185: Millionaire Heiress' INSANE Plot To Murder Ex-Husband Unravels | Jared Bridegan and Shanna Gardner
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Hey, hey, hey, everybody. It's your girl, Annie. I wanted to remind you or announce to you, if you hadn't heard it yet, that Serialistly is hitting the road and coming to a city near you. That's right. The podcast is going on a live tour, my friends, and we are going to make this show something that you definitely will not want to miss. Exclusive cases, Q&As,

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This is undoubtedly a horrific murder and the person who pulled the trigger has already confessed, but authorities have stressed from the beginning that this gunman did not act alone. This morning, a shocking twist in the brutal murder of 33 year old Microsoft executive and father of four Jared Bride again. Shanna Gardner's indictment acknowledges her central and key.

role in the cold, calculated and premeditated murder of Jared Bright again. She called the implications that she was involved sensationalistic and inaccurate, and she felt threatened by the scrutiny. I hope it brings justice. I hope that those who were involved in his murder are caught. I hope that we can get to a trial quickly. I just hope that there's a resolution and that I can answer Bexley when she asks me why.

Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly with me, Annie Elise. We are going deep today, guys. We are doing the deepest of the deep dives because we've got murder for hire. We've got a lot of money, like millions, billions of dollars. We have got

weird, different affairs. I mean, we've got a lot to talk about in this case, and we've talked about it briefly on this channel in the past. It's the case of Jared Bright again. However, there is a lot of new information out there, a lot of text messages that were released, a lot of memes

new testimony. We've got so much to go over. So I want to give a little bit of a case summary of what's going on here, because if you're brand new to this channel, brand new to this episode, or never even have heard of this case, it's important that you know exactly what's going down. So let's start with a little bit of backstory of who Jared Breidigan was, who Shanna Gardner is, and we're going to talk through everything.

how this whole crazy plot unfolded. Jared Breidegen was from Jacksonville, Florida. He was a husband, a father, and from what I have read, he was a very respectable, genuinely kind guy. He had been married once before and had two twins, a boy and a girl with his ex-wife Shanna. After his divorce in 2015, he met a woman named Kirsten. They were both working at Microsoft at the time.

They hit it off and they got married in 2017. And shortly after that, they settled in St. Augustine, Florida, and they welcomed their first daughter together and then quickly welcomed a second daughter. Kirsten ended up leaving her job to be a stay-at-home mom, but Jared continued his career at Microsoft.

He provided a very nice and stable life for his family. By all accounts, not only was Jared a nice guy, he was a family man. He was a hands-on father and spent a lot of time with his blended family. And Kirsten and Jared seemed to have a great relationship and love story between the two of them.

Kirsten said, "Jared is the type of guy where the minute you met him, you just fell in love with the kind of guy that he is." She goes on to say that he is honestly just the best dad and that whenever she needed a break, he will come scoop up the kids, take them out, take them outside, and give her a minute to catch her breath. However, not everything was perfect. Even though Jared had gotten the divorce back in 2015 and custody with his twins was set in stone,

there were still court filings constantly coming in from his ex-wife. Many people around him said that it was very difficult to watch Jared go through constant court battles when all he wanted to do was focus on being the best husband and father that he could be. Then on the evening of February 16th, 2022, the unexpected happened.

Police investigating a deadly shooting tonight. This is a live look at the scene. Police still out there right now. The shooting happened in the Sanctuary neighborhood, which is right off Butler Boulevard. News4Jax reporter Anne Maxwell joins us live. At least a dozen police cars were at the scene earlier. How is it looking now, Anne?

Well, Stacey, we're at the intersection of Sanctuary Boulevard and Jacksonville Drive. Still an active police presence here. That section of Sanctuary Boulevard totally blocked off. A neighbor tells me he heard three gunshots. He says it was one gunshot followed by a pause and then two more. He says this area is wooded. There aren't any houses on that street right there. He says it goes right on to JTB. So if anything like this happened, it'd be really easy for somebody to just

get off right there. Jared had just dropped off his 10-year-old twin son and daughter to his ex-wife's home in Jacksonville Beach, and he was headed back home with his two-year-old daughter, Bexley. Bexley was in the backseat of the car, and Jared stopped because of a tire that was on the road near the exit of the sanctuary neighborhood where Shanna, his ex-wife, lived. When he got out of the car to move this tire that was in the road, Jared was shot multiple times as he attempted to move that tire.

His vehicle hazard lights were still blinking with his daughter still in the car seat unharmed. Bexley remained in the car for three full minutes near her dad's lifeless body before a passerby stumbled onto this gruesome scene, pulled her from the car seat and called 911.

Police believed that this was a planned targeted ambush, murder, and attack because the tire was placed on the road that Jared regularly traveled to drop off and pick up his twins, and because he was specifically shot when he stopped to get the tire out of the road.

Jared was only 33 years old when he was brutally and premeditatedly gunned down. Police asked the public if they knew anything or were in the area and saw something and said if they did to contact the police immediately. Unfortunately though, nothing came up and

And everyone that knew Jared was completely shocked by this. Jared didn't have any enemies. He wasn't involved in anything shady, no drug involvement, nothing at all that made any sense to where they could come up with why someone would want to do this. They wondered if maybe the tire setup was for someone else.

and Jared just happened to drive up to the tire in the road first and he got out and he was the one gunned down by mistake. But then the whole thing didn't make sense because it would have been obvious that it was him when he got out of the car. Police didn't have any leads for weeks.

weeks, despite multiple statements begging the public to come forward. Given the circumstances of Jared's tragic death and the targeted ambush happened to be near his ex-wife Shanna's house on the road that he always took to leave, people started wondering about who Shanna was.

Well, Shanna got remarried as well. She got remarried in 2018 to a man named Mario Fernandez. At the time, she was running a baking company called Beach Baked 904, and she was living in her home near Jacksonville Beach. I'm Jean Pickett, and we are Around Town today with Shanna Gardner Fernandez from Beach Baked 904. Hey, Shanna. Hey, Jean. How are you doing this morning?

I'm here, right away. Awesome. Now, Shanna never spoke out after Jared's death or made a public plea for somebody to come forward, even on behalf of her children. Shanna was also not invited to Jared's funeral. But what struck Jared's family and friends as odd

was that she didn't let her two twins go to the funeral either. And it appeared that although they were still having some court filings, court disputes, custody disputes, they both were remarried. They both seemingly had moved on. Without any answers for who was responsible for Jared's death, people with immediate knowledge about Shanna and Jared's marriage started talking.

Ultimately, this led to instantaneous scrutiny for Shanna after details of their vicious divorce became community gossip, along with her behavior following Jared's murder. But that would soon change when a few weeks later, police released surveillance video of a vehicle

that they believed could be involved in Jared's death. And this video would break the whole case open. They said that on February 16th, between 5.30 p.m. and 8.30 p.m., a truck was seen circling in the nearby surveillance videos of the crime scene.

The police said that the truck is dark colored, likely blue, a 2004 to 2008 Ford F-150 with four doors and running boards. That it had brown trim and a silver toolbox. Which, that is a very solid lead and very good description of a truck. But who did this truck belong to and was this truck connected?

Nobody that knew Jared recognized this truck at all, yet the police still believed he was targeted. At this point, there was a $55,000 reward for anyone with information on Jared's murder. And at this point, a lot of people were still talking about Jared's ex-wife. So let's get into what all of the fuss was about with Shanna. Why was Shanna getting so much heat in all of this?

To paint the full picture, we have to go back to the beginning. Shanna Gardner Fernandez grew up in a Mormon community in upscale Alpine, Utah. Shanna first met Jared while visiting a friend in Florida in 2009. Jared was also a devout Mormon and a member of the LDS church. According to some friends, apparently, Jared wasn't really that interested in Shanna at first, but that didn't stop her from pursuing him.

Instead, she whined and dined him in an attempt to flaunt her family's wealth, all in hopes that this would make him attracted to her. Specifically, this friend said to news outlets, and I quote, And apparently...

It ended up working. Jared and Shanna fell in love, and they got married at a temple in Salt Lake City in 2010. Shanna's parents bought them a $800,000 house nearby, and allegedly, Shanna and Jared both drove a Mercedes, even though neither of them

had a job. Instead, Shanna's parents gave the couple at least $8,500 a month as some sort of allowance or stipend in addition to access to the parents' credit cards. Shanna's parents also gave Jared $100,000 to start his own business. About a year into the marriage, Shanna became pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl.

When the twins were born, their daughter was healthy, but their son was born with a serious congenital heart condition. Doctors told Jared and Shanna that their new baby boy needed to live at sea level for his heart to function properly.

So they did what any parent would do, and they moved to Connecticut because it was close to Jared's brother and his wife, which was also close to their son's doctor in New York. Even though Shanna and Jared had only been married for around two years, after that move to Connecticut, their marriage took a major turn of the worst. Shanna stopped going to church and instead started a very intense workout schedule and routine.

Shanna was also frustrated that Jared was gaining weight and was focused on trying to start a business. Jared could feel the frustration in their marriage creeping up more and more, so he convinced Shanna to move to Jacksonville, his hometown, where they could have a fresh start together. So Shanna agreed, and soon after that, the family of four moved.

Shanna's parents bought them another $800,000 house in Ponte Vedra Beach. Jared continued to be a devout LDS member, but not so much Shanna. Despite growing up LDS, Shanna was kind of over it. But she still loved working out and her newfound love for fitness. So for Christmas in 2014, Jared bought Shanna a set of personal training sessions.

Shanna started her personal training sessions soon after Christmas, and it wasn't long before Shanna started to have a relationship with her personal trainer, which isn't cliche at all. Soon after, Jared found some sexual emails between Shanna and the trainer, and he confronted her about it.

Shanna denied that there was any sort of affair going on or any romantic connection or any sexual connection and instead just told Jared that she didn't love him anymore. However, that didn't push Jared away. Since they had two young children together, Jared told Shanna that he wanted to still fight for their marriage and he wanted to get back to a place of loving each other, at least for the kids' sake.

But Shanna said no, and she filed for divorce on February 23rd, 2015. In the court filings, she said that their marriage was completely broken and that they didn't love each other anymore. After she filed for divorce, they were still living together at their house in Ponte Vedra and continued to do so for a while before Shanna demanded that she be granted the house, also primary custody of the kids,

and then accused Jared of threatening to withdraw cash from the kids' trust funds.

Jared said that wasn't true at all and actually countered that he wanted primary custody, that he wanted alimony, child support, the house, and said that Shanna had the resources to live somewhere else and he didn't. He also accused her, and I'm just putting a quote on this, spying on him by hiding baby monitors in the children's bedroom and attaching a tracking device to his car.

And he told his lawyer, I want the flipping gates of hell released on her for this. Despite all of this, Shanna wasn't giving up. So she took it upon herself to install a lock on the master bedroom so that Jared couldn't get in. And allegedly, she placed a voice-activated recorder in the house.

On top of all of this, Jared told his lawyer that Shanna was lying about all of her finances when she claimed that she had no income and that she actually earned thousands of dollars working under the table for her mom. Now, we have no idea what's true or not with any of this, but it is all in their court records.

And everything about their divorce seemed really nasty, always escalating, and just kind of the divorce that you hear about in horror stories, like horror divorce stories, which

Kind of surprised me because Shanna was the one who wanted this divorce. She said she wasn't in love with Jared anymore, even though he wanted to fight for the marriage. So why was she so hell-bent on recording him, spying on him, and making this just so toxic between them? If she had the money, had the means, wasn't in love with him anymore, could just be out, what was all of the toxicity about? So in all of the...

horrible vitriol and mess, one thing they did come to an agreement on was custody, a shared parenting agreement of 50-50. And they came to that agreement in July of 2015. But that still never stopped the fighting. They continued to drag each other back into court for six years. As the years passed, Shanna's filings grew more hostile and her accusations even more extreme.

In 2019, Shanna accused Jared of coaching and interrogating the minor children and recording their statements and threatening to use these coached recorded statements against their mother, her.

calling this conduct abusive and outrageous and demanding a social investigation. In June of 2021, Shanna filed another motion for not letting her borrow a breathing machine for their son since that specific machine was better in high altitudes and she was going to visit her family in Utah.

The court filing said, So now going back to the story. It was now June, almost four months after the murder.

The police were at a complete standstill with no leads and the accusations and scrutiny of Shanna's involvement were not going away. Not at all. So Shanna decided to hire a prominent criminal defense attorney in Jacksonville. His name is Hank Cox.

She hired him to help protect her family from the publicity, the implications that she was involved in the shooting, and because some media outlets were taking pictures of her and the kids whenever they were out in public. She said that the intense media coverage had become very loud and it made her children feel unsafe. I do want people to understand that

know where I'm coming fro after Jared Bright again w street in front of his tw spoke with his ex wife wh publicly so far. Our firs you stayed silent? I was a media or give a public st level of speculation, I f to the media. I was like,

to speak out. Shanna Gard Jared Breitigan's widow, to know how the relatio have gotten to that point.

happy moments. I mean we beautiful children in the and shanna divorced their we obtained from the ST Jo revealed a long complica five years. Anytime divorci

It just is. I will say that I think that we both love our kids. Jared and Shanna both wanted full custody. The court file details allegations of spying, deceit, and more. In the end, Shanna and Jared reached an agreement. They shared custody. And whenever the children were at one parent's house, the other would come over Wednesday and have a date night. That's exactly what Jared and his twins did the night he was killed. It was actually one of the things... I'm sorry. Um...

I remember my son tucking him in and him saying that it was a good date night. But that happiness would end just minutes after leaving Shanna's house just over two miles from her home in a quiet neighborhood with few security cameras, a tire was rolled out into the street. Jared got out of his car to move it and was shot dead. His two-year-old daughter sat in the car, strapped into her car seat alone for three minutes before someone came to help. I was shocked.

Um, I fell to the floor because I was devastated, um, for what I was gonna have to tell my kids. Jared died in that street, leaving behind four children and a heartbroken family. They were

I think in shock later in mother said she was not i asked shanna about the s family did not invite me But the day before a vig at the park with her kid mail. Talk about a viola my kids know that they w

they were worried the tabloid presented the facts in a way that leave room for speculation about shanna having a role in jared's death citing their rocky divorce papers and her absence from the funeral even though we didn't always get along he was still the father of my kids so i asked shanna the question did you have anything to do with jared's murder no i did not have anything to do

with his murder. Almost a year after Jared's sudden and senseless murder, Shanna pulled both twins out of their private schools and she moved across the country to Washington, seemingly out of nowhere. So let's go back to this for a second. And Shanna told me despite this happening in her neighborhood, despite many people around her discussing the case, she has no intention of leaving Jack's Beach or

or Jacksonville. Records showed that Shanna's parents bought her a house in September for $1 million through an LLC. Interestingly, Mario didn't make the move with Shanna and the kids to Washington. Property records show that Shanna and Mario still own their home in Jacksonville Beach, despite it briefly being for sale and then taken off the market.

So we have no idea why Shanna decided to move, why it occurred during the middle of the school year, or what exactly was going on here. It just seemed like literally out of nowhere. But then the first major revelation in this case broke out. Coincidentally, or not so coincidentally, just a few weeks after Shanna moved, the police announced that they were going to have a very big press conference for the Jared Breidegen case.

Now, this whole time police had been silent for literally 11 months. So this was a huge shock to the public. Nearly a year after Bridegain's murder, police announced 61-year-old Henry Tennant is now charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder and child abuse. Investigators called the attack on Bridegain targeted.

News for Jackson I-teams, Vic Micolucci has been on this case since the night it happened and joins us live with the concerning connection, Vic, between the suspect and someone in Bridegown's past.

And since very early on, detectives have told me this is not a random murder. This case has gotten national attention, and today people are asking, what is the connection with the man arrested by Jacksonville Beach Police and Jared Breidegen? We did some digging and found some disturbing details linking him to Jared Breidegen's ex-wife's new husband.

We know Henry Tenen did not act alone. So Henry was charged with conspiracy to commit murder, second degree murder with a weapon, accessory after the fact to a capital felony, and child abuse since little two-year-old Bexley was in the car when Jared was killed and she could have been harmed as well. Kirsten, Jared's widow, spoke out after the charges were announced and she said that she had no idea who Henry was and was adamant that Jared didn't know him either.

She also said that the news of a conspiracy had only confirmed her suspicions, saying, and I quote, But that's when things got even weirder. While Henry's court documents list his address in the 8700 block of Old Kings Road,

Some online people finder research tools suggest that he may have lived in the 5200 block of Potomac Avenue. And property records for that address on Potomac Avenue indicate that Mario Fernandez owned the home from 2017 to October 2022. So what are the chances of that?

What are the chances that Mario owns the exact place that this random 61-year-old man lived and is now happens to be the person who shot and killed his wife's ex-husband? Not long after Henry's arrest on March 16th, 2023, State Attorney Melissa Nelson and Jacksonville Beach Police Chief announced the arrest of Mario Fernandez Saldana in the murder case of Jared Breidegen.

During a press conference, it was announced that he has agreed to cooperate fully with the authorities in exchange for a plea agreement. Henry pled guilty to second-degree murder, and he also agreed to testify against the individuals involved in Jared's murder, including Mario.

investigators spoke to media outlets and said that Henry's cooperation provided cooperating evidence to what has already been collected during the investigation as well as additional evidence against Mario for his role in planning and executing Jared's murder Mario was charged with first degree murder with a weapon conspiracy to commit first degree murder solicitation to commit a capital felony and harming a child because again of the child abuse with

Bexley in the car. Much of his arrest warrant was heavily redacted because it was still an ongoing criminal investigation. However, it revealed some new information, like Shanna meeting Mario at CrossFit in 2018 when he was working there as a maintenance man, as well as some damning evidence and disturbing details.

First of all, while two-year-old Bexley was not physically harmed, there were bullets struck in the interior of the vehicle in close proximity to where the child was strapped into the car, an act that reasonably could have been expected to cause physical or mental injury to her.

We already know that she was crying in the car when witnesses arrived. But this is just so enraging and just goes to show the level of scum these people are. Not only was she crying because she didn't know what was going on and there were loud noises, but she was almost hit by a bullet from some low-level dirtbag who was busy murdering her dad without any care in the world that there was a child in the line of fire. According to law enforcement sources, Shanna was still a suspect.

Online and locally, people wondered if it was possible that Mario did something without Shanna knowing. Did Mario take something she said off the cuff in a serious way and Mario acted on it? Or was she involved? There was always one thing that was missing. One thing until now. And that person was Shanna. I asked Shanna the question, Did you have anything to do with Jared's murder?

No, I did not have anything to do with his murder. Thank you for joining us in what will be my last public update on the investigation of the murder of Jared Breidegen on February 16th of 2022 in Jacksonville Beach. This morning, a Fourth Circuit grand jury indicted Shana Gardner for first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, solicitation to commit first-degree murder, and child abuse, all related to the murder of Jared Breidegen.

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That's S-I-M-P-L-I-S-A-F-E dot com slash serialistly. Now here's where it gets interesting. Shanna was living in Washington with her children when she was arrested, but she wasn't living there with Mario, which it's for unknown reasons, but it's been alleged that she was trying to distance herself from him ever since Henry was arrested.

But nevertheless, after being arrested, she was expedited to custody in Florida, and she's charged with numerous crimes, including murder in the first degree, conspiracy to commit murder, solicitation to commit a capital felony, and child abuse. And not only that, but the state is seeking the death penalty for the murder charge. Now, Shanna, of course, wants to be released from jail, right? And we heard an earful of reasons why she wants to be released.

all from her amazing, glowing lawyer, Jose Baez, also known as Jose Scumbag. He is famously known for representing defendants in very high-profile murder trials, including Casey Anthony, Aaron Hernandez, and I mean many others. Now, how Shanna is affording somebody like Jose is directly tied to her family, because her parents, Sterling and Shelly Gardner, founded an MLM company called Stampin' Up!,

They founded this company back in 1988 and get this in 2023, Stampin' Up had an annual revenue of approximately $275 million.

So Shanna essentially grew up very privileged, very wealthy. Some may say, you know, a little trust fund baby with a little silver spoon shoved right up her rear end. But don't worry, we're going to come back to her parents later on because it is important we talk about it. So recently there was this seven-hour bail hearing for Shanna where the judge would ultimately decide if she was going to be released or not. But during the bail hearing, the prosecution presented even more new bombshell evidence that was never known before.

So all of that to say, I did a deep dive into all of these new allegations, which include extremely damning text messages and also a ton of new evidence in this case. And truly, it is unbelievable. And not only that, but the defense did not take this lying down. Now, as a reminder, this case is ongoing and everything said in this episode is alleged. It is sourced from court documents or hearings, or otherwise it's my opinion only, which I will state.

So during the bail hearing, Detective Johns from the Jacksonville Police Department was called to the stand to testify for the prosecution. He was the lead homicide investigator in Jared's murder, and he described arriving at the scene, seeing Jared on the ground, and how Jared's two-year-old daughter Bexley was just terrified and crying. Did she make any statements to you or other investigators at the Jacksonville Beach PD that night? She made mention of...

hearing a loud sound, boom boom, saying that she had to take her shoes off to cover her ears, and she made mention that her daddy was sick and that was on the ground and needed to be deducted. Like I mentioned earlier, three people had been arrested for Jared's murder. This includes Henry Tennant, Mario Fernandez, Shanna's estranged husband, and Shanna. Now, Henry was arrested first, and police had identified his truck in surveillance video from the night that Jared was murdered.

Henry ended up taking a plea deal, and he pled guilty, and in exchange for that, he gave information about his role in the murder. Henry didn't know Jared at all. Essentially, he was the hitman, and just that. He was the one that physically shot and killed Jared, but he had no other ties to him. Henry was a tenant at one of Mario's rental properties.

He told law enforcement that Mario had approached him numerous times asking him for his help in a murder, and that initially he turned Mario down. But then, apparently Mario approached him with a different offer. This time, he was willing to give Henry $150,000 so that Henry could start a pallet company.

And Henry ended up agreeing. So it seems as though this was all disguised under the guise of this pallet company, right? He stated that in exchange for the money, that Mr. Fernandez would provide a firearm and then they would contrive a plan. Initially, the plan was to kidnap Mr. Browning and take him to another location and murder.

Yes, you heard that right. So as if what actually happened to Jared wasn't terrible enough, the initial plan was to kidnap Jared, then take him to another location and murder him there. So Henry said that they were initially planning this during the end of 2021. Then in February of 2022, after returning from a vacation to Hawaii with the entire Gardner family, Mario approached him again.

Mario told Henry that this murder needed to happen as soon as possible, specifically saying it needed to happen this week. And he said that if he didn't get it done, his marriage would be over. So how does Shanna tie into all of that? Well, trust me, we will get there and it is explosive. But for the financial aspect of all of this, First Choice Home Rentals LLC lists Shanna and Mario as the principals, the owners. In fact, Shanna's signature is on this documentation.

And First Choice LLC's business checking account shows a deposit from Shanna's trust fund for $5,000 starting back in March of 2021, a little over a year before Jared was killed. According to the bank records, these $5,000 payments were coming in monthly from Shanna's trust fund, all to this joint business checking account. And remember, Mario told Henry he would give him $150,000 as this investment into a pallet business.

So then in April of 2022, a $5,000 check written from First Choice LLC was deposited into Henry's checking account. And on the memo line, Mario wrote, "Kickstarter. Good luck." According to Henry, this was the first of many payments that he would receive, all in exchange for killing Jared. Now, apart from the financial aspect,

Detective Johns stated that after Jared's murder, people started telling the police that they needed to look into Shanna. And not only that, but that they needed to look into her almost immediately. We had several people come forward who shared stories that they had heard over the years of Ms. Gardner saying that she hated Jared and could not stand the fact that she had to share custody with him and that she wanted him dead.

And you heard this unsolicited from numerous people, not just one person? Correct. When you heard this information, did you investigate into the past history of Shannon Gardner and your friend? Yes, ma'am. They had gone through a pretty acrimonious divorce. Correct. Can you briefly describe to the court what that investigation uncovered for you? They were divorced in 2015 and

Pretty much consistently between 2015 and up until Jared's death, they were in court at least annually. Pretty much every aspect of the child custody was litigated and fought through mediation. It was to the degree that they no longer had any type of verbal communication about their children. Everything was done in writing or through internet. And from your investigation, were they even able to be in the same room together?

No. How did they co-parent? Through the court. When they went to the school, did they have separate parent-teacher conferences? It was indicated that they had separate parent-teacher conferences. They would attend separate doctor's appointments or one of them would attend the doctor's appointments. There was virtually nothing that they did together as far as that was concerned.

Now, in a previous episode we did on this case, we went into the details of the divorce and all of the custody issues. But the fact that several people were now coming to law enforcement echoing these same sentiments, it made police believe that the motive definitely might be there for Shanna.

In fact, they found out that Shanna was attempting to initiate a DCF investigation into Jared, all in order to gain custody or get majority custody over the children, because she didn't want to involve Jared in any more custody as she was moving forward. She wanted to be the sole decision-maker.

And I'm talking about decisions in which how the children would be raised. For example, Jared wanted to raise the twins in the LDS church, and Shanna didn't. This became a huge issue because at one point one of the twins, the little girl, wanted to be baptized through the LDS church. But Shanna was not on board with this. Now going back to Shanna's trust fund here just for a second.

The trust was funded by her parents, and it was a way for them to give Shanna money for herself and for the twins. Doing it this way would help ensure that it wasn't technically personal income, which it's something that a lot of people with money do, but it would also help ensure that Jared would not be able to request any of that money as alimony or child support.

And Mario, her new husband, was actually named the trustee on the fund. And according to the court documents, Shanna could only become the trustee as long as she had no more legal entanglements with Jared. So let's break that down for a little bit. With Jared gone, or no longer in the picture, she would not only be able to make all of the decisions for their children, she'd have sole custody, she would no longer have any financial restrictions or legal battles with Jared. I mean,

I mean, it sure seems like it was enough motivation for murder, right? Possibly. But we're going to keep going because this is just the tip of the iceberg and we haven't even gotten into the text messages yet. So in interviews with the police, Shanna was extremely talkative and she was really ready to tell her side of why this divorce was so nasty. She was very forthcoming. She, um, it was a very typical interview. Um, she, um,

was very talkative and provided a lot of context without a whole lot of questions being asked. And you said provide a lot of context, what was the general

tone of that context to provide it? The general tone of it was, I don't really know the whole idea now, but I will tell you how he was when we were married and what our divorce was like. Essentially, he was manipulative and caused a lot of trauma. And then moving on to we had a terrible divorce and then talking about how that affected the children and so on.

Did she bring up at any point that Jared Moranigan was at all abusive towards her physically or verbally? She stated that he was in fact not physically or verbally abusive. And during this conversation, part of the reason we spoke to her is that she and her husband were at the minutes when their children, her children, the E&L, the early class people, see Jared Moranigan a lot. That's correct.

And did she give you some indication as to where everybody was in the house during the time alongside? She said that when the kids were dropped off by Mr. Brattigan, Mario was asleep and she was cooking your phones and the kitchen. Did she say where he was sleeping? I don't know that she stated that where he was sleeping during her interview, but he indicated that he was on the couch.

About a month after this interview, Mario came back to the police on his own. He told the detectives about all of the media scrutiny that they were facing, as well as people in their neighborhood basically accusing them of being involved in Jared's murder. And he asked the detectives if this was something that not only did they know about, but they also knew about.

But was it something that the detectives were encouraging? Or were they the ones behind it? Which obviously the detectives told him like, no, we had absolutely nothing to do with that. What are you even talking about? But Mario was kind of blaming them saying, are you responsible for all of this? Are you the ones behind it? And he responded ultimately saying that he was just venting. But the police took this as an opportunity to then ask if Shanna wanted to come in and if she wanted to also talk more.

Now this interview went a little bit more differently than the first. She wasn't as even-mannered and she wasn't as talkative as before because this time she was visibly upset. She said that she felt like she was being attacked in the media and even on social media. She said that she didn't feel safe leaving her home, that she was the one being blamed for Jared's murder, that she was a victim in all of this.

So the detectives asked her if she had any theories on what could have happened to Jared, who was responsible, who was behind this. Now we of course now know that Shanna has been arrested and charged, but we love when a detective asks questions like this because more often than not, the people who are actually involved always end up sticking their foot in their mouth one way or another.

just like Shanna did here. She said that her belief was that it could have been a drug deal gone wrong, maybe even a gang initiation, or that Kirsten, Jared's wife, could have possibly had something to do with it.

She said that she had heard from friends that Sanctuary Boulevard, the street that Jared was killed on, was where people would go to buy drugs. So first of all, Detective Johns said that in all of his experience at Jacksonville Beach Police Department, he has never heard of anybody selling or buying drugs on Sanctuary Boulevard.

He said that he also has never heard of any sort of gang initiations or shootings of a father with a child in the car at 7.50 p.m., you know, at dusk, on this boulevard. Now, as far as Kirsten being involved, the detectives also didn't believe that for a single second. It seemed as though Shanna was just trying to throw anything to the wall and hope that one of these wild theories would somehow stick. But of course, as she's, you know, being selfless and serving up all of this information, all of these theories trying to help,

she never once mentioned that they should be looking into herself, Mario, Henry, none of that. Did she ever mention someone by the name of Henry Tennant? She did not. Did she ever mention anything about knowledge of a vehicle that looked like the one in the news release that Jackson Beach put out? No. Did she ever mention to you that people might come forward saying that she had said she wanted Jerry Bradigan dead? No.

Did she ever mention to you that people may come forward saying that either she or Mario Ferdinand Saldana had talked in the past about hiring a hitman to kill Jennifer? No. So after that, the detectives didn't hear from Shanna again, but they began looking into her. And they also looked into some of her communications that she was having with other people. And text messages dating all the way back to 2015 between Shanna and a woman named Kim were shown in court.

Now, Kim is a friend of Shanna's that she met when she first moved to Jacksonville. At that time, Shanna was still married to Jared. Kim was a member of the same ward as Jared and Shanna, which is kind of like something within their church. They all went to church together. And we're not 100% sure who Matt is who's referred to in these text messages, but these text messages are talking about Jared. Let me

Let me read these for you. Matt was ready to come over here today and talk to him. He was like, it wouldn't get physical, yet, but I'd tell him if these things happen, X, Y, Z, then ABC will happen to him. And if he called the cops, Matt would know and ABC would happen. He said I would tell him that he can thank the beautiful woman he's leeching off of that he's even still alive, because if it were up to him, he would have disappeared months ago. Ha ha ha ha, smiley face emojis.

I told him your comment about the casserole. Ha ha ha ha. We both had a good laugh. Kim responds and says, LOL. He needs to refrain if for no other reason than not giving stupid any validation in his claims. However, I do make a mean casserole if he ever gets bored one day. My funeral potatoes kick ass. Do you have that recipe? Kim then follows it up with another text message saying, if there was a crime for being an asshole, he would get the death penalty.

Shanna responds, I would happily watch them give him the lethal injection. Kim replies, I'd push the meds in. I'm good at that. Smiley face. And then I guess I could make a casserole to pay my penance. Now I'm going to read you guys a few more, but I want you to know that when they say stupid, that is a nickname that they have created for Jared. So these messages are taking place in May of 2015. Shanna says, Shit, I'm not having a good day. Kim,

Kim. Don't write the day off as bad yet. I'm still trying to send stupid to prison. If I can't make a casserole, prison is the next best option. A couple of days pass and Kim messages her. I could see you and stupid taking a road trip next year. Smiley face. Shanna. Maybe a road trip that he disappears from. LOL. Kim.

casserole exclamation mark shanna part of me wants jared to lay a hand on me so that matt will make him disappear another day passes and kim messages her who's he kidding we'll be dancing in the streets when he's gone you don't deserve it because you're not perfect like him

Shanna replies, oh, I'm hoping so badly for a casserole party. Kim responds, lol, tell me when to turn the oven to 350. Now, I just have to say, not only are these messages unnerving because they're talking about Jared dying and potentially even taking his own life and like hiding it after the fact, but this mention of casserole every two seconds as though that's the indication for funeral. I'm going to bring a casserole over. It's just so callous and

casual, which is what feels the most unnerving about all of it to me. So these types of messages continue for a year, all the way into 2016. And then we have even more messages.

Shanna writes,

Now as this exchange with Shanna and Kim was going on, there was also communication between Kim and this person that she was referring to as Sue, where she's asking her if she knows anyone who can do magic or make somebody disappear. Then in more messages between Shanna and Kim, Shanna says,

I want to destroy him. I just don't know how. Kim. What's he got? High blood pressure? Or what's his, quote, condition? Shanna. High cholesterol was the biggest concern. Secondary was high blood pressure due to being so overweight with fat, not muscle. His blood pressure is probably normal now. But cholesterol, he is either on meds or it's high. I doubt it's low or normal. Kim. Maybe you could make some treats with lard and elevate that. Shanna.

Not enough. It was so high years ago and he was fine. Kim. How can we elevate it? Shanna. Best time for magic is when we are amicable in an agreement. Kim. I know.

Shanna, should I ask my friend for info? Kim, lol, which friend? Why? Shanna, think Matt would give me contact info? That friend too, but I was referring to Nick too. Between one of the four, we have to have someone. I doubt Matt will want to help me. Kim, maybe you should just talk about how he's brainwashing the kids with the whole new family thing and say, I just wish he would disappear. Maybe Em will do you a solid for old time's sake.

So now, not only are they talking about Jared's death and wanting him to die, but they're actually starting to try to enlist different hitmen as potential options for this murder plot that they're scheming up, that they're cooking up. Now, one of Jared's brothers, Justin, who also left the LDS church around the same time that Shanna did,

he comes into play with all of this. Because on one occasion, they got all of the children, the younger cousins together so that they could play. And Justin ended up going to the police because he remembered that during that get together, Shanna said something like,

At times I'm so angry with Jared that I want to take a hitman out on him. Of course, at the time during this, he thought that she was just joking. But after Jared died, he felt weird enough about it that he brought it up to the police. Also, the owner of a tattoo shop, a man named Brad, came forward as well to talk about what Shanna had said when they were friends. He said that he spent a lot of time with Shanna and that one night they went out for drinks and afterwards she said that she needed somebody to shut Jared up.

And she asked if he knew people who shut people up. Brad said that he took this to mean that she was looking for somebody to murder Jared. Another friend then came to the police station and gave a sworn statement about something that Shanna had said to them. This was from 2017. In the sworn statement, she says that Shanna told her that Mario had some military background and that he could take some guys, break into Jared's house, and take care of him, and that nobody would ever know what happened.

So what's weird to me, not weird, I should say, but unsettling, is you're seeing this constant escalation over the course of years. Starting with text messages, venting how unhappy you are, moving to text messages where you're joking about somebody dying, escalating to where you're talking about how lethal injection would be nice, or if he disappeared on a road trip, it would be nice. Then going into actual...

further escalation where you're trying to consider who would be good to execute this crime. Who could you hire and enlist to murder your husband, your estranged husband, things like that. It's just clearly it's escalating and getting more serious over time. And then even more text messages between Kim and Shanna were shown to the court. And these messages were from 2021. Yes, there are lots of examples, both verbally and written, where she, uh,

It's very unhappy. Sure. The kids with. And she uses language, not just. I want to use the court system, but I'll never be happy so long as they're involved. And then again, this is a pretty lengthy message to this Jensen from the starter. And then this, she expresses that she can't bear the thought of 9 more years of fighting for custody of her children. This is against date. So that 10.

Kim spoke with the detectives in regards to Jared's murder investigation, and she did not mention any of the text messages that we went over. She was also subpoenaed to testify in a grand jury indictment in 2023.

Phone records showed that after she was subpoenaed, she called Shanna. And then, while she was testifying in front of the grand jury, Shanna contacted her. Later on, detectives brought the text messages up to Kim. And when they asked her about any of these other conversations that she had had with Shanna, she revealed even more disturbing conversations that all happened over a multi-year period. These conversations were about Mario killing or finding people to kill Jared.

Specifically, Kim said that Shanna told her that in the past, Mario said that there was a motorcycle gang that lived behind his house, which he could recruit them and get them to kill Jared. He also said that there were times that Mario was so close to Jared that he could have killed him right there on the spot, and that Mario was the right person capable of killing Jared.

Shanna also apparently told Kim that any time that she was upset about a custody agreement or anything going on, Mario would offer to, quote, take care of Jared, which of course Kim said that take care of meant kill. And did Kim Jensen tell you what Shanna took take care of? I mean, in quotes, to me. That would be to kill Jared, right? Yeah.

And you mentioned that missions and disclose that Shannon Carter told her Mario was so close to do it and could touch him. Did she explain what that meant? Did he actually follow him? It was so close to touch him. Yes, there were times where he would watch his movements or things that fall in and try to develop patterns of what he did and what would be the best way to carry out something. Did he call these.

Did he use any phrasing to describe these moments where he could have done something to Jared? Missed opportunities. Which, yeah, listen to that. Missed opportunities? How sickening is that? But as if this wasn't bad enough already, everybody, I think this one really takes the cake. Kim said that according to Shanna, there was a delay in killing Jared and that Mario's excuse for that was because it's COVID.

and nobody leaves their house during COVID. It is so crazy to me that these people all somehow found each other. It always blows my mind when people find each other who are of the same ilk, like-minded, especially in like a sinister way. And the way that they are just having so many of these conversations so casually, not realizing they're talking about taking somebody's life, it blows my mind. Now,

Now Shanna also very much knew the truth about Henry Tennant. According to Kim, Shanna met him before and she knew that that truck that was released to the media as possibly being involved in Jared's murder belonged to Henry. Now in the beginning of this episode, I mentioned that Henry told law enforcement that Mario came to him after that trip to Hawaii saying, "...the murder needs to happen right now, it needs to happen this week or my marriage is over."

Well, Kim, she knew about this Hawaii trip. She told the investigators that the Gardners had an annual family trip where it was supposed to be everybody. Shanna's parents, her siblings, their spouses, the grandkids, I mean everybody.

And during this trip, Shanna and Kim had text message conversations where Shanna said that she was frustrated with Mario. She was thinking about ending their marriage. She even talked about plans for a divorce with Mario. However, apparently during that time frame, Mario told Shanna that he would kill Jared and that if she didn't want this to happen, she needed to speak up and say it now. Which, we know that's not the case and we know how that ended. ♪

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So we also talked about how on the night that Jared was murdered, Mario said that he was on the couch when the kids were dropped off. Well, according to the kids, that is not true. Both of the kids indicated that they thought that Mario was in his gaming room.

but it was they later said they never actually saw him it was just that his game console was actively playing so they just assumed that's where he was at. And Henry had an abysmal statement that Mario Fernandez actually was not at home playing video games or lying on the couch. He was driving the vehicle to the homicide scene to commit this murder. That's correct. So these children are brought to CPTV for this interview. Did this gardener accompany them?

Yes, you did. Did Mr. Fernandez-Saldana come to you? No. In fact, during one of the interviews, one of the children of A&A's utterance that Mario was on his way to Canada with some friends to go camping. Okay. And did you later get records, financial calling on records, cell site location data to figure out if that was true or not?

we did we got his financial records and we got a self-taught data that showed that he essentially was making his way from jacksonville to brunswick north carolina and up to pennsylvania did he go camping he did not go yet was based on your investigation can you describe to the court what the nature of this trip was it was a pre-planned vacation business

I didn't tell you what his nature of this trip was other than the fact that he made surprise visits to some people that he barely knew and he purchased toiletries on the way. Once he got past North Carolina to Pennsylvania, he was making hotel reservations as he was driving. So it was not a planned trip. And while he's making this unplanned trip up to Canada presumably, was he in contact with Ms. Gardner by phone? Yes, he was.

And at some point, did he cease contact with his daughter? He was in contact with her essentially until the CPT interviews were done. And then he essentially turned around and came back out.

So Mario was taking this completely unplanned camping trip, possibly to Canada, in contact with Shanna, while the kids were being interviewed and telling the truth that Mario was actually not on the couch, and that according to Henry, he wasn't on the couch because Mario was driving the murder vehicle.

Then right after the interview, he comes home? Definitely a coincidence, I'm sure, right? And I guess they thought that the coast was clear for the time being. Now, when Henry was arrested, it was on charges completely unrelated to the murder. Interestingly, according to the prosecution, news of Henry's arrest sent Mario and Shanna into this, like, fury of calls back and forth between one another.

Shanna also contacted her lawyer and a PR firm. At 11:30 to 11:31, Mario and Shanna exchange multiple text messages. At 12:16, Shanna receives a phone call from somebody named Christopher at the Crisis PR management firm. The call lasts for about 10 minutes and 20 seconds.

Following that call, Shanna receives a phone call from a woman named Linda. She's a media relations specialist in Utah. This call lasts for a little under five minutes. About an hour later, Shanna calls Mario. This call lasts 45 seconds. Then right after that call, she calls Home Depot in Jacksonville Beach. This call lasts three minutes and 36 seconds.

She calls back Mario again after this call. That call was only 38 seconds. Mario calls Shanna right back. No seconds, I'm guessing she didn't answer, but then 10 minutes later they start exchanging messages. Then five minutes after that, Mario calls Shanna again. This call lasts a little under five minutes.

Then, just one minute after that, Shanna receives a call from Christopher at that PR crisis management firm. And this call lasts 23 minutes. Now, what's interesting is this PR crisis management firm is based in Utah, and it also has ties to Shanna's parents' company, Stampin' Up. Apparently, they were offering their services to Shanna, quote, pro bono, which that's if you believe that.

But I don't know about you guys, but if I owned a bunch of rental properties and a tenant who I don't even know, who I've never even met or seen is arrested on just a driving charge, no charges of murder at this point, I don't think that I would be on the phone with a PR and crisis management firm. That screams a little guilty to me, right? So detectives flew to Utah to speak with Linda, that media relations specialist, and they also wanted to speak with Chris from that PR crisis management firm.

But Linda and Chris avoided these detectives at all costs.

Specifically, Detective Johns said that Linda was running frantically around the front of her house so she could try to hide from him. And then Chris had his wife answer the door and say that he wasn't there. Chris did later talk to the detectives, but it was through a criminal defense lawyer which she hired, and we're going to come back to that in a second. But going back to the day that Henry was arrested, Shanna texted her friend Kim this. I don't want anyone to know.

And Kim replies, "I'm not." Okay, so back to Chris and this PR crisis management firm. Apparently there was one woman that did speak to detectives when they flew to Utah. We don't know this woman's name, but she was a junior level social media manager at the PR firm, and she no longer works there.

She said that as soon as Shanna found out that Henry was arrested, she, quote, frantically trying to reach someone and couldn't get a hold of anyone because of the time difference, and it was very early in the morning in Utah. Well, this social media manager answered the phone when Shanna called, and she started taking notes. And according to her, Shanna said that their tenant had been arrested and that his truck was involved in Jared's murder. But again, at this point, Henry was arrested for driving with a suspended license, not driving.

murder so through the lawyers that that guy chris from the pr firm had hired detectives were turned over personal text messages from august 18th in these chris says just spoke with shanna there are some interesting developments with her case nothing breaking but want to bring you up to speed when you have a minute somebody named jenny responds i have meetings going on from 10 30 to 12 30 then another one at one o'clock

The 1 o'clock could go on three hours. If you could meet at 1230, that would be great. If not, Linda can fill me in later. Linda replies, because it's a group chat, saying, I'm available any time today. Then other text messages that were turned over were from August 24th, six days later. In this, Chris says,

Which is so interesting to me that they're all colluding. They all seem to know all of the connections and what's going on, even though nothing has been made public, which...

Of course, you know the connections if you're involved in this, right? So obviously this was not great for Shanna at all, and ultimately the judge denied her request for bond.

But that's really the last that we've heard since then, because now Shanna's fancy lawyer, Jose Baez, is accusing the prosecution of quote, "...outright foul play," saying the detective lied on the stand regarding what witnesses told him about Shanna, and that none of the meetings were recorded, nor were police reports about the meetings taking place ever written.

He says he's filed a motion to advise the court of, quote, critical evidence not being turned over to the defense before this bond hearing. Baez says there were conversations with witnesses important to the investigation that were not recorded and information not disclosed as required. Baez says that there are questions that need to be asked. Take a listen.

Why are you putting on a police officer who's lying on the stand? Why are you allowing that to happen? Why aren't you recording meetings with very important critical witnesses? Why are you not getting these statements completely locked down? And ladies and gentlemen, I will tell you, there's a very good reason. And the reason is an obvious one.

And in addition, he also said out here in front of the court steps of the Duval County Courthouse that he's trying to save his client's life. He said because someone, in his words, is not telling the truth. But I will do it. I will fulfill my oath as an officer of the court and as the lawyer who's been entrusted with Shanna Gardner's life.

They're not going to get away with lying in the courtroom. We're not going to stop until we seek justice in this case. They're not going to get away by creating evidence. And we're not going to allow that to happen in this case. I certainly hope that if there's any ambiguities, that they clear them up immediately, that they explain why they didn't record that meeting, why they didn't file a police report on that meeting.

And so we have heard from the state attorney's office in the last hour, they sent me this statement saying, we will respond to these spurious allegations in the appropriate venue, the courtroom, not the courtroom steps. So the next hearing is coming up this month. And Jose says that many of the people that we just talked about are going to get on the stand and tell a completely different story and that they will be sharing the truth of what was really said.

So I guess we're just going to have to wait and see what happens not only in these hearings, but if and when this goes to trial. It is definitely one of the more complex cases that we have talked about, but it is very fascinating and interesting because you have a lot of money, you have privilege, what I think are pretty obvious red flags and signs of guilt. But again, you're cloaked in innocence until proven guilty. So who am I to say? But I am curious to know your thoughts.

In any event, I am going to be following this case very, very closely. I don't know if any of the breaking updates will warrant a full deep dive episode again, but I will definitely be covering the updates in the headline highlights segment that we put out every Thursday. So make sure you check that out if you haven't before. I advise just whatever podcast app you're listening on right now,

go to the top right corner and just make sure you press the follow button. It's free, but that way you won't miss any of these updates. But other than that, what do you guys think about this case? And what do you think about Shanna? I'll be back on the mic with you Thursday for this week's headline highlights. And then of course, next Monday with an all new episode, a deep dive into a case.

Guys, I don't know. We have just got so much to talk about this week, so I will be back with you very soon. But I want to know what you think about this case. All right, guys. Thanks again. And until the next one, please stay safe. Bye.