The Florida Microsoft executive, Jared Bridegan, who was shot dead execution-style and his ‘killer’ ex-wife exchanged combative emails to one another before his horrific murder.
‘You cannot bring us down as a family,’ he said in an email from 2017 obtained by Fox News. ‘You won’t find happiness by tearing us down. I won’t allow you to.’
Bridegan was shot to death in 2022 in front of his car after attempting to move a tire that was in the middle of the road – all as his then-two-and-a-half-year-old daughter sat in the backseat.
Prosecutors believe that the scene was a set-up orchestrated by his ex-wife, Shanna Gardner, and her now-husband, Mario Fernandez Saldana.
Phones, an Apple watch, laptops and other electronic items were collected from a search warrant of Gardner’s West Richland, Washington, home in 2023, leading to the discovery of chilling email exchanges between the pair between April and May 2017.
Jared Bridegan was gunned down and killed outside of his car while attempting to move a tire out of the road in an ambush attack which prosecutors believe was orchestrated by his ex-wife
Jared’s ex-wife, Shanna Gardner, pleaded not guilty to multiple charges relating to her involvement in her ex-husband’s death
The documents obtained by Fox News Digital give more haunting insight into the unstable relationship between the two.
In an email from April 2017 with the subject line as ‘Kids’ Therapy’, Gardner told Bridegan that their children ‘are caught in the crossfire of living between two houses’, and that she was sending them to therapy.
Despite agreeing that their two children needed therapy, Gardner criticized her ex-husband in another email for not prioritizing the sessions and their children’s mental health or providing any financial help.
Bridegan responded that he wouldn’t pay for things that they didn’t agree to prior.
As time went on, the emails seemed to escalate and get more personal.
In another email, Gardner told Bridegan to ‘move that self righteous pedestal of yours in front of a mirror’, to which he responded: ‘Why are you ashamed of who you really are, why cover up all your tattoos in court, why not be proud of the person you have become?’
He also accused his ex-wife of mismanaging money and called her a ‘retard’.
‘Wowwwww Satan be careful, you really should wait to show your hand this early on. I know I am’, Bridegan wrote in another email response which was accompanied by a smiley face.
Emails obtained by Fox News gives more haunting insight into the turmoil relationship of the two in chilling emails back and forth from 2017
Gardner married her second husband, Mario Fernandez Saldana, in 2018 who prosecutors believe was also involved in the murder-to-hire conspiracy
Fernandez was charged earlier this year and pleaded non-guilty – but faces the possibility of a death-sentence alongside Gardner
Later, he added: ‘I am shocked you keep underestimating me… or did you think all those months during our divorce, when you fooled around in the darkness on so many nights, and in so many places, no one was… again, best to not show your hand this early on.’
Bridegan and Gardner tied the knot in 2010 but divorced only five years later.
Although they shared custody of their twins, their divorce was ugly and the two were entangled in custody and financial disputes.
She married her second husband, Mario Fernandez Saldana, in 2018.
Bridegan was on his way back home to St. Augustine after dropping off their twin children to his ex-wife and her husband in 2022 when he was stopped by a tire in the middle of the road before getting on the highway.
The ambush led to the 33-year-old father-of-four being shot several times at close range while his toddler daughter was still strapped in her car seat – bearing witness to her father’s murder.
When police arrived at the scene, they found Bridegan lying dead next to the open door of his Volkswagen Atlas that still had the hazards on.
Police also said that bullets fired at Bridegan went inside the car, only inches away from his daughter’s car seat, according to News 4 Jax.
His ex-wife immediately faced scrutiny due to their ugly divorce. Gardner did not initially speak out about the murder and was not in attendance for his funeral.
When conducing a search of her home just last year, one of her children who was home at the time led police to more evidence – telling officers that their mother kept ‘important’ electronics in her ‘bedroom closet’, Fox News added.
The child then whispered to the officer ‘up above’ while pointing toward the ceiling.
Gardner wasn’t arrested until six months after the search.
Additional evidence from the devices collected revealed that Gardner was looking for a hitman years before his murder.
Henry Tenon, hired by Gardner and Fernandez, admitted to pulling the trigger and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder
Text messages were introduced to the court between Gardner and a close friend dating back to 2015, where she used a slew of ‘code words’ and repeatedly wished Bridegan would just ‘disappear’, News 4 Jax added.
‘Stupid’ was Bridegan’s nickname in the messages and ‘casserole’ or ‘funeral potatoes’ were words used to reference his death.
The text messages also referenced wanting to find someone ‘who could shut people up’ and does ‘permanent disappearing acts’, referring to them as a ‘magician’.
Gardner and Fernandez Saldana are under indictment for first-degree murder in Bridegan’s death, and have pleaded not guilty. Both face the possibility of the death penalty, according to The Daily Mail.
They’re accused of hiring Fernandez’s former tenant, Henry Tenon, and paying him $150,000 to execute the plan.
Released documents revealed that Gardner had been thinking of hiring a hitman years before her ex-husband’s murder
Bridegan was shot multiple times at close range in 2022 all while his then-two-year-old daughter was still strapped her car seat – bearing witness to the murder of her father
The 250-page document from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms revealed that Fernandez’s phone pinged at the rental property where Tenon was staying.
Tenon has cooperated with prosecutors, pleading guilty to second-degree murder for pulling the trigger and faces up to 15 years in prison.
He also agreed to testify against the other suspects.
Released court documents and hundreds of pages of police records reviewed by DailyMail.com show that investigators identified five people as having been ‘likely’ involved in the conspiracy to kill Bridegan.
Despite declining to comment on the status of the investigation, sources close to the case have told the DailyMail.com that it remains very much ‘active and open’.