Ex-wife of Microsoft exec who was shot dead in front of his daughter, 2, ‘asked tattoo shop worker whether he knew anyone who could ‘shut him up’ after getting a piercing on her genitals’ – FOX reports

Jared Bridegen, 33, was gunned down Feb. 16, in Jacksonville Beach, Florida in front of his 2-year-old daughter minutes after dropping off his twins at his ex-wife’s house

No arrests have been made and no suspects mentioned in the case

Recent expose says the victim’s ex mentioned that she was shopping for someone go after him to a friend, before he was shot dead

Shanna Gardner-Fernandez, 35, was getting the genital piercing at a Florida tattoo parlor in 2015 after divorcing husband Jared Bridegan but still living together 

An employee of the tattoo parlor, who said he and Fernandez became friends after the piercing, said she brought it up at a dinner at a Jacksonville restaurant 

‘She told us her life could just be better if he could just “shut up” and asked us if we knew anybody that could “shut him up,”‘ he said

‘I did not take it at the time as anything nefarious,’ he added. ‘In hindsight, I can see how that can be taken differently now’ 

Bridegan had been locked in almost constant litigation with Gardner-Fernandez since she filed for divorce in 2015

As investigations gather momentum, Gardner-Fernandez and her new husband, Mario, last week retained services of the former president of the Florida Bar 

The ex-wife of a Microsoft exec who was shot and killed in front of his two-year-old daughter allegedly asked a tattoo shop worker if she knew anyone who could ‘shut him up’ after she got her genitals pierced at his shop.
Shanna Fernandez, 35, got the piercing at a Florida tattoo parlor in 2015 after divorcing husband Jared Bridegan, 33, but while the pair were still living together.
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An employee of the tattoo parlor, who said he and Fernandez became friends after the piercing, said she brought it up at dinner at a Jacksonville restaurant called the Flying Iguana. 
‘She had been talking to us about her divorce, and she told us her life could just be better if he could just “shut up” and asked us if we knew anybody that could “shut him up,”‘ the employee, who wanted to stay anonymous, said. 
‘I did not take it at the time as anything nefarious,’ he added, according to Fox News.
‘In hindsight, I can see how that can be taken differently now.’

Detectives attempting to find answers to the case interviewed the worker last week, who said Gardner-Fernandez complained that Bridegan was ‘trying to take all of her money.’
He added that he was a little surprised that Fernandez, who looked ‘like a regular mother’, got the genital piercing on her first day visiting the shop, but became wilder and wilder as she returned.  
‘She went from this goody two shoes girl to this wild lady,’ he said. ‘I just remember thinking, well, this is a changed woman.’
Jared Bridegen, 33, was gunned down Feb. 16 in Jacksonville Beach, Florida in front of his 2-year-old daughter after dropping off his twins at his ex-wife’s house.
He had been locked in almost constant litigation with Gardner-Fernandez since she filed for divorce in 2015. He later married Kirsten Bridegan with whom he shares two daughters – two-year-old Bexley and London, 1. 

Fernandez and her new husband, Mario, last week hired attorney Henry Coxe III, the former president of the Florida Bar who specializes in federal and state criminal matters, as the murder of her ex-husband remains unsolved. 
Coxe told Fox News on Tuesday that he was retained by the Jacksonville Beach couple ‘for the purpose of seeing if steps could be taken to protect her young twins from any publicity surrounding this tragic event.
‘As for any other reason for the family to have or need counsel, whether it be myself or anyone else, there is none,’ he added. 

The legal move comes as Fernandez and Bridegan’s relationship has been heavily scrutinized by investigators after the father-of-four was gunned down on February 16, with new details continuing to emerge about the couple’s messy split. 
A friend of the couple revealed that Bridegan and Fernandez’s relationship started out lovingly, but finances were always at play in the background. 
Her parents allegedly, financially supported the couple before the divorce — including a monthly stipend of $8,500 a month, according to court papers. As the couple worked their way through their estrangement, the soon to-be-divorced Shanna allegedly, complained to a new fried that ‘he [Bridegan], was trying to take all her money.’

According to reports Jared Bridegan was a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon church.
He married his first wife, Shanna Gardner, in a 2010 fairytale wedding at the Salt Lake Temple in Utah. But his bride who comes from a prominent and wealthy Mormon family, stopped going to church, then allegedly had an affair.
After Bridegan found explicit emails exchanged between his wife and her coach, Gardner filed for the divorce on February 23, 2015 – which turned extremely acrimonious.
Shanna Gardner, born to Sterling and Shelli Gardner, the co-founders of Utah-based Stampin’ Up! paper crafts company, allegedly wooed Bridegan in 2009 with the promise of a luxury from her parent’s $100million business. 
‘It was like she was saying, “Look what my lifestyle is like, I can fly you all over, my parents pay for everything,”‘ the friend told Fox.
By 2015, the couple had moved to Bridegan’s native Jacksonville Beach with their twins, Abby and Liam, to accommodate Liam’s heart condition that required him to live at sea level. 
That’s when the marriage broke apart and Fernandez filed for a divorce, saying their marriage was ‘irretrievably broken,’ according to court documents. 

During the proceedings, Gardner-Fernandez demanded exclusive occupancy of the family’s home and custody of the twins, accusing their dad of threatening to withdraw cash from their children’s trust funds for his own use, Fox reported. 
Bridegan told the court that he deserved custody, alimony and child support support payments and ownership of the home given that she had the means to live elsewhere. 
He also accused her of spying hon him by hiding baby monitors in the twins’ bedroom, one under Abby’s dresser and another under Liam’s bed, as well as attaching a tracking device to his car. 
‘This is enough!!! I should have every damn right on my own property to not constantly be under recording or monitoring by Shanna,’ he wrote to his divorce lawyer on May 17, 2015. ‘I want the flipping gates of Hell released on her for this.’ 
Bridegan added that Garner-Fernandez had allegedly cancelled an important heart surgery appointment for their son in June 2015, the final straw for the dad who had once tried to preserve his marriage. 

Although they agreed to share custody in 2015, the couple continued to fight in court for six years, during which both of them got hitched to other people. 
Bridegan married Kristen in 2017, who he has two children with, while Fernandez married Mario in 2018. 
During the on-going legal battle, Fernandez filed her own set of accusations against Bridegan, claiming in 2019 that he was coaching their children to make statements against her and recording the testimonials for court, Fox reported. 
She demanded a social investigation into the matter, which was denied, and then in June 2021, she filed another motion accusing her ex-husband of not letting her borrow a breathing machine for their son. 
‘The father apparently considers his vindictiveness toward the mother more important than protecting his son’s health and life,’ her attorney wrote in the filing. 
The court had Jared buy her out of the minimal investment she made and awarded ownership of the device to Jared four months before he was murdered. 
Bridegan had just dropped the twins back at his ex-wife’s house on February 16 at around 7.30pm and was taking his regular route home when he stopped to move a tire placed in the road – a trap, police think, set to lure him out of his vehicle.
He was shot multiple times at close range next to the driver’s door of his Volkswagen Atlas. Bridegan’s two-year-old daughter, Bexley, was in the car, strapped in her child-seat.
The brutal crime rocked the quiet Florida beach town with Bridegan’s friends and family expressing profound shock that anyone should have targeted the man whom, they say, had no enemies.
The devout Mormon tech executive was, according to his grieving widow, a devoted and wonderful father to his four children.

Despite the tragedy, Fernandez and the twins did not attend his funeral and instead held a separate memorial service some weeks later.
In now deleted blog posts Bridegan’s former mother-in-law, Shelli Gardner, initially claimed in a post that, ‘After Shanna (along with everybody who knew her) was uninvited from Jared’s funeral services, Shanna and the twins planned their own celebration of life.’
When comments were posted taking issue with this statement Gardner countered in another post, ‘As everyone knows there are multiple sides to every story and I’ve chosen not to share our side, for the sake of everyone involved, especially our children.
‘I would like to clarify a couple of points. Yes, Kirsten offered to arrange to pick up Liam and Abby prior to the memorial service and then bring them back…but since not one person from Jared’s family, including his parents, had reached out to Liam and Abbie, the twins didn’t want to be without their mom.’