Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Finally an Arrest! Microsoft Hubby, Dad of 4, Ambushed, Shot Dead

Episode Date: January 28, 2023

61-year-old ex con Henry Tenon has been arrested and charged in the death of Jared Bridegan. Tennon has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder, accessory after the fact to a capital felony, child abuse and second-degree murder. The child abuse charge comes as Bridegan's 2-year-daughter is in the car when he was shot.  The conspiracy charge means more arrests are expected, but the documents related to the arrest are sealed. An investigation shows that Tennon once lived in a home owned by ex-wife Shanna Gardner-Fernandez's new husband Mario Fernandez.  The night the 33-year-old Microsoft executive was shot, he drops his twins off at the home of his ex-wife, Shanna Gardner-Fernandez. Bridegan is with his 2-year-daughter as he drives home. On their way home, Bridegan stops to remove a tire from the middle of the road. There's no room to drive around it. That's when the Microsoft executive is shot and killed by an unknown assailant. The little girl, Bexley, is reportedly in the car for several minutes as her father dies. Bridegan has been in lengthy custody and alimony disputes with his former wife and reportedly she has now hired a high-powered criminal defense attorney. The investigation continues.   Joining Nancy Grace Today: Kirsten Bridegan - Victim's Wife; Instagram: @justiceforjaredb   Darryl Cohen - Former Assistant District Attorney, Fulton County, Georgia; Defense Attorney, Cohen, Cooper, Estep, & Allen, LLC, CCEAlaw.com Dr. Angela Arnold - Psychiatrist, Atlanta GA, AngelaArnoldMD.com; Expert in the Treatment of Pregnant/Postpartum Women, Former Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Obstetrics and Gynecology: Emory University, Former Medical Director of The Psychiatric Ob-Gyn Clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital  Joe Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University; Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet;" Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan"  Rebecca Rosenberg - Fox News Digital Crime Reporter, Author: "At Any Cost," RebeccaFayeRosenberg.com; Twitter: @ReRosenberg See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Bombshell in the case of a loving husband and father, Jared Breidegen. He was ambushed and murdered after dropping off his twins after a visit with his ex-wife. As you will recall, that evening, on the way home to his new wife and children, he was driving along a one-way road in the dark, strapped in the backseat, his three-year-old little girl, Bexley. When he noticed that someone had pulled a giant tire into the middle of the one-way road, he stops the car with Bexley still inside, gets out, and the dad begins to pull the tire off the road to get home when he is ambushed and murdered.

I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. In the last days, a bombshell. After alluding to a breakthrough, we now learn a convicted felon has been arrested for the murder of Microsoft executive, loving husband and father, devout Mormon, Jared Breidegen.

Take a listen. Henry Tennant was arrested for the following crimes. Conspiracy to commit murder. Second degree murder with a weapon, accessory after the fact to a capital felony and child abuse, all directly related to the murder of Jared. Conspiracy to commit murder. We know Henry Tennant did not act alone. Conspiracy to commit murder is a first degree felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison. Accessory after the fact to a capital felony. This charge is based on Henry Tennant's actions in the days after Jared's murder. This crime is also a first degree felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison. Child abuse.

This charge stems from the fact that Kirsten and Jared's then-two-year-old daughter was directly in harm's way when her father was shot and killed in front of her. This is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Second-degree murder. This crime is a first-degree felony punishable by up to life in prison and due to Henry Tennant's participation in the murder of Jared Breidigan. Tennant will have his first appearance in court tomorrow morning. Thereafter, we will present his case to a grand jury in order to seek an indictment for first-degree murder. This, of course, will carry a punishment of

mandatory life in prison. That's why the convicted felon has been arrested for the murder of Jared Bridegan. Now, here's the tricky part. The felon arrested for Jared Bridegan's murder just happened to be renting his Jacksonville home from Bridegan's ex-wife's new husband. Wow, that's a coincidence. Let me say that again. The guy arrested for ambushing and murdering this young dad is renting a house from Bridegan's ex-wife's new husband. Tenant in custody on charges of second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

Oh, wait a minute. Conspiracy to commit murder. That tells me someone else was involved in Jared's murder. You can't conspire with yourself. Also, his arrest warrant is sealed. So, details surrounding his case remain unclear. With whom is he conspiring? How did he know the victim, Jared Breidigan?

Why would he murder Breidigan? No theft, no sex attack, no carjacking. So what's his motive? The only connection is he knows the husband of Breidigan's ex-wife. What happened to Jared? Why did this young man, early 30s, prime of his life, good looking, athletic, brilliant, educated, this huge big life in front of him with his wife and children, children from another marriage that he saw religiously? Why would somebody want to gun him down literally in the road as part of an ambush attack? Who would know just the right place to put an old tire in the middle of the road, a place where he couldn't go that way and he couldn't go that way. He had to get out of the car on this one-way street. He had to get out and move the tire in order to get home to his wife and children.

And when he did, someone was lying in wait to kill him execution style. Why? First of all, let's take a listen to our friends at WJAX. And this you'll hear is sound from his ex-wife with whom he is in a bitter custody battle at the time of his murder. Just minutes after leaving Shanna's house just over two miles from her home in a quiet neighborhood with few security cameras, a tire was rolled out into the street. Jared got out of his car to move it and was shot dead. His two-year-old daughter sat in the car strapped into her car seat alone for three minutes before someone came to help. I was shocked. I fell to the floor because I was devastated for what I was going to have to tell my kids.

Jared died in that street, leaving behind four children and a heartbroken family. They were, I think, in shock. Joining me right now, special guest, this is Jared's wife, Kirsten Breitigan. You have two-year-old Bexley and at the time six-month-old London. Bexley was actually strapped in the car while her dad was shot. And she keeps saying, I believe, boom, boom or bang, bang.

Yeah, she often says boom, boom, boom, daddy on the ground when she talks about that night. Let me ask you, we were just hearing your husband's ex-wife who was crying about the death of her ex. Now that evening, let me understand, Jared had just left her house, right? Correct. He had just dropped Liam and Abby back off at her home. His twins? Yes. Nine years old at the time? Yes.

Was that, may I ask you, Kirsten, was that a scheduled visit? Yes. So Jared and Shanna had 50-50 custody of Liam and Abby. So every other week they were with the alternating parents. So when they were with their mom, Jared would pick them up every Wednesday that she had them, take them out on what was referred to as date night. And then when they were at our home for the week, Shanna would come to our house and pick them up Wednesday nights for a date night. It was every single week. So you would have them in your home for a week, and then they go back to their mom. Correct.

Can I backtrack just a little bit, Kirsten? Could you tell me how you and Jared met? Yeah, so I had moved out to Charlotte, North Carolina to start working for Microsoft. And new to the area, a friend was like, hey, you should just get on this dating app. It's a good way to meet people, so I did. Jared's profile was one of the first ones that I saw. What impressed me about him is that his first picture was him and Liam and Abby. He was proud to be a dad.

He's proud of his kids, and he made it clear, like, these people are important to me, and it's a passage deal. Anyway, we started talking, and we talked on the phone for hours, and then he actually drove six and a half hours from Florida up to Charlotte to take me on a date, and the rest is history. Okay, wait a minute. He drove. You just gave me chill bumps down my right arm. He drove six and a half hours from Floridaida to charlotte to take you on a date he did yeah that must have been some date what did you do on the date everything um we fit

in as much as we could we we often refer to it as a marathon date because we met at a museum um went around the museum for a few hours then we went out and got some food and then we went bowling and then we tried to do an escape route like we did everything we just couldn't get enough time together um especially since you know it was a long distance relationship so we made the most of the time that we got to spend together you know something you just said really sticks out in my mind we just couldn't get enough time together yeah when did you know that he was the one um I think it's when I met his kids just seeing him as a dad um you know the way he treated me I knew how that was and it was amazing but then to see him as a father and how invested he was in

them how much he loved them that just kind of sealed it for me. You know, like, I wanted to have children. I wanted to have a family. And I wanted someone who wanted it just as much as I did. And it was clear that he shared those values and those desires. How was the relationship between him and his ex, Shanna Gardner Fernandez. Yeah, it was a very combative relationship. In her interview, she refers to, you know, we had happy moments. I don't recall any happy moments between the two households, but that was not a thing. What was there to,

I mean, I understand the drama of back and forth, back and forth, week on, week off, and the scheduling. I mean, that's why he couldn't move. He couldn't move to be with you in Charlotte because his children were in Florida. So you end up moving down there, right? Yeah, so I got permission to work remote. So I left the office and just worked from home so that we could start our family together here in Florida. And you did because now you have Bexley and you have London, correct? Yes, two little girls.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. In the last days, a bombshell convicted felon arrested in the murder of a Microsoft executive, a loving husband, a loving father, a devout Mormon, Jared Breidigan, gunned down in the middle of the road with three-year-old daughter Bexley in the back seat. Why? Oh, how I would like to get my hands on that sealed arrest warrant, the arrest warrant for a felon busted in Jared Breidigan's murder. How did the whole thing start? Kristen, you were talking about the terse exchanges,

the contentious relationship between your family, Jared, and his ex. Didn't that seep into the children's life? Didn't they know about the hostility? And what was it over? They did. And that was something that Jared and I we fought so hard to keep

Liam and Abby out of things. There's so many text messages and emails where we plead with his ex-wife and her husband to not involve the children because often they would come home saying, mom and Mario said X. And we would be like, you shouldn't even be involved in these conversations and would again, reach out to his ex-wife and her husband and ask them, please don't involve the kids. Like, let's keep this between adults. They don't deserve to be pulled into this. So it was heart-wrenching, you know,

having a split home, like split family, spending one week here and one week there, it's hard enough. They don't need the added stress of being involved in adult conversations. What was the ongoing battle? I mean, did the ex want full custody and why? I mean, the court records will speak for themselves. It was very combative over a slew of things. You know, one week it's this,

the next month it's something else. She took us to court often, as the record will show. And one thing that just continually surprised us and our attorney was the language that was used in the motions filed. It was not professional. It had outrageous claims such as the father doesn't care if his child lives or dies, which is absolutely false. And these are just so skewed. It was just shocking that they would even put that type of language in something, especially when it was based on lies. Absolutely nothing. Guys, take a listen to our friends at CrimeOnline.com. Just 12 days after Jared Bridegan was gunned down in front of his two-year-old daughter, his widow received an email from his ex-wife asking for his death certificate.

The terse email sent to Kirsten Bridegan on February 28th by Shanna Gardner-Fernandez said, quote, My attorney has requested a copy of Jared's death certificate for the family court. You can send it to me or to him and his paralegal directly, whichever you prefer. Unquote. The 31-year-old widow said she was shocked by the email. I was in my car. My hands were shaking.

My heart was beating so fast. I was like, who does this? This is so evil. Here I am planning a funeral and she's asking for a death certificate. To Daryl Cohen joining me, high profile lawyer that practices all over the country. You can find him at DarylCohen.tv. Daryl, can't you go to public records and get a death certificate? Of course you can, Nancy, but that's not what this was designed to do.

This was designed to take the dagger and drop it deeper and deeper and deeper and then twist it and then make sure you twist it some more. That's what this is about. Nothing else. Nothing more at this point. You know, Daryl Cohen, I know you're a high profile lawyer, but I was going to you for a legal question about how you get a death certificate. It's really easy. You go to public records and you have to pay about $5 for the Xerox copy. But Dr. Angela Arnold, although he is a JD, not an MD psychiatrist like you, he may be right,

Dr. Angie. Oh, I think he's right on, Nancy. All of us can look at human behavior. And as this story unfolds, it's everything that this ex-wife does from keeping them in court while he was alive now to this, it's just so abusive. It's abusive to the mother of the children and his wife. I mean, his widow, to me, it's horrific. And I think that as human beings, we can all see this, and I think that's why Daryl was speaking to that. I just am trying to imagine. Kirsten Breitigan is with us. Guys, this is Jared's widow and the mother of two of his children.

He was not even married yet, and if she has a lawyer who's directing her to get a death certificate, she could just get one from county records. It's not hard. But she called you while you were planning the funeral for you to send her a death certificate? Yeah, and that's why I was upset. A lot of the time, she wouldn't even talk to us without her attorney. She'd have her attorney say, talk to my attorney, email my attorney, yet she reaches out to me personally, asks for a death certificate that I don't even have copies of yet. Like, I didn it was the 25th. I'll have to double check that date.

Yeah, the 25th. She already filed a suggestion of death with family court. That was already done. And in addition to that email, a few minutes prior, she emailed me asking me to return library books. Oh, yeah. So as a matter of fact, take a listen to, again, our friends at CrimeOnline.com. Eight minutes before sending an email message requesting the death certificate of Jared Bridegan, his ex-wife, Shanna Gardner-Fernandez, sent another email to Kirsten Bridegan. This email asked the grieving widow to return a set of school library books that were borrowed by the twins shanna wrote quote you can drop them off at any public library and they will return them to miss stacy or return them to the school directly unquote kirsten bradigan said that after losing her husband in such a brutal way and only 12 days earlier returning a couple of library books wasn't on her list of priorities at the time. Okay. Let me understand because Kirsten,

when my fiance was murdered, I dropped out of school. I couldn't eat, didn't eat, stopped everything. I couldn't even think straight. And I don't know how long, really haven't counted up, the months that I was like that.

But I didn't have children that I had to be strong for at that time. You do. So let me understand this. While you're planning the funeral, you get an email from the ex about returning library books? Yeah. And to me, that was just her pouring salt in the wound. She didn't care how I was feeling. She didn't seem to care about anything except sending those emails to me.

Have you had contact with her since the murder? Yes, I have. There's been text messages. I've even seen her in person the following day or two after, and multiple text messages since then. Regarding? The majority of them are me requesting the FaceTime with Liam and Abby, most of which have gone either ignored or the response has been no since April.

Kristen, what happened in your world the night that Jared was murdered? You were at home with the children. What exactly happened? Our youngest daughter, London, had started going to bed.

We were doing sleep training and she would go to bed before 7pm. I wasn't on date night with jared and kids but bexley always went with him she was always there and so he had called me right after he dropped him and abby off at their mom's house and just said we had a good date night um bexley said that they got ice cream and she was still eating it. And then she said, okay, I love you. I'll see you soon. And then time kept going and I started to feel uneasy.

I kept looking at the clock thinking he should be home by now. He's always home by now. Something's not right. My parents were at our home and I remember telling them, like, I know something's wrong. Like something is not okay. I kept calling and calling. I texted. And it's not like him to pick not pick up especially if he's in the car like he's not doing something else he's just driving he would answer his phone I started looking at traffic reports to

see if there was an accident or anything and wasn't seeing things so I got in the car I took my mom with me. My dad stayed at home with London and started driving out to the beach where I knew he had been last. He had just dropped William and Abby off. That's the last point I knew he was. So I started driving that way. And while I was driving, I kept calling his phone. And after four or five tries, it picked up. But it wasn't Jared. It was a police officer who just kept telling me to come to the station as I kept asking, is my husband okay? Is my husband okay?

And he said, please come to the Jacksonville Beach Police Department. Your daughter's fine. But he would not answer me about my husband. And that just confirmed to me Jared was not okay. My mom was trying to calm me down. She said, maybe it's an accident. You know, we don't know what happened, but I knew, I knew in my gut that Jared wasn't okay. And when we got there, I saw Bexley and then it clicked. I'm like, if this was a car accident,

Bexley would be taken to the hospital to get checked out. Like, this is not a car accident. Why is she here at the station? And then it was a long night. I had to wait a while until they confirmed that Jared had been killed. Talked to detectives. I had to call his family that night. So it was, you know, like my whole world just came crashing down. And I remember the same thing. Kirsten, who told you that Jared had been killed? A detective

informed me. You know, at first when I was sitting in the break room at the police station with my daughter, my mom, a female officer, I kept asking like what happened? Can I see him? You know, I didn't know for sure if he had died. I didn't know any details, but they just told me it's a death investigation. And I said, is it him or someone else? They wouldn't answer. They asked me to describe what my husband looked like. And so then after a while, I was taken into another room away from my daughter and my mom and informed that Jared had been shot.

Kirsten, did you go back to the scene? Did you go back and see where your husband was ambushed? No. In fact, when I left the police station and I was there several days in a row, I had to go another way. I couldn't go there. I didn't know if there would still be blood on the street. I didn't want to go there.

It wasn't until a few weeks after that I went back with a friend because I had printed a big sign of the truck asking for people to call in if they knew anything. And I put it on that street. And that was the first time I was back, and I, to this day, avoid that road. Can I tell you something? I have never gone to the scene where my fiancé was murdered, and I don't want to. I don't want to see it.

It hurts enough as it is. I don't want to go back and see that and have that in my mind too. So I completely understand. And for me, it was just my own pain. You're having to feel the pain of your children. To Rebecca Rosenberg, joining us from Fox News Digital and New York Post, Rebecca, describe to me the scene and what we

believe happened the night Jared was ambushed and murdered. Okay, so he had just dropped his children off at his ex-wife, and he was maybe five, ten minutes from her home, but probably closer to five minutes, and he had Bexley in the car and he just entered this wooded stretch of sanctuary way boulevard that even though there's homes on the other side of the woods, you really can't see the car

or see the houses from where he was. He encountered a tire in the road. In order to continue down that road, he had to get out of the car to move the tire. When he stepped out of the car, he was shot repeatedly in front of Bexley. And the assailant fled uh and three minutes later a good samaritan pulled up and got bexley out of the car and the police were called but there's no surveillance footage there was i believe a ring doorbell that captured um the sounds of the shot so they know exactly when he was killed, but there's no surveillance footage of the actual crime. And there is an F-150 truck that was captured, I guess, near there, and the police are calling it a vehicle of interest in the crime. Take a listen to our friends at WJAX. This blue Ford F-150 pickup

truck was a big part of the investigation. Police continually asking for information about it. Detectives thankful for the hundreds of tips that they've already received. Thank you again to everyone who stepped up. It was very helpful. We hope to have more answers to provide to you, even if it cannot be today. News 4 Jack spoke to a man who asked to stay anonymous and he said Tannen was his roommate. He also went on to say this. What kind of vehicle did he drive?

I drive a old Ford F-150 and he had an old Crown Vic. What color was that F-150? It's blue color maybe two-tone. Police released surveillance video of this blue F-150 pickup truck after Bridegan's murder. They believe it is connected to a stage scene set up to get Bridegan to stop on his way home. It was during that stop that the father of four was shot and killed at close range with his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter strapped in the back seat nearby. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. As you know by now, a major development in the murder investigation of victim Jared Breidegen, a felon arrested in his shooting death, gunning him down right in front of his little daughter, three-year-old Bexley. Many of the court documents remain

sealed. He's charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Conspiracy with who? What's the connection with Jared Breidigan? Let's take a listen to our friends at WJAX. Since very early on, detectives have told me this is not a random murder. This case has gotten national attention, and today people are asking, what is the connection with the man arrested by Jacksonville Beach Police and Jared Breidegen? We did some digging and found some disturbing details

linking him to Jared Breidegen's ex-wife's new husband. Nearly a year after the mysterious shooting of Jared Bridegan, investigators have arrested a suspect. He was gunned down in cold blood. Nothing was stolen from him. His two-year-old daughter remained strapped in the car seat in the back. This was a planned and targeted ambush and murder. As Breidigin's widow and siblings stood by, Jacksonville Beach Police Chief Jean Paul Smith and State Attorney Melissa Nelson revealing murder and other charges against 61-year-old Henry Tennon. He'd been in custody on unrelated charges since an August arrest in Jacksonville. Prosecutors not releasing many details, but telling us they know Tennon did

not act alone. Questions about Jared Breidigan's ex-wife, Shauna Gardner-Fernandez, and her new husband, Mario Fernandez, continue. Right now, we're in northwest Jacksonville, about 25 miles away from the scene of the shooting in Jacksonville Beach. However, this home behind me is critical for the investigation. We had the news for Jack's I-team. Uncovered records showing that Henry Tennant used to live here and the former owner was Mario Fernandez. That's right. The I-team uncovered property records linking the two together, making Fernandez the landlord and Tennon the renter at the time of the murder. Neither has been charged or named as a suspect, but the I-team has confirmed Shauna moved to Washington state with her kids. Sources believe Fernandez is still in Florida. We understand

that the ex-wife has moved. As soon as the development was announced in the case, the ex-wife moves from Florida all the way, 2,800 miles across the country to the Pacific Northwest. Why? With Bridegown's twins. Across the country to the Pacific Northwest. Now, sources report that the new husband, Mario Fernandez, did not go with her. What is the connection between these three? The state's attorney, Melissa Nelson, states very clearly, we know convicted felon Henry Tennant did not act alone.

I predict somebody's going to be singing for a plea deal. As always, our prayers with the children and the wife and the family of Jared Breidigan. And we wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.