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.
