Florida Microsoft executive sends warning email to ex-wife accused of murdering husband

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Slain Microsoft employee Jared Bridegan and his ex-wife, murder suspect Shanna Gardner, exchanged controversial emails in 2017 about their finances, child therapy and divorce, according to redacted documents released earlier this month.

Bridegan was fatally shot in front of his car after it hit a tire in the middle of a remote road on Feb. 16, 2022, in what prosecutors say was a trap orchestrated by Gardner and her current husband, Mario Fernandez Saldana, in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Her daughter, then aged 2 and a half, was in the back seat at the time of the incident.

Documents obtained by Fox News Digital through a records request detail some of the items police recovered from Gardner’s West Richland, Washington, home during a warrant in February 2023, including phones, an Apple Watch, multiple laptops and other electronics. Gardner wouldn’t be arrested until six months later, in August 2023.

A child who was home at the time of the search told police that his mother kept her “important” electronics in her “bedroom closet” and then whispered “up there” at the desk while pointing to the ceiling, the documents show.

MURDER SUSPECT TO BUY TIME FOR MICROSOFT EXECUTIVE WISHED KILLER ‘GOOD LUCK!’, WITNESS SAYS

Jared Bridegan, left, was fatally shot in front of his car after he hit a tire in the middle of a remote road on Feb. 16, 2022, in what prosecutors say was a trap orchestrated by Shanna Gardner, right, and her current husband, Mario Fernandez Saldana, in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. (Handout/Duval County Jail)

The documents also contain redacted photographs of heated emails exchanged between Bridegan and Gardner from April and May 2017.

In April 2017, Gardner told Bridegan that she was sending their children to therapy and that they were “caught in the crossfire living between two homes.” In another email, Gardner criticized Bridegan for not prioritizing therapy sessions or providing “financial assistance for it,” although she agreed that both of their children needed therapy.

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Attorney Jose Baez appears in court alongside his client, Shanna Gardner-Fernandez, at the Duval County Courthouse in Jacksonville, Fla., on Friday, Nov. 3, 2023. Gardner-Fernandez was indicted on charges related to her alleged involvement in orchestrating the murder of her ex-husband, Jared Bridegan. (Larry Paci for Fox News Digital)

Bridegan, in turn, said he “would not pay for things that you and I have not agreed upon beforehand.”

The two men exchanged other heated arguments in their email exchanges. Gardner asked Bridegan to move “that moralizing pedestal in front of a mirror.” Bridegan asked Gardner, “Why are you ashamed of who you really are, why cover up all your tattoos in court, why not be proud of the person you’ve become?” He also accused her of mismanaging her money and called her “retarded.”

MICROSOFT EXECUTIVE MURDERED, SUSPECTS HAD VIOLENT ARGUMENT AT MORMON CHURCH OVER CHILDREN’S HAIR, DOCUMENTS SHOW

Shanna Gardner-Fernandez and her husband, Mario Fernandez, on a family vacation in Hawaii. The photo of the now-estranged couple was released the day Jared Bridegan was murdered, allegedly by Fernandez and his accomplices. (Shelli’s Blog)

“Wow, Satan, watch out, you really should wait to show your cards this early. I know I do (smile),” Bridegan wrote in an email response to Gardner, later adding, “I’m shocked that you continue to underestimate me… or did you think that all those months during our divorce, when you frolicked in the dark for so many nights, and in so many places, no one was… again, better not show your cards this early.”

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A screenshot of emails exchanged between Jared Bridegan and Shanna Gardner with the subject line “Children’s Therapy.” (Double County)

In May 2017, Bridegan promised his ex-wife that she would not “find happiness by destroying” his family.

“You can’t bring us down as a family.”

— Jared Bridegan to Shanna Gardner, May 2017

“(Redacted) will be raised in a Christ-centered home. You will not stop that,” he wrote. “You cannot bring us down as a family. I realize that you are living a life without the Spirit, without the priesthood, and without the blessings of the Temple. You will not find happiness in destroying us. I will not allow you to do that.”

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Shanna Gardner, right, and her husband, Mario Fernandez Saldana, inset, allegedly offered a hitman $150,000 to kill Gardner’s ex-husband, Microsoft executive Jared Bridegan. (Handout/© Bob Self/Florida Times-Union/USA TODAY NETWORK)

Fox News Digital has reached out to Gardner’s attorney, Jose Baez, and the State Attorney’s Office for the 4th Judicial Circuit for comment.

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Gardner and Fernandez-Saldana are accused of paying Henry Tenon, Fernandez-Saldana’s former tenant, $150,000 to kill Bridegan. Tenon is accused of ambushing and fatally shooting Bridegan in Jacksonville Beach on Feb. 16, 2022.

Gardner and Fernandez-Saldana have both pleaded not guilty to Bridegan’s murder. Tenon pleaded guilty to pulling the trigger and agreed to testify against the other suspects.