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- [00:00]
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At the Murdersheet. We're a small two person business run entirely out of our home office. We know that expertise matters when it comes to growing and scaling. We also know that upwork can help us take our business and yours to the next level by connecting us with talented, specialized freelancers on whatever project we can imagine.
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Signing up for Upwork is totally free and easy. Get on there and post a job now. All your recruiting posts, contracts and payments will be taken care of under one roof. There is a reason why thousands of businesses already trust Upwork to help them win the talent game.
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Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's upwork.com upwork.com Kevin and I both wear glasses.
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We need them to see, but we're definitely guilty of hanging onto them for way longer than we should, like even after they're a bit battered and scratched. So we put it off as long as possible. We've both been wearing the ones we're currently wearing for probably two or three years. I don't even really remember. It'd be hundreds of dollars to replace them, thank goodness.
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There's Zenni Optical. Zenni is an online eyewear shop with lots of stylish prescription glasses, sunglasses and customizable lens options, all starting at under $30.
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I adore a pair of oversized square shaped sunglasses, so naturally I ordered the Zenni Sausalito sunglasses. I' Suffering through this summer so far without prescription sunglasses, I'm giving myself a headache either from my blurry vision or from the bright lights. Now I can avoid the headaches altogether and I feel these are really cute sunglasses too. It's a classic style, perfect for summer. I can wear them to the beach or on a long summer walk with Kevin and Nick and Nora, our dogs. I would have expected to pay well over a hundred bucks. Even more for these glasses and they were like $77. That is an amazing, unbelievably low price for prescription sunglasses, let me tell you. And I got those without sacrificing on the quality. That scratched up pair has done its job upgrade today with Zenni. Go to zenni.com podcast and use code podcast15 for 15% off your first order plus free shipping on all US orders over $65. The styles sell out so don't sit on it. That's Z-E N N I.com podcast promo code podcast15.
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I started Ornod in 2013 and we make bike apparel. The best part of Shopify for me is our ability to run the business as essentially non technical people. We're able to admin everything on the back end, front end and sell things online easily. If Shopify were a bike accessory, I think it would actually be the bicycle. It's the thing that you do the thing on. We run the business on Shopify. Start your free trial on shopify.com I'm
- [03:48]
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Anya and we are in the middle of a deep dive into a case with twists, turns and upcoming trials. This series will take you inside the murder of Jared Breitigan and make you an expert before the trials even begin.
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Content Warning this episode contains discussion of murder and violence.
- [04:08]
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In our last episode, we took you through the ongoing search for forensic evidence and possible murder suspects in the murder Jared Bregan.
- [04:17]
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Today, though, is all about stories, rumors, chatter, gossip, the word on the street and how that can mislead investigators and how it can illuminate certain truths about a victim's life. Because today we will learn even more shocking details about the level of animosity between Jared and his former wife, Shana Gardner, and her new husband, Mario Fernandez Saldana.
- [04:45]
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Let's start with a rather telling investigative measure employed by police in this case. On February 19, 2022, Officer Shane Jarman, the evidence technician at the Jacksonville Beach Police Department, returned to the property room garage. There, he and his colleagues had smashed up the door of Jared's SUV in order to dislodge a missing bullet. This time he wanted to check something else. He wanted to know if someone had stuck a tracking device on Jared's vehicle. He wanted to know if Jared had a stalker.
- [05:20]
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We say this is telling because it demonstrates that police suspected Jared was targeted. Some isolated road rage inspired perpetrator would not put a tracker on Jared's car, nor would some random deranged killer shooting people. No, a tracker spoke to someone targeting Jared. Specifically, somebody who wanted Jared dead.
- [05:43]
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Officer Jarman crouched down and checked the wheel wells and beneath the gas tank cover and under the hood. Nothing. Officer Jarman crawled under the car. He scrutinized the whole undercarriage. He found nothing. He even switched on the OSCR360 tablet to see if he could pick up any Bluetooth, WI fi, something that could give away a tracker. Nothing. He got a tracker detector app. It showed nothing. He headed back to the property room to check out the vehicle's keys for Detective Jason Lamont.
- [06:17]
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While he was there, something started to beep. Property officer R.K. mobley handed officer Jarman the keys. One key had an Apple tracker on it. Officer Jarman returned to the vehicle and then locked the garage. Detective Lamont and Detective Stephen Currier then went in to check the Bluetooth connections on the vehicle. They locked the door behind them. There were no trackers, but they still suspected a targeted murder. So the search for any clues about Jared's killer continued.
- [06:51]
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My name is Anya Cain. I'm a journalist.
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And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.
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And this is the Murder Sheet.
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We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases. We're the Murder Sheet.
- [07:06]
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And this is the Murder of Jared Bredigan Part 4. The fight. It. The paperwork in Jared's case also turned on on February 22, 2022. Detective Courier reported that Assistant State's Attorney Christina Stifler put together a Google Geofence warrant that would allow investigators to digitally corral all the phones on at the time of the murder in a certain geographic area. Judge Eric Robinson signed that warrant.
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Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Bureau Special Agent Mark mutts completed the AT&T subpoena and one for T mobile for Gardner and Fernandez Saldana.
- [08:32]
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Detective Currier reviewed the Vigilant plate system, a license plate recognition platform, or LPR, that showed Jared's SUV on St. John's LPR system going westbound on Longleaf Pine Parkway and St. John's Parkway. By using this technology, detectives could track their victim that night.
- [08:53]
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One notable fact it did not pick up Fernandez Aldana's registered vehicles at that time. Police wanted to know where exactly Gardner's new husband was when her ex was getting shot and killed. Detective Courier checked that out further with Jacksonville Sheriff's Office analyst George Owen Sia.
- [09:13]
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Oftentimes, the investigators would work closely with the State Attorney's office on the paperwork front. For instance, Corporal Yvonne Santiago emailed Assistant State's Attorney Devin Lybrand for Assistance with subpoenaing Wendy's and Chase. It turned out the detectives needed to get a specific address for that exact Wendy's that Jared went to.
- [09:31]
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Though Corporal Santiago also called the St. John's County Clerk of Courts for court records around Jared, she left a voice message. She sent a request for help finding his life insurance policy to the national association of Insurance Commissioners. The investigation needed to cover all angles of Jared's life.
- [09:52]
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Meanwhile, new witnesses continued to come in. The public could be very proactive in the wake of a murder. One man. We'll call MH called in to the police. He wanted to eliminate his vehicle from the investigation.
- [10:04]
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He had driven on Sanctuary Parkway in a 2015 black Ford F150. He had not seen the vehicle with the hazard lights, just a small four door sedan parked in the painted lines. He thought that might have been Wednesday night, but then again, he wasn't sure. It was some night. He had a story, though. A dramatic one. He wanted to share that too.
- [10:27]
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This is one of those quintessential investigative stories. Something that sounds huge at first. Let's get into it.
- [10:33]
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IMH heard that Jared had been in a big argument with someone at the baseball fields behind the police station where on Wednesday afternoon, the last afternoon of his life. In other words, MH did not know much more than that, but he wanted to share it. He gave the name of a woman who might know more.
- [10:52]
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So detectives went to find her. Understandably, because obviously if Jared was involved in a fight or a verbal altercation with somebody the day he was murdered, that would be a really big deal. Let's call this woman. MH mentioned mb MB confirmed that she had heard the story. She said she got it from a woman.
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We'll call LS Detectives found LS she told them she got it from a woman. We'll call N.B. n.B.
- [11:19]
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Had heard it from a woman. We'll call P.T.
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that's where detectives ran into an obstacle. They had a hard time reaching P.T. they went back to L.S. who said as far as she knew, P.T. had gotten the story from a man. We'll call M.D.
- [11:34]
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finally, after all that running around, Detective Benjamin Conner and Detective Lamont got MD to come into the station for a recorded interview.
- [11:43]
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Maryland was frankly confused. He had not seen such an incident at the baseball fields or presumably anywhere else. He didn't even know Jared. Now he noted that he did work with Justin Breitegan, but not Jared. He had no idea what all these folks were talking about.
- [12:02]
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Presumably quite bewildered by this time, detectives finally got through to PT as well. Like Maryland, she had no idea how her name got involved in this whole telephone game mess. After all, she hadn't even been to Wingate park that night.
- [12:17]
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That's the rumor mill for you. The thing is, detectives were right to run this down, but it shows you how confused things can get. I doubt any of those witnesses or really non witnesses meant to mislead. Things are just messy. Memories are bad. Sometimes we end up hearing the wrong thing and jumping to conclusions.
- [12:38]
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But something like this is very much why it's important not to place too much weight on community rumors. Like when Kevin and I cover a case, we often hear gossip, rumors, all sorts of stuff from people who live in a town or a city where the crime happened. Occasionally they pan out and prove factual. That's why we like to hear about them. But oftentimes they don't. So our view is that corroboration is key.
- [13:03]
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Detectives kept hearing consistent rumors and even outright assertions about one element of the case, the tensions between Jared and his ex wife, Shanna Gardner. But only time would tell if those would become highly important or a total bust.
- [13:19]
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As February ticked onward, investigators began to piece together more information about the relationship between the exes.
- [13:26]
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On February 19, 2022, Detective Lamont and Corporal Brian Wallace even happened to interview one witness to some of those hostilities. Let's call her V. The police department had put out Jared's route the night of the murder on social media and asked anyone who had driven that around the time of the ambush to come forward. V had done so, so she wanted to share that.
- [13:50]
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She told him she left her marsh side home at about 7:50pm she had been going to drive and pick up her daughter, who waited for her near the St. John's town center, an open air mall in Jacksonville after some kind of volleyball event.
- [14:03]
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When V turned southbound on Sanctuary, she saw four cars in front. She seemingly noticed some of the witnesses who found Jared at the scene. She felt one of the men acted strange, but of course that was just her brief impression. She did not stop her car to see what was happening. That is understandable. Her daughter was waiting for her and she had no way of knowing something so serious had been happening. Plus, it would not likely have made a difference.
- [14:30]
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But here's the thing. V was no random witness. The woman talking to Detective Lamont and Corporal Wallace was a friend of Gardner's. So she actually had a lot of information and opinions about the Gardner Jared feud because she had heard all about Jared from her friend.
- [14:50]
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Police asked her if she knew Fernandez Saldana, too. Her answer was a bit odd. Yes. Not well, he wasn't the sort of person she saw herself being friends with, but he seemed nice enough.
- [15:02]
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V had something interesting to say about an incident involving Jared that had happened pretty recently. She and her family belonged to the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. She claimed that at the LDS church in Neptune beach, her husband and Jared got into some kind of altercation.
- [15:21]
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The reason?
- [15:23]
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Gardner V said Jared became mad that she and her husband had befriended Gardner. As a result of this spat, V's husband actually called the church's legal services. And she heard, presumably through Gardner, that Jared had asked his twins where V and her husband lived.
- [15:42]
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She did not go into the specifics of the argument. Something about Jared not wanting Gardner invited to the church. It was not clear from the documents if she simply was unaware or declined to explain further.
- [15:55]
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Perhaps as a result of that alleged incident, V said Jared was a hothead. That was certainly what Gardner told her. According to V's friend, the divorce was so contentious and Jared was so controlling and impatient.
- [16:09]
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Police wanted to know if Fernandez Saldana had ever gotten into it with Jared. V was not sure. She had a theory of her own. In her view, Jared was the kind of person where he might have just gotten into some kind of a heated exchange after a minor traffic issue, and that the murder had likely been road rage, just an angry man lashing out at the wrong person.
- [16:35]
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So we just heard indirectly from Gardner's side of the ongoing dispute between her and her ex. But plenty of others had something else to say.
- [16:44]
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Family attorneys are lawyers who bear witness and get involved in a lot of drama. Like life changing drama. We guess you could say it's an occupational hazard. So it was important to hear from them about the legal fighting between Jared and Gardner.
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Early on, Corporal Santiago got a hold of attorney Carolyn Zisser of Zisser Family Law. She was the attorney who represented Jared against Gardner. Corporal Santiago wanted to know what Zisser could share. The attorney pointed her Back to the St. John's County Clerk of Courts, specifically the Family Courts Division. She said the divorce was acrimonious, but in her view, Jared was a good father who loved his kids dearly. As for her recollections beyond that, Zisser said she'd need to think about it.
- [17:31]
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The St. John's County Clerk of Courts got back to Corporal Santiago, specifically Director of Technology Christopher Shilladay. He set up a user account for her to get the files, but it would take a few hours since there were a lot of them in the divorce case. And trust me, there were a lot of files in this divorce case. We will be going in depth on those in a Future episode.
- [17:53]
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By February 21, 2022, Corporal Santiago hadn't heard back from Jared's attorney in a while, so she got in touch with Zisser again. The attorney said she was trying to be cooperative and had requested her late client's files from storage. But she'd probably need consent from Kirsten Brideigan, Jared's widow, to share it. For her part, when Corporal Santiago checked, Kirsten agreed to sign that waiver. The newly widowed young woman added that Brenda Drake was yet another attorney that Jared had hired in the ongoing disputes with Gardner.
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So Corporal Santiago got a hold of Drake. Drake said she had no information to add. She went into the work she had done for Jared. In November of 2021, Drake drafted a letter for him. This was when Jared and Gardner were in a dispute over the therapist the kids were going to. This message is sponsored by Greenlight.
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A
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- [22:28]
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Gardner had responded that January, saying she was not going to agree to a new therapist for the kids. And that was that. Jared told Drake he'd just drop it.
- [22:37]
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Jared also shared his big fears with that attorney. Jared told Drake he was worried his former wife was trying to build some kind of case to gain full custody of the twins. That was a concern he had also shared with Kirsten. That wasn't the only problem. He was anxious that Gardner and Fernandez Saldana were coaching the children, planting ideas in their heads, negative ideas about their father. He worried they were driving a wedge between him and the twins.
- [23:07]
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From her conversations with the attorneys, Corporal Santiago learned that by the time of his murder, Jared was no longer paying child support. There had been a dispute over the education of the twins.
- [23:20]
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See, here's what happened. Gardner wanted the kids to go to the Discovery School just down the road from her home. And Jared didn't agree. He lived in St. Augustine, Florida, in St. John's County. He thought the St. Johns county school system was known for being better than Discovery.
- [23:37]
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The Discovery School is private and a Montessori style school. The tuition is steep, but it's also a small school, allowing for smaller class sizes, which is great for individualized attention from teachers. The St. Johns county public schools are indeed the number one public school district in all of Florida. Honestly, they both seem like good options. It probably comes down to cost and what families are looking for anyways. The educational dispute led to legal wrangling and eventually a compromise. Jared would agree to send the children to Discovery. In exchange, he would no longer have to pay child support. The post divorce relationship between Jared and Gardner was littered with disputes like that, big and small, major and minor.
- [24:24]
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On February 22, 2022 detectives conducted yet another telling interview, One from a man who Kirsten described as one of the people her late husband was closest to, one that took them inside the failed relationship between Jared and Gardner.
- [24:42]
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Lead Detective Christopher Johns and Detective Lamont talked to Adam Brightigan, one of Jared's brothers. Adam talked Jared up. He said his late brother was a patient father, a creative person, a man with a small but close group of friends.
- [24:58]
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Adam wanted the police to know one thing about Jared. For all his many gifts, for all his many positive attributes, he was not social, not confrontational, not the guy who was necessarily putting himself out there. For instance, Adam said his brother wasn't the kind of guy who did lots of phone calls. Now, Adam and Jared talked weekly, but that was just for work. Only about twice a month would they ever check in for personal calls. The last personal call, the last time he'd ever even spoke with his brother had been February 13, 2022. In that call, Adam had joked about Jared calling on the day of the Super Bowl. But that wasn't surprising. Jared wasn't really into Sports.
- [25:42]
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Adam seemed to be setting that up because there was an aspect of Jared's personality that played a role in the dissolution of his marriage to Gardner.
- [25:51]
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We mentioned in a previous episode that Adam's wife Charlie had introduced Jared and Gardner. The pair got married and for a while, Gardner's family seemed to love Jared. Gardner seemed to love Jared. Everything seemed great. Gardner's family even paid the young couple stipends with the stipulation that they stay in school.
- [26:13]
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When the twins were born, the boy had a heart condition that necessitated the young couple and their babies move to Connecticut. Things started to go wrong there as far as Adam was concerned.
- [26:24]
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Because here's the thing. Gardner didn't want to leave Utah. Her family was there. That was where she had her roots. And when they moved, the physical distance from the gardeners morphed into a social and emotional distance too. Jared, as Adam said, was not social. He didn't check in. He didn't stay in the loop. According to Adam, the gardeners began to really resent that. They stopped liking their son in law and at some point pretty much started hating him.
- [26:57]
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Meanwhile, Shanna was dealing with issues. Postpartum depression. She struggled to lose weight. So did Jared. They became distant from one another. They became unhappy. Adam felt that Gardner's personality seemed to change considerably. She withdrew from the friendship with Charlie and Adam. She left the LDS church while Jared remained a member.
- [27:21]
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I just want to point out the obvious here. None of that, none of that makes Gardner a bad person. Giving birth can really change a woman's life a lot. Suddenly you're responsible for two little people that you love with all your heart. You're dealing with ranging hormones and a changed body. You're dealing with lack of sleep and a changed relationship with your spouse. And this is all while Gardner is living extremely far away from her traditional support system, her family in Utah and also deciding to leave the LDS faith. That doesn't make anyone a bad person. People can change religions, people can change their views, people can change their friends. It does not make anyone a bad person in our book.
- [28:07]
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But Adam said that was not all he felt at some point Gardner started purposely making things worse. That at some point she just gave up on the relationship with Jared. That she instead began manipulating her parents, telling them negative, trumped up things about Jared. She started claiming that he was emotionally abusive. That wasn't true, at least according to Adam. He viewed that as Gardner trying to lay the grounds for getting divorced while retaining her parents approval and financial support. That was very important to Gardner, at least According to Adam, if the gardeners
- [28:45]
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thought their daughter was the victim, isolated on the east coast with a terrible husband, they'd keep sending her funds. That was the idea. But according to Adam, it wasn't just about words and talk behind Jared's back. Adam said Gardner did things to hurt Jared.
- [29:03]
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For instance, presumably when they were still friendly, Gardner would go to Charlie. She would talk about cheating on Jared. She ultimately ended up carrying out an affair with a personal trainer, and that
- [29:16]
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was a personal trainer that Jared had actually paid for for her as a gift. Still, Adam said Jared didn't want to end the marriage. He said his brother begged Gardner to stay with him for the sake of the twins. But it didn't work. The marriage still fell apart.
- [29:32]
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And that was not the end of it. It couldn't be. The couple shared young children, so Jared and Gardner co parented. They met and married other people. None of that was enough. The animosity lingered long beyond the time the divorce papers were signed.
- [29:50]
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The last time Adam ever spoke to Jared Gardner had come up, not in a major way. Compared to some of the other spats Adam had heard about, it seemed kind of minor. Jared said there was conflict between him and Gardner over religion. Jared's oldest daughter, one of the twins, had expressed interest in getting baptized into the LDS faith.
- [30:12]
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It is not quite clear from the documents, but presumably from Jared was for it and Gardner was against.
- [30:19]
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There was also something a bit odd from around that time that Adam remembered. See, Adam and his family had planned a trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Adam was going to take the family over to St. John's county as well, to visit Jared and Kirsten and their girls, but they were unable to do that, unfortunately, due to some car issues.
- [30:41]
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Jared said he would go to Orlando to meet them instead, but he did not follow up. Around that time, Kirsten called instead and apologized. She said it was because she was dealing with stress. Something bad had happened and there was going to be a meeting at their church.
- [30:59]
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It was something involving Gardner and Fernandez Saldana. The documents don't spell this out, but we imagine that this may have been the incident where Jared allegedly became upset with V and her husband over their friendship with Gardner. Again, it is not entirely clear. We could be wrong. That is simply speculation on our parts based on what we've read in these many, many documents.
- [31:27]
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Kiersten, Jared's widow, also had plenty to add about the problems between Jared and Gardner that same day. Kirsten also spoke to Corporal Santiago in depth about the week leading up to Jared's murder and about his soured relationship with Gardner.
- [31:46]
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First, she rattled off her family's day to day. Police really wanted to know if anything odd had happened that might shed light on Jared's fate.
- [31:55]
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On Monday, February 14, 2022, Valentine's Day, Jared took the twins to the Discovery School. Kirsten took the baby to a vaccination appointment and became upset about the way it was handled. Those were the only real activities of note that day.
- [32:12]
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On Tuesday, February 15, 2022, the whole family, Jared, Kirsten and their kids went to their usual chiropractic appointment. They had a standing Tuesday appointment at Revolution Chiropractic. Afterwards, Jared took the baby while Kirsten went to shop at Target.
- [32:33]
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On Wednesday, February 16, 2022 at 9:30am, Kirsten took her 2 year old to a music class and then Walmart to buy her new shoes.
- [32:43]
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Now, if you're like me, all this seems really normal. Just a normal part of a family's routine. None of that really stands out to me. But there was one thing, one particular incident that that struck Kirsten as strange in light of what happened to Jared.
- [33:01]
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Before the murders, Gardner contacted Kirsten, Jared's older daughter. One of the twins wanted to FaceTime Kirsten, so they FaceTimed. Twice in the conversation, the nine year old asked Kirsten about her father's will.
- [33:23]
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The talk of Jared's will just before his murder seems like an awfully troubling coincidence. And I can certainly understand why that lingered in Kirsten's mind. But Corporal Santiago also had to rule out other important possibilities. So she asked some questions. Did Jared have any other romantic entanglements, either ongoing or in the past?
- [33:48]
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Kirsten noted that he had dated a woman named Emily between Gardner and getting with her. They even became engaged. But that had not been a healthy relationship. They broke up. Emily's father had chewed Jared out about it, but that was a long time ago. There had been no word from Emily for years.
- [34:09]
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No. When Kirsten thought about it, the primary relationship that had gone wrong and was continuing to go wrong in Jared's life was that with Gardner. And that brought up a question. What were Kirsten's views on Gardner's new man, Fernandez Saldana? Well, in fairness, Kirsten estimated that she had only interacted with the guy fewer than 20 times. At court hearings, at school and school events, at doctor's appointments. They didn't really know each other.
- [34:40]
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Corporal Santiago wanted to know more about it. Were there allegations of physical abuse between Jared and Gardner? Any history of police involvement? No, there was not. At least as far as Kirsten knew. But even without that physical element, things were bad.
- [35:00]
A
See, Jared had told Kirsten a similar story to what Adam told police, that the marriage broke up because of infidelity on Gardner's part. As a gift, when they were still married, Jared had purchased Gardner a personal training package. The trainer was some guy named Matt. It was supposed to be a gift, something to make Gardner happy. But that's not how it really turned out.
- [35:24]
B
Jared found out about the infidelity. It shattered him. He tried to save the marriage, but Gardner was not having it.
- [35:32]
A
Detectives were left with a clear view based on conversations with Kirsten and Adam. Jared had one clear enemy in his life. Her name was Shanna Gardner, his former wife, the mother of his twins.
- [35:45]
B
But of course, they had only heard one side of the story. They would need to learn more about the situation from Gardner's perspective because these
- [35:55]
A
detectives had to be asking themselves, was an icy co parenting relationship really enough to kill over? It was one thing to dislike an ex husband, to call him a hothead, to call him a jerk, to think that he was not the best father and had not been a good partner. But it was another thing to plot the cold blooded execution of the father of one's children. Investigators would need to dig deeper to find out the truth. Next week we'll be going more into this topic and learning more about the unraveled relationship between Gardner and Jared and learning about how the love that they once shared had curdled in to hatred.
- [36:40]
B
Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us@murdersheetmail.com. if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.
- [37:01]
A
If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com murdersheet if you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www. Buymeacoffee.com murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support.
- [37:24]
B
Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the web@kevintg.com if you're looking to talk with
- [37:35]
A
other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet Discussion Group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening. When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there is no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place so nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-granger. Click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.