loved ones, or even because we assume them to be true and accurate and fair. But we must sift through all of this and look at the totality going forward. And we must look at the sort of things that Gardner and Fernanda Saldana were saying about Jared. It's pretty important.

[00:43:29] [SPEAKER_06] We've gone over the timeline, the forensic evidence, the surveillance footage. But another piece of many criminal cases is interviews, interviews with witnesses, or, better yet, interviews with persons of interest. If statements made in an interviewer turn out to be truthful, that can go a long way towards eliminating a potential person of interest. And of course, the opposite is true as well.

[00:43:53] [SPEAKER_02] On the morning of Tuesday, March 1st, 2022, lead detective Johns had a couple of mammoth interviews ahead of him. At 8.30 a.m., Gardner and Fernandez Saldana arrived at the station. They were ready to be interviewed. Three minutes later, in the station's soft room, Gardner sat down with detectives Johns and Lamont. They had audio and video recording going. They needed this conversation captured for the investigation.

[00:44:21] [SPEAKER_06] Detective Johns started out by explaining something to Gardner. Detectives were looking for more information about Jared. They were hoping she could help them. After all, she was the mother of his twins. his former wife. They might not get along, but she certainly knew him well.

[00:44:38] [SPEAKER_02] In this series, we've heard more about the genesis of this relationship, this marriage, from Jared's side of things, through his new wife, Kirsten, and his brother, Adam. But how did things look from Gardner's perspective?

[00:44:50] [SPEAKER_06] She confirmed that she met Jared through Adam's wife, Charlie. They were both single. Jared actually flew all the way out to Utah, just to take Gardner on a date. But there was a problem. The date was awful. It went rather poorly.

[00:45:07] [SPEAKER_02] Jared didn't give up, though. He was persistent. He kept pursuing Gardner. For her part, Gardner mentioned that she felt desperate. Why a young 23-year-old woman would feel desperate, we do not know. But that desperation apparently drew Gardner to Jared, according to her at least. She gave him another shot. Within two months, they were married. Within a couple of years, they had twins, a baby boy and a baby girl.

[00:45:35] [SPEAKER_06] But, as we noted before, the boy had a serious illness. They moved from Utah to Connecticut to live closer to his specialist. After a while, his health stabilized. And the young family moved from Connecticut to Jacksonville, Florida, where Jared's family lived. The idea was that Jared's family would help take care of the children. The marriage only lasted about a year in Florida. In 2014, Jared and Gardner divorced. She left the Church

[00:46:04] [SPEAKER_06] of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

[00:46:07] [SPEAKER_02] And looking back, Gardner felt pretty cynical. She wondered if Jared had targeted her, sought her out, because he knew her family had money. See, Gardner's parents weren't just anyone. They were Shelly and Sterling Gardner, founders of Stampin' Up!, a paper crafts multi-level marketing scheme. Now, a bit of an aside from me, I used to report on multi-level marketing schemes in my job for Insider. I appeared in the fourth episode of Lula Rich, a Hulu

[00:46:37] [SPEAKER_02] documentary about LuLaRoe, to talk about that topic. A multi-level marketing scheme is a business model that favors recruiting over actual sales. It offers real products, but it gives the edge to early adopters who make a lot of money bringing in new blood and earning commissions through that so-called downline. MLMs are very much legal, for the most part, but they favor people who get in early, and typically see most participants actually lose money. They're fundamentally unethical in my view, and I think they take advantage

[00:47:06] [SPEAKER_02] of people. They're predatory businesses, in other words. The one I wrote a lot about was LuLaRoe, which also had its roots in Utah. Utah is a global hub for MLMs, and I've had a lot of ex-MLM sellers jokingly tell me that they should stand for Mormons losing money. It's not fair to ascribe all MLM activity to the LDS faith, though, and I don't believe that the church even endorses them. And frankly, a lot of the people they victimize are people of the LDS faith as well. But the reality is MLMs do

[00:47:36] [SPEAKER_02] tend to thrive in that culture. But anyways, that's how the gardeners made their money.

[00:47:41] [SPEAKER_06] Amidst the divorce, Gardner claimed she had serious money issues, and she blamed Jared, telling detectives he quote, drained their accounts. That wasn't all Jared did either. She told the detectives he refused to vacate the marital home. That was a residence purchased with her money, money from her trust. Unfortunately for Gardner, at least in her recounting, once the funds locked her trust, the property became a joint asset.

[00:48:10] [SPEAKER_06] Jared kept demanding his half of the proceeds from selling the house.

[00:48:15] [SPEAKER_02] In March of 2015, Jared's behavior became even worse according to Gardner. He was paranoid, freaking out, demanding everything had to be written down. He wouldn't talk to Gardner anymore, not verbally at least, only in writing. And once the divorce was finalized, it was like he couldn't even stand to be around her.

[00:48:34] [SPEAKER_06] So they split things up, even more so than most co-parenting divorcees. Separate parent-teacher conferences. Doctors' appointments were conducted via phone, so nobody had to be in the same room. That was just Jared being weird, Gardner said. She'd just show up places, she didn't care. Jared was a loner. That was what detectives had already gotten from the victim's wife and brother. Gardner, though, put it far less charitably.

[00:49:05] [SPEAKER_02] Sure, Jared could be charming, when he wanted something, when he needed something. But that wasn't the real him, not according to Gardner. She called him a hermit. When they were married, when things were going well, he only ever wanted to hang out with her, or else he would play with what she called his toys. When they would go on vacation, he seemed happier hiding away in a hotel room than spending time with Gardner's family.

[00:49:30] [SPEAKER_06] He was not a yeller, never physically or verbally abusive. She could count on one hand how often he ever shouted at her. But one of his big problems was he often communicated with a very rude undertone, especially in writing, via texts and emails.

[00:49:49] [SPEAKER_02] To Gardner, Jared seemed bipolar at times. She wasn't alone in that view, at least as far as she said. Gardner claimed that Jared's family friend was a therapist who often talked about how his friend had personality deficits. That therapist apparently would ask Gardner if Jared would consent to see a therapist.

[00:50:07] [SPEAKER_06] After the divorce, Jared had lived in Utah. He had a good job with good pay. Meanwhile, Gardner was lucked to struggle with bills. She worked three jobs then. She filed for child support. Jared historically quit his job and moved back to Jacksonville, Florida just so he would not have to give her any money. And that's just what he did, she said. That time, he brought along a new fiancée, Emily. Gardner pitied her.

[00:50:36] [SPEAKER_06] She had not known what she was getting into. Things got weird fast. Jared began saying he wanted the twins to call Emily mom, telling them that Gardner was not their heavenly mother, but only their biological mother.

[00:50:52] [SPEAKER_02] Emily hadn't lasted long. One night, she texted Gardner claiming she was driving around upset. She had fought with Jared and the police had been called. Gardner offered to let Emily come over to her house. Gardner said Jared had left Emily just broken, spiritually. Emily crashed with Gardner for two days and then fled back to Colorado. Two months later, Gardner claimed that Jared met Kirsten. The same weird stuff about calling her mom and claiming she was the twins' heavenly mother also came up then.

[00:51:21] [SPEAKER_06] The divorce had changed Jared in Gardner's view. Things had gotten so charged, so heightened. But there had been red flags long before that, again, according to Gardner. Back in Utah, back in Connecticut. It was as if Jared wanted to isolate her. He did not let her have friends. He wanted to control how she dressed and presented herself.

[00:51:45] [SPEAKER_02] That eventually landed the couple in therapy, according to Gardner. Totally useless, though. Jared would declare that he didn't have a problem. The problem was Gardner, he would say. So therapy did nothing for them. In her view, Jared would just not change.

[00:52:02] [SPEAKER_06] Stuck and miserable, Gardner turned outside the marriage for help. Her gym was the YMCA. She started to vent to people she met there, her gym friends. The more she talked, the more she realized her marriage with Jared was not normal. At that YMCA, she met a trainer. She fell for him emotionally. Her feelings for the trainer were deeper than what she felt for Jared. She realized that was a problem, the beginning of the end.

[00:52:32] [SPEAKER_06] There was no sex, although Jared never believed that. It was just emotional. That did not stop Jared from telling everyone, including members of their church, that she had carried out some kind of a torrid affair. He seemed to be relished in bashing her publicly, no matter that she was the mother of his children, no matter how his words might affect those children.

[00:52:56] [SPEAKER_02] According to Gardner, Jared was a neglectful father in the early days of the separation. She said he didn't even know how to feed his kids or help them in the restroom, and that caused some pretty big problems for the twins. As a result of all this strife, Gardner made sure the kids got into therapy. A Dr. Mercedes McGowan was their therapist. But naturally, Jared was even against that. Still, things got into a routine with the joint custody and the date nights. Those date nights, according to Gardner, were every

[00:53:25] [SPEAKER_02] other week. Originally from 5.45 p.m. to 7.45 p.m., that switched over to 6.30 p.m. to 7.45 p.m. in December of 2021 to accommodate their daughter's gymnastics schedule. According to Gardner, Jared had just wanted to cancel the whole thing, but they ended up working that out with a new time.

[00:53:42] [SPEAKER_06] Detective Johns had a question. Well, it was quiet, but telling. Did Jared and Gardner ever share their date night plans with each other?

[00:53:52] [SPEAKER_02] She said no, but the twins would usually share where they had gone after returning.

[00:53:58] [SPEAKER_06] On the night of the murder, Gardner said she made a run to a nearby Walmart during the date night. When the twins returned, she was in the kitchen, hovering over the stove, cooking herself some dinner, listening to music on her headphones. Fernandez thought Dona snoozing on the couch, recovering from one of his headaches.

[00:54:17] [SPEAKER_02] Gardner had one pretty poignant thing to say. Usually after getting out of Jared's vehicle, his oldest daughter would linger. She liked to wait outside to watch Jared's Volkswagen turn around the cul-de-sac so she could wave goodbye to him one last time.

[00:54:32] [SPEAKER_06] Returning to the night of the murder, Gardner informed the detectives that her daughter was adamant in the drop-off time was 7.48pm. The kids said nothing was out of the ordinary about the date night, other than that it was a bit of a rush. Jared hopped on a work call at the restaurant and then they all had to eat quickly so he could get home in time for something. Gardner also informed the detectives how the kids were handling the murder of their father.

[00:55:00] [SPEAKER_02] Better than expected, really. But Gardner assumed that they were still in shock. Either way, it was kind of easy for them to compartmentalize the two households had already been so incredibly divided. That kept the triggers at the Gardner household to a minimum.

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[00:55:45] [SPEAKER_02] There were flickers of some pretty serious grief though that she alluded to. Jared's son had gotten upset when it came time for him to see his father, knowing that that would never, ever happen again. And Jared's oldest daughter talked a lot about missing her two little sisters, Kirsten's daughters.

[00:56:02] [SPEAKER_06] Detective Johns asked if a child psychologist could interview the twins for the investigation. Gardner said she would check with their therapist. Ultimately, she agreed to it, and the twins were scheduled to go in on Friday, March 4, 2022, at 1 p.m., the day after their father's funeral.

[00:56:22] [SPEAKER_02] The investigators then steered things away from the murder, away from the twins. Now, they wanted to know more about Gardner's new man. Were she and Fernanda Saldana even actually married? Yes, Gardner clarified. They wed in 2018 in Jacksonville, on Friday the 13th, actually. It was a secret for a while, but frankly perhaps the biggest secret was why they did it. And the way Gardner told it, that frankly seemed to be a secret to both her and her husband. They got married

[00:56:52] [SPEAKER_02] so fast, they hadn't even really known each other that well. But they liked each other, and Fernanda Saldana had really wanted to help Gardner with the children. There was no way Jared was going to be okay with another man being around the twins unless he had a right to be there. So early in their dating, Gardner and Fernanda Saldana traveled to Utah to see her family. Her mother Shelly had a proposal on how to deal with their problem. Why not just get married?

[00:57:18] [SPEAKER_06] It did not have to be a typical marriage, just a convenience thing to help the relationship and give the kids more stability. So, with that in mind, Gardner wed Fernanda Saldana

[00:57:32] [SPEAKER_02] The detectives asked her if Fernanda Saldana and Jared ever interacted. Not really, she said. Once, Jared refused to shake Fernanda Saldana's hand in court, refused to hear Gardner's new husband even introduce himself. Once, Fernanda Saldana went to Jared's home to pick up the kids. He got out of his vehicle, went across Jared's lawn, and knocked on the door, knowing full well that this would really upset Jared.

[00:57:58] [SPEAKER_06] Jared made it clear that he did not like Fernanda Saldana communicating with or about the kids, even though Kirsten communicated with them all the time.

[00:58:09] [SPEAKER_02] Gardner kept thinking about one thing, she told detectives. The timing of the murder was just so weird. After so many years of strife, she had only just decided to let go of all of it and just make the best of the contentious co-parenting situation. Sure, in moments of absolute rage, she sometimes thought it would be easier if she could live without Jared in her life. That things would be better without him. But still, despite all of that, she said she wished no harm on Jared and Kirsten.

[00:58:39] [SPEAKER_02] That was why Gardner was fine with helping the police. Nobody should have to go through the murder of their loved one. She would do anything she could to assist them in figuring out what had happened to Jared, Jared. Even giving them her text messages with Jared, although her attorney did request that investigators go through the law firm for that. Gardner had a warning for police though. She liked to avoid confrontation. She liked to get along with people. But her new husband did not care about that. Even with the detectives,

[00:59:09] [SPEAKER_02] Gardner acted a bit passive. She apologized for being so long-winded. She had been told to only give yes or no answers.

[00:59:17] [SPEAKER_06] But again, Fernandez Laudana was her opposite. She knew he'd approached the interview all super serious.

[00:59:25] [SPEAKER_02] Good luck with Mario, she told the detectives. He's like a pitbull.

[00:59:34] [SPEAKER_06] After Gardner was done, it was her new husband's turn. Fernandez Laudana's interview began around 9.52 a.m. in interview room 89. Once the audio and video recorders started whirring, Detectives Johns and Lamont began. Fernandez Laudana took them back to the time he first met Gardner as a black hive crossfit gym in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. They became romantically involved.

[01:00:00] [SPEAKER_02] Gardner and Jared had moved fast, marrying in just two months. While things didn't slow down much for Gardner and Fernandez Laudana, he told detectives they had sealed the deal swiftly. But Jared forced them to move quickly in his estimation because Gardner wanted him to have a relationship with the kids. There was no way Jared would allow that unless Fernandez Laudana was legally married to Gardner.

[01:00:23] [SPEAKER_06] Still, Fernandez Laudana made an effort. After the wedding, he reached out to Jared to see if they could talk man to man. No reply.

[01:00:34] [SPEAKER_02] So Fernandez Laudana fell into the same routine with the bridegans, the tense detente, the date nights, all communications conducted over text and email.

[01:00:43] [SPEAKER_06] To Fernandez Laudana, Jared was that pestering kind of guy. He recalled to the detectives one time when he walked up to Jared's house to knock on the door and pick up the children. He retrieved the story Gardner had told only with more details. The

[01:00:59] [SPEAKER_02] twins had opened the door to Jared's house only to tell Fernandez Laudana that he wasn't allowed to knock on the door. See, he was supposed to text Jared and then the kids would come out. That was how it usually worked. Fernandez Laudana told the twins he could do whatever he wanted.

[01:01:13] [SPEAKER_06] Later, an email from Jared hit his inbox. Jared informed Fernandez Laudana that he would file a restraining order if he came and knocked on his door ever again.

[01:01:26] [SPEAKER_02] Unsurprisingly, one of the only times both sides of the twins' family typically got together was in court. Fernandez Laudana described Jared as rude even there. He told that story about the refused handshake. He felt he had reached out, literally, and Jared wouldn't even acknowledge him. Neither would Kirsten. Not in court, not at school, not at any kind of event for the kids.

[01:01:49] [SPEAKER_06] Fernandez Laudana claimed he did not like the way Jared treated his children. He felt the twins were afraid of their father's rejection and judgment. At one point, Jared's older daughter got it into her head that she wanted to dye her hair purple. According to Fernandez Laudana, Jared told the girl that she wouldn't be accepted into the LDS church if she did that. From what we can tell, that is not actual LDS doctrine.

[01:02:15] [SPEAKER_02] But anyways, Fernandez Laudana responded by taking the twins to an LDS bishop that he and Gardner earlier. I think we called her V in that episode. V was good friends with Gardner and she had talked about how Jared was a hothead who tried to fight her husband about a dispute. That was the LDS church in Neptune Beach. Fernandez Laudana was recounting that same exact story. He even indicated that Jared drove

[01:02:45] [SPEAKER_02] past the bishop's home, prompting the bishop to contact the church's legal services.

[01:02:54] [SPEAKER_06] Once detectives got Fernandez Laudana talking about Jared's negative attributes, there seemed to be no stopping the man. In Fernandez Laudana's view, Jared was not confrontational. A total keyboard warrior, really. Jared was too avoidant to even really be around Gardner at doctor's appointments or parent-teacher conferences. Still, he managed to be controlling through sheer passive aggression. For instance, Jared pushed back when Gardner

[01:03:23] [SPEAKER_06] started wanting to put his son on medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. There were so many fights over the boys' health issues.

[01:03:33] [SPEAKER_02] And education. Don't get Fernandez Saldana started on that one. Gardner needed to drag Jared back to court over that. Finally, that got settled, but only after Jared wrangled things so he'd no longer have to pay her child support. Oh,

[01:03:47] [SPEAKER_06] in therapy. Jared had a big problem with that. Fernandez Saldana had a theory about why. He didn't want the kids seeing a therapist because the twins were telling the therapist all about their father. Fernandez Saldana saw Jared as the ultimate control freak when it came to the kids. Fernandez Saldana and Gardner wanted a social investigation. In custody disputes, that refers to a court-ordered evaluation to dig into things like parenting and family dynamics.

[01:04:18] [SPEAKER_02] As the stepfather, Fernandez Saldana felt the twins would be far better off if Gardner had more time with them, if the custody was more like 60-40 in her favor. According to Fernandez Saldana, he often just wanted to push Jared into a corner to just force him to work with Gardner and himself for the twins' well-being, to get him to realize that they were all really on the same team. Fernandez Saldana recognized he was a much more confrontational guy than Jared, but he thought that they should all just suck it up and clear the air.

[01:04:48] [SPEAKER_02] As it stood, that never got to happen. Now Jared was gone, forever.

[01:04:53] [SPEAKER_06] From there, the topic of conversation got onto the date nights. Fernandez Saldana gave a few more details. The twins would exit the house after Jared texted Gardner here. They knew how to open the garage with the keypad to get back in too. When the twins returned, the family's dogs would bark, alerting Fernandez Saldana and Gardner that the kids were home. There were never any discussions of what date nights would entail. The detectives

[01:05:23] [SPEAKER_06] wanted to know more about the actual night of the murder. Fernandez Saldana said the here text came in at 6.30 p.m. The kids returned at 7.45 p.m. Fernandez Saldana did not see them come in. He heard them from his position lying racked out on the couch.

[01:05:42] [SPEAKER_02] Once the twins were back, Fernandez Saldana saw Gardner greet them. Then he went upstairs and showered. He was way, way out of it that night thanks to a high dose of gabapentin. That's a prescription medication used to treat neuropathic pain and epilepsy. He needed it for chronic pain and headaches, he told detectives, and that was despite the intense side effects. Because this medication made Fernandez Saldana always feel zoned out and more out of it than anything.

[01:06:10] [SPEAKER_06] Still, he tried to chat with the kids and Gardner about the date night. The kids said it was fine. However, the twins told Fernandez Saldana that their father had spent time on the phone after they got into the bearded pig restaurant. The children went to bed. Fernandez Saldana got to work doing laundry. Gardner did other chores around the house. The couple was preparing to turn in for the night when there was a knock at the door.

[01:06:35] [SPEAKER_02] They opened it to find Detective Burrell and Detective Lamont, one of the investigators in the interview room at that moment. Fernandez Saldana assumed that the police were there at 12.39 a.m. Fernandez Saldana said he initially assumed that police were there at 12.39 a.m. over an ongoing dispute with the neighborhood about animals. Instead, Detectives Lamont and Burrell brought news of Jared's demise. Sitting there in the interview room, Detectives Lamont and

[01:07:05] [SPEAKER_02] Johns asked Fernandez Saldana his opinion. What did he think happened to Jared? This guy he clearly did not like at all.

[01:07:13] [SPEAKER_06] Fernandez Saldana admitted that all he had was speculation. But in his view, there were plenty of people who did not like Jared. Lots of people at Jared's church alone. And frankly, he had an idea of how it all might have gone down. In Fernandez Saldana's view, there was no way some random stranger popped out of the darkness with a gun. No, Jared would have run that person down or sped off. No,

[01:07:42] [SPEAKER_06] the only way Jared would have stopped or gotten out was if he knew the person. It had to be someone known to Jared, someone close.

[01:07:51] [SPEAKER_02] There was one other thing. Fernandez Saldana told detectives that there would be some notable absences at Jared's upcoming memorial service. Actually, in the previous interview, Gardner had said the same exact thing. See, Jared's family had made it clear that Fernandez Saldana and Gardner were not welcome. So the couple would not be bringing the twins to their father's own memorial. With that, the interview ended. The twins did not get to say goodbye to their father

[01:08:21] [SPEAKER_02] at the memorial service, but many others did. And a few of those in the crowd weren't loved ones or even well-wishers. They were investigators. Corporal Wallace attended with Detective Lamont. They arrived at the church in St. Augustine around 1045 a.m. on Thursday, March 3rd, 2022. They headed into the simple building of brick crowned with a single white spire. Corporal Wallace wore a wire, or what he described in his

[01:08:50] [SPEAKER_02] report as a covert audio-video recording device. That ran all through the funeral. Investigators wanted to see if the murderer or murderers made a move. Nobody stood out to Corporal Wallace or Detective Lamont. Were the killers adept at fading into the crowd? Were they hiding in plain sight? Were they even there at all? Tune in next week and we'll continue our deep dive into the murder of Jared Bridegan.

[01:09:17] [SPEAKER_06] 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 dot com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

[01:09:37] [SPEAKER_02] If you're interested in records, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murder sheet. We very much appreciate any support.

[01:10:00] [SPEAKER_06] 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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[01:10:40] [SPEAKER_05] misses.

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