GUILTY: Mario Fernandez Convicted in the Jared Bridegan Murder-for-Hire Trial

The jury that spent eight days hearing the State of Florida's murder-for-hire case came back on Wednesday, August 26, 2026 — after less than four hours — with the word Jared Bridegan's family has waited four and a half years for: guilty.

Mario Fernandez Saldana — the husband of Bridegan's ex-wife — was convicted of first-degree murder and solicitation to commit a capital felony for the February 16, 2022 ambush on Sanctuary Boulevard in Jacksonville Beach, where Bridegan, a 33-year-old Microsoft executive, was shot to death after stepping out of his Tesla to move a staged tire — his two-year-old daughter Bexley strapped into the back seat.

The speed said as much as the verdict: the panel that went out at 9:58 a.m. — and whose first request was an itemized list of the evidence — needed only the afternoon to work through a fully circumstantial case and accept all of it. In her final argument, Stifler had reduced four years of litigation to a sentence about the divorce that started it: "They fought over everything ... It was nasty. It was petty." Dreicer's last answer for his client — that Fernandez "certainly gained no benefit from the death of Jared Bridegan" — did not survive the evidence list.

Outside the courtroom, Kirsten Bridegan — who has carried this case publicly for four and a half years — gave the verdict its epitaph: "Truth was seen in that courtroom — the jury saw that truth and they acted accordingly … and I am grateful for that." And then, with the next trial five days away, the unmistakable next sentence: "Justice has been served in part, and we look forward to the rest of justice being served."

What convinced the jury

The state's case, previewed in Assistant State Attorney Christina Stifler's opening — "a targeted ambush, a planned tactical ambush" — rested on:

• Three checks totaling $10,000 from Fernandez's First Choice Home Rentals LLC to Henry Tenon, his tenant and the man the state says pulled the trigger.
• Communications between Fernandez and Tenon before the killing — and on the day of it.
• Tenon's DNA on the ambush tire, plus surveillance video of a man the state identified as Tenon fleeing on foot.
• The argument that Fernandez was the only link between the gunman and Jared Bridegan.

Eight days of testimony gave the jury both cases in full. The state's: the tire from Fernandez's rental property matching the one that stopped Bridegan's Tesla, Tenon's DNA on both; the rare 10mm Glock traced to a 2016 purchase by Fernandez's friend John Biggerstaff; the 70-minute gap in Fernandez's phone records spanning the murder itself; more than 5,000 Chrome deletions processed before his police interview, and a phone factory-reset that August; and his own voice on tape, calling Bridegan a "keyboard warrior" months before the ambush. The defense's: Biggerstaff himself swearing "absolutely not," he never supplied a gun; the lead detective conceding no DNA, prints, footage, or physical evidence put Fernandez at the scene, in Tenon's truck, or holding the weapon; and closing attorney Jesse Dreicer daring jurors to name "what one piece of evidence" proved solicitation.

In the end, Assistant State Attorney Christina Stifler's closing instruction — "guilty as charged" — is the one the jury followed. The jury went out at 9:58 a.m., asked for the itemized evidence list within the first half hour, and had its answer before the end of the day.

What Fernandez faces

Mandatory life without parole. Prosecutors withdrew their death-penalty notice in November 2025 with the family's support. The murder conviction carries a mandatory sentence; Judge London Kite set sentencing for October 5 at 9 a.m., and an appeal is expected.

New charges: two counts of child molestation, filed the day after the verdict

Fernandez's conviction turned out not to be the week's last development. On Thursday, August 27 — the day after the guilty verdict — Fernandez was served in jail with an arrest warrant on two new felony counts of lewd and lascivious molestation, one involving a victim younger than 12. (A note on this section: it discusses alleged sex crimes against children.) According to arrest affidavits reported by News4Jax, one girl told investigators Fernandez began molesting her around April 2020, when she was about 8, and that the abuse "went on for many years"; a second child described an incident on March 11, 2022 — six weeks after Jared Bridegan's murder — while staying at the home Fernandez shared with Shanna Gardner. Prosecutor Christina Stifler told the court the counts were filed after "newly discovered evidence" surfaced that week, with the Special Victims Unit now investigating. Fernandez made a first appearance Thursday afternoon and is set for arraignment on the new charges September 17. On these counts — unlike the murder — he is accused, not convicted, and is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. The new case also became one of the stated reasons Gardner's trial moved to 2027.

What this means for Shanna Gardner

For one day, the answer was "her trial starts Monday." Then the calendar moved. On August 27 — at what was to be the final pretrial hearing before jury selection — prosecutors and Gardner's attorneys agreed they needed more time, and Judge Kite continued Shanna Gardner's trial to May 2027: jury selection May 3, trial from May 10, about three weeks.

The delay came with a strategic announcement. Assistant State Attorney Christina Stifler said the state will "take the Tenon and Gardner cases back to the grand jury and have them joined so they can be tried together in 2027" — one combined trial of the woman prosecutors say sat at the top of the conspiracy and Henry Tenon, the alleged shooter who confessed, recanted, and withdrew his plea. Gardner has pleaded not guilty and is presumed innocent; a verdict against one alleged co-conspirator proves nothing about another, and her defense will make exactly that point. But when the state does walk into that courtroom, it will do so with a conviction in hand.

Full background in our complete Bridegan trials case file, and every remaining date is on the court dates tracker.

Why this case file matters

The state lost its cooperating witness and won anyway — a murder-for-hire conviction built on checks, phones, DNA, and inference, with neither the alleged shooter nor the alleged mastermind saying a word. However the next two trials land, the Fernandez verdict is the proof-of-concept for the entire prosecution.

Case status as of this writing: Fernandez convicted August 26, 2026, of first-degree murder and solicitation to commit a capital felony; an appeal is expected. Gardner and Tenon have pleaded not guilty, are presumed innocent, and await trial. Featured image: AI illustration of a Jacksonville Beach street at night created for this article; it does not depict the actual scene.