A friend of slain Microsoft executive Jared Bridegan’s ex-wife, who is accused of his murder, testified Friday that they did not discuss hiring a hitman to kill the Microsoft executive.
Shanna Gardner, alongside her estranged husband Mario Fernandez, is charged with first-degree murder, for allegedly hiring handyman Henry Tenon to execute Bridegan Feb. 16, 2022, in Jacksonville Beach.
Bridegan, a 33-year-old father of four, lived in St. Johns County with his new wife, Kirsten.
Prosecutors allege that Gardner reached out to friends, including Jacksonville Beach resident, Kimberly Jensen, to find a hitman, and used the phrase “funeral potatoes” as code for murder.
Gardner and Bridegan divorced in 2015 but remained locked in a bruising custody battle over their two children.
Jensen testified Friday at a bond hearing for Gardner, who has remained behind bars since her arrest in March 2023, that the hitmen references in their texts were part of a longstanding joke and that “funeral potatoes” were simply a side dish.
“The prosecutors were under the impression that was a code word for planning a murder, which is patently false,” Jensen said. “Funeral potatoes is just like, a little catchphrase in the church. It’s a staple food after a funeral, the people get served a meal and typically it was that. … I was part of the team that would provide food for families who had lost loved ones, and I think I got asked to make funeral potatoes four times in such a small amount of time and that was, like, a common thing at the time.”
Gardner’s high high powered attorney Jose Baez, who once represented Casey Anthony, called Jensen as a witness to refute Jacksonville Beach Det. Christopher Johns testimony in May that she had been plotting her ex-husband’s murder for more than five years.
“I would happily love to see him get a lethal injection” and “I’m not even joking, I want him gone,” Gardner allegedly wrote Jensen in 2015, according to evidence introduced at the hearing.
Johns testified that Jensen reached out to contacts on Gardner’s behalf asking if they could “do magic” or find “a guy who does a permanent disappearing act.”
Gardner and Bridegan were in the midst of an ugly custody battle when Tenon lured him from car and shot him to death. Bridegan was killed in front of his toddler daughter Bexley — one of two children from his second marriage.
Tenon pleaded guilty and has agreed to cooperate against Gardner and Fernandez, who face the death penalty if convicted.
Prosecutors allege that Tenon was promised $150,000 for the hit.
Judge London Kite has yet to rule on whether to grant Gardner’s latest request for bond. She’s due back in court Sept. 23 for another hearing.
12 Responses
I call bullcrap. Those friends are covering their butts. Afraid they are going to be charged with accessory to murder and they should be! Who jokes about planning a murder?
Kim Jensen needs to be charged as an accessory/accomplice to murder
I totally agree!!! She was part of this! I hope they lock her up. She talks about going to church, but then she helps kill someone. she needs to go to jail for a long time!
This testimony strains the bounds of credulity. “We were only joking,” can’t erase what they said and how they said it.
Anyone who looks at the facts is going to know Shana and her friends are liars. Hitman was paid from this spoiled girls trust fund. I pray jurors are going to look at the connection between Shana and the hitman and the fact she knew what time Jared was dropping off his kids. These woman need to come clean, ask God for forgiveness for engaging in this kind of chatter that lead Bexley to have to witness the murder of her Daddy
Yeah, I’ve never used funeral potatoes as a catchphrase in 30 years as a member of the church. Do they think that we’re all a bunch of idiots?
How can she say she was joking when her text said “I’m not even joking, I want him gone”
I hope the friends also get charged!
I hope everyone involved in this hainus crime is charged to the extent of the law, even if it’s the death penalty.
At this latest hearing I think Judge London Kite asked why are we hear? This tells me she knows that the hearing is a way of dragging things out. A trick in the defenses’ playbook. I am praying for all the Bridegans that they will endure and be blessed. I am praying for Judge London Kite. I am praying for Shelli and Sterling that they receive divine discernment. No good can come from choosing to protect their daughter at the expense of their grandchildren. That is the ultimate evil. Shanna’s so called friend should have been helping her friend negotiate a difficult divorce instead of helping her friend to find a hitman. With church friends like her who needs enemies. Scary and absolutely pathetic and evil.
What is so sad is the fact Shana would take a father from his “Very Young” children’s lives. 2 will never really know their father except for pictures and the other two will only have a faint recollection. How could one person do that much damage to 4 little children. Shana felt it was all about her and no one else mattered. She decided she was privileged so she could play God to decide who lived & who died.
I hope she stays in jail and dies not make bond. She thinks people are stupid.😏😒🙄