By AP News
Publication Date: 2026-08-17 04:08:00
The fatal shooting of a Microsoft design manager on a dark Florida road was a “targeted ambush” hatched by his ex-wife and her husband after years of post-marriage strife over religion and how to raise twin children, a prosecutor told jurors Monday.
Jared Bridegan, 33, was killed in Jacksonville Beach in 2022 when he got out of his vehicle to remove a tire that was placed in the road while his 2-year-old daughter from a second marriage was strapped in her car seat.
More than four years later, Mario Fernandez Saldana, 38, is on trial for first-degree murder and solicitation of murder. He’s accused of arranging the death by hiring a gunman. Bridegan’s ex-wife, Shanna Gardner, 39, faces her own trial in September. The alleged gunman, Henry Tenon, is slated to go to trial next year after backing out of a guilty plea.
“The killer was a stranger to Jared Bridegan. The murder was personal,” Assistant State Attorney Christina Simak Stifler…