Ex-wife who ‘hired hitman to kill her Microsoft exec husband’ smirks in mugshot | US News

Shanna Gardner, the ex-wife of slain Microsoft executive Jared Bridegan, will appear in court in November for a murder-for-hire plot that saw her husband shot to death in front of his child in 2022.

Gardner was charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, solicitation of a capital crime, and child abuse in August, over 18 months after her husband’s death.

She was booked at Duvall County Jail in Jacksonville on Friday.

The Duvall County Sheriff’s Office has since released her mugshot, where she could be seen lightly smirking after being extradited from Washington.

Gardner and her second husband, Mario Fernandez, were both implicated in the plot the murder-for-hire plot. Bridegan and Gardner separated in 2015, but the two were embroiled in a years-long custody battle over their two children.

State Attorney Melissa Nelson said Gardner played a ‘central and key role’ in the gruesome murder.

Police called Bridegan’s death on a Florida roadway in February 2022 a ‘planned and targeted ambush and murder.’

The 33-year-old tech executive was shot and killed by a gunman ‘execution-style’ after pulling over to remove a tire placed in the middle of a St Augustine street. His 2-year-old daughter was sitting in his backseat.

But prosecutors insisted Tenon did not act alone. Tenon was Fernandez’s former tenant in a rental property, and Gardner’s second husband was charged for his role in the scheme in March.

Four months later, they charged Gardner, who had since moved to a $1million home in West Richland, Washington.

Prosecutors said they intend to seek the death penalty for Gardner and Fernandez if they are convicted.

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