Jared Bridegan's Admitted Triggerman Traded 15 Years for This

**Tony Brueski** (0:01)
This is Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski.

**Tony Brueski** (0:11)
Henry Tenon confessed to killing Jared Bridegan. He signed a plea deal, admitted he pulled the trigger, and agreed to testify against the two people accused of paying him. Then he took it all back. On February 17th, the 26th, Judge London Kite asked Tenon what he wanted.
That was four years and one day after the shooting. He could keep his plea or he could have a trial. Tenon told her he wanted a trial.
Kite said he had it. Prosecutors did not object. Two days later, a grand jury indicted Tenon for first-degree murder. Prosecutors built the rest of their case on that confession. Jury selection started anyway. Mario Fernandez Saldana is the first of three defendants to face a jury, and he has pled not guilty. Twelve people in Jacksonville will decide whether the state can prove who ordered a killing without the man who committed it. Jared Bridegan was 33 years old. He worked at Microsoft, lived in St. Augustine and had four children. Two of them were twins, and he shared custody of them with his ex-wife Shanna Gardner. The two of them had been fighting over those children for years. Gardner's husband at the time, who was Mario Fernandez Saldana, he owned rental houses in Jacksonville. Henry Tenon rented one of them for several years in the Biltmore neighborhood. Prosecutors allege the three of them agreed to have Bridegan killed sometime between November 1st and 2021 and February 16th, 2022 All three have pled not guilty and all three are presumed innocent. On February 16th, 2022, Bridegan took his twins out to dinner. It was a date night with their dad. He dropped them off at Gardner's house in Jacksonville Beach. A little before eight, he left with his two-year-old daughter, Bexley, strapped into the car seat behind him. He took the route he always took home. On Sanctuary Boulevard, a tire was lying in the road, blocking his way. He stopped the SUV, got out, to move it, and it was there that he was shot several times and left in the street next to his open car door. Bexley was not hit. At least one bullet missed her by inches. No, in her car seat, in the car, as her father lay dying in the road. Prosecutors say the plot included a practice run along that same route home. Not one of the 911 callers that night reported seeing a shooter or a car leaving the scene. A grand jury indicted Fernandez on four counts. One of them was there because a two-year-old was in the back seat when the shots were fired. Prosecutors dropped that count on July 27th and 26th. That was two weeks before jury selection. They did not tell the court why. In August of 22, police arrested Tenon on a felony driving charge that had nothing to do with Bridegan. While they had him, they asked about the murder. They also asked him about Ford F-150 pickup. They had been hunting since February. Tenon's DNA was on the tire. Investigators say the only thing connecting Tenon to Bridegan was Fernandez. The bank records carried the next part. On January 6th of 22, Tenon had 52 cents in his account. On February 4th, 12 days before the shooting, he was overdrawn by $2.38. In the weeks after Bridegan was killed, three checks landed in that same account. They totaled $10,000.
So you're defaulting on pennies, and suddenly, boom, 10 Gs. They came from First Choice Home Rentals, a company owned.
64 by Fernandez and Gardner. Fernandez signed all three. Magical checks showing up for a company you don't work for. Two of those checks carry a memo line. One says landscaping and cleaning. The other says keeping up with the roof.
Lee Detective Chris Johns testified that Tenon told him the real number was supposed to be $150,000. It would arrive at installments dressed up as an investment in a palette business. Fernandez attorney says the three checks paid for work Tenon actually did on the properties. That part was real. That part was actually for work, he says. The $150,000 was supposed to be coming after.
Fernandez was also the trustee in the Shanna Gardner irrevocable trust. In March and April of 21, two transfers of $5,000 each moved out of that trust and into first choice home rentals. Gardner's attorney says those transfers are not suspicious because the company paid $16,300 to a construction firm for siding repairs the day after the second one. Police announced Tenon's arrest in January of 23 State Attorney Melissa Nelson called him one piece of a conspiracy. Fernandez was arrested that March in Orlando. Gardner was arrested five months after that. Officers walked her out of her home in West Richland, Washington, where she had moved with the twins, Christian Bridegan, Jared's widow. So the family waited 547 days for that to happen.