FL v. Mario Fernandez Saldana

Mario Fernandez Saldana is on trial in Duval County, Florida, charged in the murder-for-hire killing of Jared Bridegan, a father shot dead on a dark street in the Sanctuary neighborhood near Jacksonville Beach on February 16, 2022, with his two-year-old daughter buckled in the back seat. He has pleaded not guilty. He is presumed innocent, and the case will be decided by a jury before Circuit Judge London Kite.

The state's theory is that this was a killing arranged inside a family. Prosecutors say Bridegan's ex-wife, Shanna Gardner-Fernandez, wanted him gone after years of custody litigation, and that the man she married after the divorce, Fernandez Saldana, set the plan in motion and paid for it. He faces two charges after the state dropped a conspiracy count and a child-abuse count on the eve of trial: first-degree murder on a principal theory, meaning the state need not prove he was at the scene, and solicitation to commit a capital felony. The death penalty was taken off the table in late 2025, so a first-degree conviction would carry a mandatory sentence of life without parole.

The case the state built has a problem it did not have a year ago. The man prosecutors say pulled the trigger, Henry Tenon, a former tenant of Fernandez Saldana, pleaded guilty in 2023 and agreed to cooperate. Then, in early 2026, he withdrew that plea, a judge allowed it, and he has signaled he will not testify against the people the state says hired him. A prosecution designed around a cooperating gunman now has to connect the money to the murder through records and inference. Whether that can be done is the question this trial asks.

This is the first of three separate trials in one killing. Fernandez Saldana goes first. Shanna Gardner-Fernandez faces her own trial, before a separate jury, in September. Henry Tenon, having taken his plea back, is on a trial track of his own. We are not here to tell you what happened. Twelve residents of Duval County will decide that. We are here to follow the evidence, day by day, and to watch whether the state can meet its burden against a man the Constitution says is innocent until it does. Start with the background report below, then follow every day of trial with us.

Coverage begins the day proceedings do. Jury selection is set to begin August 10, 2026, with trial testimony scheduled for August 17 through 28. Start with the background report above, then check back here as the trial unfolds.