DUVAL COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 Henry Tenon, the accused gunman in the Jared Bridegan murder\u2011for\u2011hire case, has withdrawn a 2023 guilty plea and filed to suppress statements he made to prosecutors during plea negotiations. <\/p>\n
Tenon initially pleaded guilty March 16, 2023, to second\u2011degree murder with a weapon under a deal that required him to testify against alleged co\u2011conspirators Shanna Gardner and Mario Fernandez and carried a sentencing range beginning at 15 years. <\/p>\n
He recanted that testimony in January 2025 and later sought new counsel.<\/p>\n
On Feb. 17, 2026, Judge London Kite allowed Tenon to withdraw his plea; prosecutors did not oppose the motion. Tenon has since been indicted on first\u2011degree murder, child abuse and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. <\/p>\n
The defense filed a motion on Thursday seeking suppression of a sworn March 15, 2023, interview at the State Attorney\u2019s Office, arguing the statements were made during active plea negotiations and are inadmissible under Florida law.<\/p>\n
Investigators allege Tenon ambushed and killed 33\u2011year\u2011old Jared Bridegan in February 2022 as part of a murder\u2011for\u2011hire plot. They say Fernandez paid Tenon about $10,000. <\/p>\n
Bridegan\u2019s toddler was in the vehicle but unharmed. <\/p>\n
Tenon\u2019s pretrial hearing is set for March 23; Gardner and Fernandez remain indicted with jury selection scheduled for Aug. 10. <\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUVAL COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 Henry Tenon, the accused gunman in the Jared Bridegan murder\u2011for\u2011hire case, has withdrawn a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1039,30375,116,118,117,30372,30373,30374],"class_list":["post-200113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-duval-county","tag-henry-tenon","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jared-bridegan","tag-mario-fernandez","tag-shanna-gardner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}