EXCLUSIVE DETAILS — WEST RICHLAND, Wash. — The ex-wife of slain Microsoft executive Jared Bridegan moved 2,800 miles from Florida to the Pacific Northwest as investigators are about to announce an arrest is imminent in the unsolved murder, according to reports. may have known Fox News Digital.
Nearly a year after the father of four was executed in front of his young son, Bexley, in north Florida, Shanna Gardner-Fernandez quietly uprooted her 10-year-old twins with Jared and moved to West Richland, Washington. .
Asked Monday to comment on the significant development in the case, he replied: “No, I’m sorry.” Minutes later, she was seen in her white Tesla in a grocery store parking lot, talking about her on her cell phone.
Jared’s second wife, Kirsten Bridegan, with whom he shares Bexley, 3, and London, 1, said she was surprised Gardner-Fernandez had moved so far away.
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The West Richland, Washington, home where Shanna Gardner-Fernandez (inset) moved to after her ex-husband, Jared Bridegan, was murdered in North Florida.
(Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
“Honestly, I was surprised,” he told Fox News Digital in an interview Monday. “First the twins lost their father, then they were completely cut off from their own sisters and now they’re being taken away from school, friends and sports teams. They’re very isolated and that’s what worries me.”
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Jared had custody of the twins every other week, but shortly after their murder, Gardner-Fernandez ended all contact with his family, according to Kirsten.
“It has been an added loss,” he said. “In addition to losing Jared, my children have lost their brothers. I have lost my stepchildren. I have tried for months and months to make contact and have gotten nowhere.”
A family portrait of Jared and Kirsten Bridegan
(Infinity Focus Photography / Madeline Insignares)
Gardner-Fernandez, 35, and Bridegan, 33, divorced in 2016, but continued to fight over the finances and custody of the twins in family court until her death on February 16, 2022.
A law enforcement source told Fox News Digital that an arrest is expected on Wednesday, but gave no further details.
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Gardner-Fernandez and her second husband, Mario Fernandez, remain suspects in the murder mystery, according to a second source.
After the murder, the couple retained high-powered criminal defense attorney Henry Coxe III, who declined to comment for this story on Monday.
Shanna Gardner-Fernandez in Washington state on Monday, January 23, 2023. She is the ex-wife of Jared Bridegan, who was murdered in Florida in 2022.
(Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
Less than a year after the boys traumatically lost their father, Gardner-Fernandez removed them from their Jacksonville Beach private school and moved them into a six-bedroom, four-bathroom home in the Tri-Cities area of southeastern California. Washington.
Property records show the modern farmhouse was purchased in September for $1 million by Whitesand LLC, which lists the Alpine, Utah address of her parents, Shelli and Sterling Gardner.
Shelli Gardner founded the paper craft company Stampin’ Up, which has an estimated annual revenue of more than $100 million a year, according to IncFact.
Kirsten and Jared Bridegan are pictured at their wedding in 2017. Jared Bridegan was shot and killed on February 16, 2022 in an upscale Florida suburb.
(Courtesy Kirsten Bridegan)
His parents are prominent members of the Mormon community known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).
They were in West Richland last week visiting their daughter and grandchildren, and attended a Sunday-only service at a local LDS church.
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Jared was a devout follower of the faith. Gardener-Fernandez turned away from religion after her marriage in 2010 and then allegedly had an affair, leading to their acrimonious separation from her, Fox News Digital previously reported.
A combination of photos of Jared and Kirsten Bridegan, left, and Shanna Gardner-Fernandez outside their home in Jacksonville Beach, Florida.
(Courtesy of Kirsten Bridegan)
His second marriage is also faltering. Shortly after the murder, neighbors said they no longer saw Fernandez at the couple’s $1 million Jacksonville Beach home they co-own, and that he didn’t join her in moving to the countryside. naughty.
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It was listed for sale on Oct. 27 and then withdrawn from the market on Jan. 3, public records show.
Gardner-Fernandez’s primary connection to West Richland appears to be a friend she met at a baking conference in 2020, Marla Rogers, who owns the house next door.
Shanna Gardner-Fernandez is seen in a video on Instagram
(Instagram/Marlascookico)
Rogers runs Marla’s Cookie Co. from her home just as Gardner-Fernandez operated her own now-closed bakery company, Beach Baked 904, from her home in Florida.
Gardner-Fernandez made a brief appearance Sunday in a video Rogers posted to his company’s Instagram page.
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As Rogers is seen cleaning up after teaching a cookie decorating class, Gardner-Fernandez walks into his kitchen wearing a shirt emblazoned with the words “PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME DO THINGS!”
A billboard advertises a $55,000 reward for information on the unsolved murder of Jared Bridegan.
(Jacksonville Beach Police Department)
Jared was shot and killed on February 16, 2022 in Jacksonville Beach after taking his twins and Bexley, then two years old, to dinner. The software engineer had just dropped the twins off at his mother’s house when she came across a tire on the one-way road.
He got out of his Volkswagen Atlas to move it and was shot repeatedly by an unknown assailant as Bexley watched from her car seat.
“She has good days where she’s happy,” Kirsten said. “But it will be a lifetime for her to process those feelings and the trauma of what she went through.”
Jared and Kirsten Bridegan with Bexley. Jared was shot and killed on February 16, 2022 in North Florida.
(Courtesy Kirsten Bridegan)
Few details have been released about the investigation, a joint effort of the Jacksonville Beach Police Department and the State’s Attorney’s Office for the Fourth Judicial Circuit led by Melissa Nelson.
Early in the investigation, police asked for the public’s help in identifying a dark blue Ford F-150 captured on surveillance footage near the crime scene, and there is a $55,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
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Kirsten said that she and her daughters are trying to recover, but the New Year was particularly difficult.
“We finished the last year where we were a whole family and started a whole new year that won’t have those memories or Jared in them,” he said. “That was very difficult.”
