Bodycam video shows Shanna Gardner's arrest in ex-Jared Bridegan's murder plot
Jared Bridegan's widow, Kirsten, probably said it best: "For 547 days we hoped and prayed that this day would come."
She was speaking about what State Attorney Melissa Nelson described as the final piece in her late husband's murder plot, the Aug. 17 arrest of ex-wife Shanna Lee Gardner.
Gardner was arrested at the West Richland, Wash., home she had been living in with her and Bridegan's twin son and daughter. The arrest follows two others: her husband Mario Fernandez Saldana and his renter Henry Arthur Tenon.
Thursday the Times-Union obtained body camera video from the West Richland Police Department worn by officers during the arrest.
Gardner, 36, is polite and calm throughout the process as she's taken away from the home and her children by the officers. A woman who appears to be her mother is sitting on the porch as the officers take Gardner into custody.
She was wearing shorts, a T-shirt and sandals and is heard asking the children to get some jeans and her medicine. The officers eventually allow her to go back inside and change and secure the medication.
She is handcuffed and quietly placed into the back seat of a patrol car as a woman can be heard saying, "Love you, honey."
An officer takes her to the police station basically in silence. She's given some instructions and taken into a holding room for questioning. The questioning isn't part of the bodycam videos.
The last video shows an officer getting ready to take her to the jail. He asks her some specifics about her medication, which the audio is redacted for privacy, to advise her about some procedures at the jail.
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Gardner now awaits the extradition process back to Jacksonville to face charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, solicitation to commit a capital felony and child abuse.
Her possible involvement had been widely speculated because of her lengthy divorce, custody battle and bitter relationship with Bridegan, a 33-year-old Microsoft executive from St. Augustine. From the outset, Jacksonville Beach police were suspicious about the circumstances of Bridegan's death.
On Feb. 16, 2022, he was ambushed after dropping off their twin children to Gardner and Fernandez Saldana's home in Jacksonville Beach and was driving back to St. Augustine with one of his other young daughters when he came across a tire on the road. When he got out, he was gunned down at close range. Police said nothing appeared to have been stolen.
Fernandez Saldana, 35, was arrested on March 16 in Orange County on the same charges of Gardner, who at some point had moved the children away from him to the state of Washington where she has family. Fernandez Saldana's arrest came the same day Nelson announced that Tenon, 62, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder as the triggerman in the murder plot. He was the first one charged in the case on Jan. 25.
The State Attorney's Office said it is seeking the death penalty against Gardner and Fernandez Saldana.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Video shows arrest of Shanna Gardner in Jacksonville Beach murder plot
