Police are readying to make an arrest anytime in the brutal murder of Microsoft executive Jared Bridegan as it appeared that his ex-wife has moved 2,800 miles across the country in the past year, according to reports. Jared Bridegan, 33, was repeatedly shot in front of his daughter Bexley in Florida in February 2022.
Police now hold Bridegan’s wife Shanna Gardener-Fernandez as the prime suspect in his murder. According to a source, who spoke to Fox News Digital, an arrest is probably imminent and may happen as soon as Wednesday, nearly a year after Bridegan, the father of four, was ambushed and shot several times in front of his then-two-year-old daughter Bexley in Florida.
Big Breakthrough
Another source told the outlet that Mario Fernandez, the second husband of Gardner-Fernandez, is also a suspect in the mysterious murder of Bridegan. According to reports, Gardner-Fernandez, 35, and Bridegan divorced in 2016 after she allegedly had an affair.
According to court documents, the two had been fighting for years before he was brutally murdered while dropping off the 10-year-old twins Abby and Liam that he shared with Gardener-Fernandez.
Bridegan started driving back to his own house with his then 2-year-old daughter from his second marriage in the backseat after dropping the twins at Gardner-Fernandez’s home in Florida.
However, Bridegan stopped to remove a tire that had been left in the middle of the road before being shot multiple times. Detectives think that was a ploy to lure him out of the car so they could kill him.
“This was such a heinous crime … I mean, the number of times he was shot, just to ensure that he was dead,” Bridegan’s older brother, Adam, had told the outlet earlier.
According to police sources, Gardener-Fernandez is still wanted for questioning in connection with the murder. She and her twins have now relocated from Florida to West Richland in Washington.
Her second husband, who is still a suspect in the shooting, did not move 2,800 miles with the family to a $1 million, six-bedroom home with four bathrooms.
Running Away from Her Crime
When asked Monday to comment on the significant development in the case, Gardner-Fernandez told the outlet: “No, I’m sorry.” Instead, she was spotted leaving for shopping in a White Tesla while speaking on the phone.
Following the murder of Bridegan, Gardner-Fernandez and her second husband hired renowned criminal defense attorney Henry Coxe III, who remained silent on Monday.
The decision, meanwhile, completely devastated the dead executive’s second wife, Kirsten Bridegan, and their two children.
“Honestly, I was shocked,” Bridegan said Monday of the long-distance move.
“It’s been an added loss … On top of losing Jared, my children have lost their siblings. I’ve lost my stepkids. I have tried for months and months to make contact and have gotten nowhere.”
She worries that after being pulled out of their private school in Jacksonville Beach, her stepchildren are now “separated” from the rest of their family. “First, the twins lost their dad, then they were completely cut off from their own sisters, and now they’re being taken away from their school, friends, their sports teams … that’s what concerns me.”
Bexley, the young child who was in the back seat of the Volkswagen Atlas when her father stepped out and was ambushed and shot, “has good days where she’s happy,” according to Bridegan.
“But it’s going to be a lifetime for her of processing those feelings and the trauma of what she went through,” the mom said.
On the other hand, although Gardner-Fernandez has consistently denied having an affair, she finally came clean last year when she said she had asked a tattoo artist if he knew someone who might “shut up” her ex-husband.
She said that it was just something people say during “bitter divorces,” not a real threat.
