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[narrator] This week on Crimefeed, Hollywood bombshell.

A successful producer, son of a Hollywood power player,

suspected of murder.

The story is developing.

And the Long Island serial killer case.

The suspect is in jail, but are there more victims?

And what went wrong that let the killings continue?

And murder for hire, a Microsoft executive gunned down.

The prime suspect, the ex-wife and her new husband.

It's now a death penalty case.

This week on Crimefeed

with Nancy Grace,

investigative journalist Mara S. Campo,

and private investigator Derrick Levasseur.

What exactly does a famous Hollywood producer have

to do with a woman's torso found in a dumpster?

Well, according to police, a lot.

I'm Nancy Grace.

Thanks for being with us here on Crimefeed,

the so-called "Nepo Baby," Sam Haskell IV.

was arrested on suspicion of murder.

He's the son of a high-powered Hollywood agent

who repped the likes of George Clooney, Dolly Parton,

even England's Prince Edward.

His mother, a former Mississippi beauty pageant queen.

Police race to the scene 6:00 a.m.

Wednesday, November 8.

A homeless man finds a dismembered female torso

in a dumpster

just five short miles from Haskell's home in upscale L.A. suburbs.

Now, we know the wife and both in-laws of the Hollywood director

Sam Haskell IV, age 35, are all missing.

The arrest comes 37 days since Haskell's wife May

or her parents have been seen.

The torso does not bode well.

Grainy surveillance video shows a man

driving a white SUV struggling to fling a black bag

from the trunk of the car in that dumpster.

While the torso has not been officially identified,

Sam Haskell IV, apparently obsessed with Brad Pitt,

according to TikToks he's posting.

Haskell himself reportedly working with rappers

like Tyga, Machine Gun Kelly, but try as he might,

he never reaches his father's fame.

Mara, what happened?

Well, Nancy, the suspect's father, Sam Haskell III,

has been a major player in Hollywood for decades.

Sam Haskell, the father, joined the famous

William Morris Endeavor Agency in 1978.

He represented stars like George Clooney, Dolly Parton,

Whoopi Goldberg, and even King Charles' brother, Prince Edward.

Haskell is now the head of Magnolia Hill Productions,

which has produced several Dolly Parton specials,

and he specializes in family-friendly TV.

From 2015 to 2017, he was CEO of the Miss America organization,

until he resigned over an email controversy.

Now, Haskell's mother is also famous in her own right.

Mary Donnelly Haskell became Miss Mississippi in 1977.

With this high profile family, there will be a lot of people

wanting to know every detail as they develop.

You know, it's amazing.

You know, this guy, Sam Haskell IV,

had it all, okay?

He's got this beautiful wife, May.

He lives in a six-bedroom, nearly $3 million compound

in Tarzana.

He... with a pool in the backyard.

Have you seen this place?

But yet, and I quote, he posts all these TikToks.

My resume says unhappy, bitter, resentful.

I'm really surprised May didn't run from him

as if she had seen a monster.

Who wants the guy that says I'm unhappy, bitter, and resentful?

Well, anyway, we're approached by him to get rid of some...

-That's right. -...bags.

He told them they were rocks.

They look inside, they're body parts.

Then he changes his story and says, oh, they're Hollywood props.

They go to two police stations, Derrick,

two, two, one, two, and are turned away.

They're trying to report a dead body and no one will listen.

Yeah, and there's another video that's recently surfaced

where it actually shows that interaction with

those laborers, where they show up and he says, like

you said, hey, I got some rocks I want to have removed.

It's three large bags.

They take the bag. They said it feels like meat inside.

-So they drive down the road. -You're so descriptive.

Thank you for that.

-I have that in my head. -That's their words.

They drive down the road.

They felt like something was off. They open the bag.

They actually say they see a belly button.

So they pack it back up.

They take the bags back to the house.

They bring the money.

They return the money as well, which is why this video

that we're seeing on the screen right now

is so interesting because I believe it was a deviation

from what Sam originally wanted to do.

He wanted to separate himself from the crime.

He was going to, allegedly, right?

He was going to have the laborers dispose of

-the evidence, but instead... -Hold on.

I gotta see that again. Wait, I like to see it

-when you're saying it. -Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, that wasn't the plan I think when they return,

-Yeah. -the bags, he realized, "Oh, crap.

I have to do something here."

I have to get rid of it. So that's why

-he's on camera... -There it is, there it is.

And he gets out. Watch this.

And he basically is heaving... Struggling to get it out.

He went all the way, he put the dead body.

Allegedly in a plastic bag,

which I love because it's covered in fingerprints

and then put that in it.

Uh-oh. Whoa.

Little harder, little harder. There you go.

Push, push, push in a duffel bag and then throws it away.

[Mara] Yeah, and the story of how this came to police's attention

is really remarkable. Like you noted the,

the laborers said... you said it,

they said it felt like meat inside.

They described it as feeling soggy.

So it didn't jibe with what he was telling them

that there were rocks inside. Then, Nancy, to your point,

they go to the police. They get turned away.

You left out the Hollywood prop part.

-Well, they take the bag... -They go back to him.

Look in here. These are not rocks.

And he says, no, no, no. This is for Halloween.

These are props for Halloween. Well, they know something ain't right.

They go to the police. They try to report it.

Then the police say, well, you can stand outside

the police station and call 9-1-1.

And in fact, in audio that has been obtained,

you hear a 9-1-1 dispatcher reporting what they're saying,

but saying the person reporting it is outside

the police station.

So then police respond to the home based on these reports,

and they find nothing.

Because at that time, he's moved the bags.

So they don't have cause to go in the house.

[Nancy] Okay, right there, I got a problem.

And this is my legal problem with that.

You don't have to see the crime.

If you have information that an emergency is happening,

such as another person is being cut up inside

that multi-million dollar Hollywood home,

you can go in if you think an emergency has happened.

Some people call it exigent circumstance when you,

and it came from an old moonshiner case by the way, US v. Carroll,

when they were trying to catch a moonshiner,

they thought they were going to get rid of the evidence.

And he did, but in a way it's a good thing

or we wouldn't have that video.

Yeah, and they did eventually get in.

[Derrick] Obviously, they went back to the house.

They get this video.

They go to the house, and they end up finding

a variety of evidence, including blood.

-Which they won't reveal. -They won't reveal.

But you can expect that right now with an open investigation.

But they find, allegedly, a ton of blood

that suggests a killing and a dismemberment.

But I don't want to skate over the fact that we still have

two individuals, May's parents, that are missing.

There were three large bags. I don't want to go there yet.

I'm hoping for a positive outcome.

But on the surface, it doesn't look good.

Okay, you've got 64-year-old Yanxiang Wang, the mother.

You've got 72-year-old Gaoshan Li,

both missing and they all lived together.

That's right and they would have been home

during the time in this would have occurred.

-It's not-- -And there's three children.

It... three boys and they were reportedly

with DFACS, Department of Family and Children Services,

but now I understand they're with Mary Donnelly.

Sam Haskell IV's sister.

Yeah, the children, ages 6, 8, and 12,

now they've been removed from the home

and they're staying with family.

It is worth noting that there was no identifiable information

on the body parts that were found.

They're certain, I guarantee you, because by now you can get

a DNA quickie in less than 24 hours.

They've gone in and gotten her toothbrush or something

and compared it to DNA from that torso.

I'm wondering, where's the rest of her body?

And where are the parents, like you pointed out?

Absolutely.

All that money and still miserable.

Coming up, serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann.

New leads in the hunt for even more victims

of the alleged Long Island serial killer.

Will we ever know the truth?

Breaking tonight, one woman after the next goes missing,

then bodies and bags turn up hidden in rough,

underbrush Gilgo Beach.

DNA on those burlap bags and late night calls to escorts.

Would they alone be enough to convict the alleged

Long Island serial killer?

But bombshell, new eyewitnesses emerged

placing suspect Rex Heuermann with the dead women.

Eyewitnesses?

Awesome.

Mara, what?

Well, Nancy, as you know, Rex Heuermann

is the main suspect in these killings.

The 59-year-old architect and Long Island resident,

who'd been working in Manhattan since 1987,

has been credibly linked to a number of the murders.

Let's take a look at his connection

to these brutal slayings.

24-year-old Shannon Gilbert vanished after

a chilling 911 call she placed in May 2010.

Her desperate call for help kicked off a search

that led to the discovery of 11 sets of human remains

in the area around Gilgo Beach on Long Island.

Over the span of three days spent searching

for Gilbert in December 2010,

police found the remains of four other women,

all within 500 feet of each other.

Between March and April of 2011, six more sets of

remains were discovered,

with police determining there was likely just

one single killer responsible.

Gilbert's remains were finally found in December 2011.

It wasn't until over a decade later that Rex Heuermann

was arrested, implicated by his Chevy Avalanche linked

to one of the killings and a hair from the crime scene,

likely matching DNA found in a pizza box

discarded by Heuermann.

Well, Heuermann was taken into custody in July

and has been charged with the murders of the three of

the four victims who were discovered first in 2010,

while police continue investigating his ties to the other killings.

And, Nancy, those ties are what I really want to get into now,

after a new bombshell just dropped in this case.

Two witnesses have come forward since Heuermann's arrest,

linking him to two more deaths,

including Shannon Gilbert.

That's the woman whose disappearance kicked off the search

that led to the discovery of all these other bodies.

[Nancy] You know, in addition to those two witnesses,

there are two other witnesses.

Now, what's interesting about the witnesses,

I want to see if you guys agree, a lot has been made of

these victims being sex workers.

Like somehow their lives don't matter as much

as other victims, which I resent deeply.

These victims are not sex workers.

I mean, these witnesses are not sex workers.

One is a bank worker working at a bank by day.

At night, she drives a taxi.

And very "respectable" in that sense of the word.

So I find, I believe that it's going to be

very difficult for a defense attorney

to suggest that she is somehow tainted by her occupation.

And her witness testimony is very solid.

Now I know that very often eyewitnesses are attacked.

That they didn't see what they saw.

But this woman, one of these witnesses describes

Shannon Gilbert, who before many people said,

oh, she was just there as a coincidence,

which doesn't make any sense.

She describes Shannon with Rex Heuermann

right down to her droopy eye.

Hey, could you pull up a picture of Shannon Gilbert?

If you notice a lot of her photos,

she brings her hair down over one side.

She has a droopy eye. It's genetic.

And that witness even identifies the droopy eye.

It's her.

Yeah, the whole statement from that.

You know, Shannon goes into the motel.

She's there with Rex.

Rex is gonna give her $1,000 in an envelope.

He says, here you go.

It's sealed at that point.

-He goes into the-- - [Nancy] Hey, there's the hair.

Check it out.

See, it's the eye that's covered up that was droopy.

[Derrick] Yeah, she has a very specific characteristic

that would be identifiable, right?

So, they're inside the motel, she opens the envelope,

realizes it's a bunch of pieces, just shredded up paper.

So, at that moment, when Rex allegedly comes out

of the bathroom, she runs into it, calls for this taxi driver,

and as soon as she shows up, she runs outside,

and that's where it picks up from there.

So, I think it's a pretty credible witness.

It's funny, because a lot of people were saying

initially they didn't know if Shanann was actually

-connected to the Gilgo family. -Which drove me insane.

-Which... -Like her dead body just happened

to be there with all of his other victims.

-It looks like... -Allegedly.

Yeah, it looks like it might be tied to it.

It might have started all off.

Well, the idea of this being a dumping ground for many killers

came actually from the district attorney

at that time, who was rejecting the idea of

a single killer publicly because he didn't want

to freak the public out.

But there were 11 sets of remains found.

Only three Heuermann has been charged with to date.

But now there's the possibility that all of them

and perhaps more could be connected.

So you have these two witnesses

who have come forward with affidavits.

There are also an additional two who have come forward

to an attorney, both sex workers who had encounters

with Heuermann.

But the ones in the affidavits are the ones where we have

the most detail, and these are the most compelling.

There's the one that you mentioned,

and then there's the woman who says that she

and her boyfriend were swingers.

-They pick up... -It was a detective by the way.

-NYPD. -There's so many

layers to this story because her boyfriend was an officer

and they can do what they want in their personal time.

-Sure. -Not judging.

Don't care.

They say they pick up a sex worker in Manhattan

to take her to Rex Heuermann's home.

At a club called La Trapeze which was known for swingers.

So they go there and they pick up a sex worker

and they... because Asa Ellerup...

Rex Heuermann's wife was pregnant at the time.

And I'm sure she didn't want to hear anything about any swinging.

Well, in fact, when they arrive at the house,

the woman, the witness says she asks us if she wants

to engage in any sexual activity.

And she says no.

[Nancy] But I believe she said H-E-L-L N-O.

-She had no interest in it at that time. -None.

But what was there are many things

that were interesting about this affidavit.

But one of them is she recounts the conversation

that she has with the wife and she says the wife

tells her, "Rex brought me here to this country.

Everything I have is because of him.

I'm lucky he's rich." I guess rich is relative

-and that she was afraid of him. -Bingo.

So this raises a lot more questions.

Why would she be saying that?

What did she witness in the past?

And one thing we didn't mention there is that

this witness and her boyfriend, the cop,

they brought one of the victims, Karen Vergata, to that house.

Karen Vergata was a sex worker at the time.

They pick her up before going to the Massapequa Park home.

They bring Karen to Rex and Asa, right?

There's some things that happen inside.

They're allegedly reporting to this witness that Rex,

Karen and the boyfriend go downstairs for a while.

That's when that conversation happens.

And then when the witness and the boyfriend decide to leave,

they leave Karen behind.

And according to this witness,

-as she's pulling away, -Right.

they see Karen Vergata in the window.

She looks like she's calling for help,

and then she runs out of the house naked.

And what's so concerning about that is they didn't go back.

And this man's a police officer.

-Yeah, they didn't go back. They left her there. -And the woman says,

we're just gonna leave her.

And he goes, oh, yeah, they're just playing a sex game,

-Yeah. Not good. -a sex game that apparently ends in murder.

Guys, coming up, experts insist there are

more victims of the Long Island serial killer.

Can family members reveal evidence?

Their mothers, their sisters, their daughters go missing,

then turn up in burlap bags

along a lonely stretch of beach?

Could Rex Heuermann's own family reveal clues about

the murders?

With us now, you should know him well.

If you don't, you're going to.

High-profile lawyer representing the families

of two of the murder victims, John Ray.

Man,

you blew me away with all that information about witnesses.

Now are you telling me there's another new witness?

There's several new witnesses, one of whom

has signed an affidavit.

Um, in that event, this witness,

who I vetted for several hours and I believe is credible,

and we have physical evidence to support it,

was shot by Rex Heuermann.

-Wow. -And that affidavit that she's signed

has been turned over to the police.

You know, I am stunned at the connection with Shannon.

That is very powerful evidence.

And as a practicing lawyer, would you agree?

We saw it in O.J. Simpson, where DNA,

which I believe proved he was guilty,

was attacked, claiming it was planted,

it had been tainted at the crime lab, blah, blah, blah, blah.

DNA can be attacked, and successfully.

We saw Johnny Cochran do it, and he won.

But when you pair DNA with eyewitnesses,

that's a whole other ballgame.

It is. I agree. And in Shannon's case,

we had no idea, until this witness came forward,

that there was any connection between him and Shannon.

But there still lies out there the question of whether or not

her death is connected with the people we have accused,

Dr. Peter Hackett being responsible for it, as well.

But we now know of a potential connection

between Dr. Hackett and Heuermann.

And that comes in the police inventory of his house.

They took what they deemed survivalist equipment,

survivalist material.

And Dr. Peter Hackett ran a company on Long Island

-called Survivalist Dynamic. -That's right.

And I'd like to point out, he has not been charged.

He's not been named a person of interest at this juncture.

But I guarantee you, if there is a cohort,

if there is a co-defendant, they're going to get them,

and they're going to sing like a canary to save

their own skin, thoughts.

Can I just ask you a follow-up question

on the new affidavit that's forthcoming?

You mentioned that the witness said that

-they had been shot by Heuermann, -Yes.

and what were the extent of their injuries,

and what was the outcome of

the investigation at that time?

The shooting took place years ago, and the witness

was shot across the back of her neck, and in such a fashion,

he missed, basically, but it left a scar on her neck,

and you can see the bullet scar going right across her neck.

-Wow. -And this was a sex worker as well?

This was a sex worker, and I've since done the work,

the legwork to find, this goes back many years,

to find the police case number.

We found it, and the only way that

we can receive that evidence is by FOIA-ling the evidence,

and we've done that as soon as I got the case.

Did you say FOIA, Freedom of Information Acting?

-Yes. -Yes.

And so that method is being used by me now.

I don't know what the police have done with it.

They may have done a lot with it. I don't know.

as much as I'd love to talk about,

the Federal Freedom of Information Act.

Can we get right down to La Trapeze, the swingers bar?

Yes, La Trapeze was a well-known swingers bar

in its day, which goes back into the '90s.

And the people that have come forward

to tell me their firsthand experience with it,

that including the witness who went with Karen Vergata,

indicate altogether that there are a considerable

number of police officers who would go there

and a considerable number of people from Long Island.

The only way you could go there is you had to have a partner

and you had to leave with that partner.

There were crimes committed there, all covered up

because there were that many police...

who were there.

-So... -John, do you think... And there's a lot of problems

with this case, and I think you could attest to that.

-Obviously, nothing was... -[Nancy] I don't see any problems.

Yeah, nothing was digitized initially.

It was kind of a mess.

But do you think what you just hit on right there,

corruption, right, being the big word, so many

police officers from that community being involved

with this sex-working activity,

when this case actually started to come to the surface,

when they started finding bodies,

do you think that contributed to why this case

was always put on the back burner,

why the investigation didn't go forward as aggressively

as it should have?

Well, just to start with this, you know,

I've done 33 homicides, but I have a great deal of regard

for the police as brave and courageous people.

[Derrick] Likewise.

And I, therefore, constantly had to withhold myself

from drawing any kind of a conclusion that

the police were willfully doing anything

in this case, in Shannon's case.

I always gave them the benefit of the doubt.

You cannot do that anymore with the evidence that we have.

The... There is no question whatsoever

in my mind that from the inception

of this investigation until the task force was formed

a little over a year ago, there was willful negligence,

willful avoidance of evidence, willful cover-up of evidence.

[Nancy] Guys, I agree that that's terrible.

Agree, but can we focus on the serial killer for a moment,

the alleged serial killer Rex Heuermann?

Yes, we've said it a million times.

We're beating a dead horse. Yes, some of the cops

are seeing sex workers.

Yes, they didn't want to get caught,

so they didn't want the FBI in it.

Yes, there was a delay.

Now, can we talk about the evidence in this case?

There's plenty of that

Yes, but I think what's concerning to people in terms

of the corruption slash indifference Is that

how many other women potentially were killed

because the police were not taking appropriate action?

And in terms of the witnesses that

you have, you also have a witness.

You have two that were sex workers.

One of them who said that they were

frequently at the home and that the wife

was very much aware at least that Heuermann

frequently entertained sex workers.

Can you tell us a little bit more about what

she maybe did or did not know?

That witness, who came forward,

spoke to me at great length.

And she spent, she said at least 20 times

she serviced Rex Heuermann in his home.

She said that the wife was upstairs.

It's a 1,300 square foot home. It's a teeny weeny bungalow.

It'd be impossible for the wife not to know what

was going on downstairs in a place like that.

And she said that the wife was upstairs so much so that in one instance,

the wife ran out into the yard, very angry

at one of the sex workers who was there,

because the sex worker had allegedly stolen

the wife's iron from an ironing board.

And there was a big battle over that,

and the taxi cab driver had to-- or, rather,

the driver had to-- They had to empty the car

in order to find the iron, which, did not happen.

But when you consider the clutterbug nature

of that house and the way that woman kept things,

it makes perfect sense when you hear that

she was upset about an iron missing,

but it indicates her knowledge,

her actual knowledge of the sex worker.

[Nancy] Well, wait a minute. She's upset about the clothes iron

when her husband's with a sex worker?

I mean,

that's bass-ackwards to me.

I would be doing a backflip at my husband

or with the sex workers. You can have the iron.

Take it.

I'd be mad if you didn't.

But it tells me a lot about claims that the wife,

Asa Ellerup, knew what was happening.

But is it not possible, because one of the witnesses

that you presented the affidavit for said that

when she had this conversation with her,

she said that she was afraid of him.

Is it not possible that she herself is also

a domestic violence victim, that she was almost like a captive,

in a sense, that did not necessarily

have choice in cooperating with him

because she lived with a man she was terrified of?

Anything's possible, but the overwhelming evidence

is exactly the opposite of that.

Consider, for example, in 2010,

we have her emails back and forth to people

across the United States

when she deals with this ComCon.

She was involved in a-- she'd dress up in a weird costume

and that sort of thing.

She's a perfectly happy lady, having a good old time,

traveling around the country.

She travels with her husband in various places

to other states.

And I have a witness who came forward who cut his hair,

and she came with him, and she had her hair cut

as well. That does not sound like somebody who's

in an abusive relationship.

And her comment when she was first confronted by

the press when they came to her home was,

it is what it is.

Not, gee, the poor people that were hurt and killed

and so on. It is what it is.

-That's what she said, and now she's shopped, -A very different sensibility.

according to her own lawyer, who talked to me personally,

she's out shopping, trying to get a seven-figure book deal

to be able to do a book and a movie.

Well, I can tell you right now, somebody's gonna make

a million dollars off of this, and it's not us.

-Not us. -It's blood money, blood money, blood money.

You know what?

You can have it.

Mr. John Ray, thank you so much,

not only for being with us,

but for what you are doing to advance

the truth of this case.

Guys, also tonight, a loving husband, deeply religious dad

of four, ambushed and murdered on a Sunday night

on his way home from dropping off his two twins,

his little daughter, strapped in the backseat,

screaming for daddy.

But was it a murder for hire plot hatched by his bitter ex?

Welcome back, everybody. A Microsoft executive,

a dad of four, shot and killed in a deadly ambush

while he's driving his tot girl

in the backseat of the car. Who would do that?

Well, two years later, according to police,

the murder mastermind is none other than

the spoiled, rotten daughter of millionaires,

his bitter ex-wife.

On February 16th, Microsoft exec Jared Bridegan,

a 33-year-old dad of four driving home

with his daughter, Bexley, just two years old,

when he asked to stop his SUV to remove a tire

strategically placed in the center of the narrow road.

Once Jared is out in the open,

shots fly, riddling the young dad with bullets,

his two-year-old girl still strapped in the back,

crying for daddy.

No robbery, no carjack, no kidnap.

So what's the motive?

Police say revenge.

Mara, what about it?

Yeah, Nancy, detectives linked surveillance video

of a pickup truck at the time and place of the murder

to 61-year-old Henry Tenon.

And after looking into his background,

they made a shocking connection.

They found that he rented a room from Mario Fernandez.

That's the new husband of Jared's ex-wife, Shanna Gardner.

They suspected Shanna and Mario hired Henry

to pull the trigger.

In March of this year, Henry pleaded guilty

to second degree murder and agreed to testify against the couple.

Both charged for playing a key role in the conspiracy

to murder Jared.

This morning, a Fourth Circuit grand jury

indicted Shanna Gardner for first-degree murder,

conspiracy to commit first-degree murder,

solicitation to commit first-degree murder,

and child abuse, all related to the murder of

Jared Bridegan, Shanna's ex-husband.

We will be filing a notice of our intent to seek the death penalty

as we have also done in the case of Mario Fernandez.

Wow. Okay.

We also know the Florida death penalty

has been announced and they don't play.

All right. You get the death penalty sentence.

You will get the Florida death penalty.

But it's amazing to me that the ex-wife

has been this bitter for this long,

and she's got nothing to be bitter about.

She's the one that wanted out of the marriage,

and he's a devout Mormon.

He did not want to break up the family.

But she left, all right?

She's remarried to a guy she met at the gym.

Could you just surprise me one time, man?

Just meet somebody in a book club or at the library.

Why is it always the gym?

Anyway, that's... There he is.

He's smiling now.

He's not going to be smiling long,

-because the trigger man is... -No.

Totally gonna rat the two of them out for a sweet deal.

[Derrick] Yeah. No, it was, it was incredible what the police

did here, obviously we saw at the top of the segment here

that police identified a blue pickup truck,

a Ford F-150. It had brown trim on it.

With a silver toolbox, which is pretty specific

and then Tenon was pulled over in August of 2022.

-I believe, police knew he was one... -In a blue pickup

-Blue pickup... -with brown trim and a silver toolbox.

Yep, they brought him in for questioning

and then it just it snowballs from there.

They start to see the link.

Obviously he comes in, they question him about it.

He starts to tell them what they want to hear

and then there's the financial records

where Mario made multiple payments

to him in October of '22

-You have cell phone records-- -I think by check.

By check.

-Yeah, that's great, right? -I mean, really?

And then 30 cell phone calls as well in February.

But here's the problem in securing a conviction for Shanna.

So she's the one with all the family money.

She has now hired a very high-profile attorney

-Jose Baez. -You might have heard of her, Nancy.

-He represented-- -Who's Jose Baez?

He represented Casey Anthony, he represented Aaron Hernandez

on the time he was acquitted. Not when he was convicted

of murder. So she brings in this very high-profile--

There are so many trials to pick from with Aaron Hernandez.

She brings in this very high-profile attorney.

The husband does not have that

and he does not have the family money

and he's the one who has all the links to the hitman.

[Nancy] And he doesn't have any motive...

[Mara] He's the one who does the checks.

...but what's his motive? What's he mad about?

[Mara] But I think if I were the husband,

I'd be very concerned because you have the hitman

flipping on the two of them. But if she then flips on

the husband and says I knew nothing

about this and there's nothing tying me directly to it.

Then in that case, it's just him alone saying,

"No, no, no, it was really her all along."

But is that gonna be enough to secure a conviction?

Well, I'm telling you, she's the one that dragged Bridegan,

Jared Bridegan, the husband, to court.

And you know who's going to be the best witness on that?

The current wife, Kirsten Bridegan.

Can you roll her speaking about her daughter?

In a deeply emotional day like this, what do you tell

your children about today and the results of today?

London is too young to know anything.

Bexley is older.

She was there.

She's been part of this since they decided to kill

her father in front of her.

Um...

I have to keep it in simple terms 'cause she's only four.

She knows that two bad guys have been put in jail

and this morning I was able to tell her that...

who she refers to as the mean mom,

is going to be in jail as well.

For the past year and a half, Liam and Abby

have been isolated and kept away from us

while they lived with their mother, their stepdad,

and their maternal grandparents.

Despite my constant requests to see or speak to them,

[clears throat] I have been denied and continuously ignored.

So I will take this opportunity to do it again.

[sniffles]

I plead with the Gardners to put the emotional

and mental well-being of Liam, Abby above all else

and allow them to reconnect with us.

You know, real quickly, I know that some people

might be looking at us saying,

Tenon's only getting 15 years in prison for this.

He pulled the trigger.

But think about what Melissa Nelson already said.

He was the single link to Gardner and Fernandez.

Without him, they don't have anything.

So I understand that it seems light.

-But like you said earlier, they're going death penalty. -Can I tell you something?

This is what I learned, I learned it the hard way.

Sometimes you gotta go to hell to get the witness

-Right. -to put the devil in jail.

So, sometimes you gotta eat a dirt sandwich

and take a plea just like that.

Guys, coming up, the Florida death penalty

for two of the alleged perps while the admitted trigger man

is set to point the finger at the ex.

When we come back.

It was pretty clear that someone knew his route, his schedule.

I have felt since the beginning

that this was planned,

this was thought out, and this was specific to Jared.

So I am not surprised that they announced

that Henry Tenon, someone that we've never heard of

that Jared did not know, wasn't alone in this.

It's frightening, frankly, that there is a connection

and that there is this mass conspiracy.

It does not help us sleep at night.

The high-profile lawyer who repped top mom

Casey Anthony in charges she murdered

her two-year-old little girl, Kelly.

He also repped convicted serial killer

and NFL star Aaron Hernandez.

Jose Baez enters the fray representing the ex-wife,

Shanna Gardner.

She's facing the death penalty

for allegedly planning the murder of

her ex-husband with her new husband

that she met at the gym.

What, if anything, does that mean for the state's case?

With us now, Vic Micolucci from Jacksonville, Florida,

TV station, WJXT.

Vic, it's great to see you.

You've been on this case from the very beginning,

and a lot of people are saying, "Oh, well,

how is Shannon Gardner really tied into this?"

I'll tell you how.

She knew he was coming to her home that Sunday night

to drop off his two twins from their marriage.

She knew his route home, that basically

a very narrow, almost a one-way street

he took every Sunday on the way home,

and somebody had placed that tire there.

Thanks for being with us.

And this year is marking one year since this all went down.

So let me ask you this.

What do you make of it?

Is there enough to put the bitter ex

Shanna Gardner behind bars?

Well, first of all, this is such a heartbreaking case

and our heart goes out to the family members

and all the people devastated by this.

It is so bizarre here when you think about it,

but there are a lot of fingers pointing at Shanna Gardner.

And from the very beginning, before we were even able

to report it, people were reaching out to me,

they were reaching out to other journalists saying,

we know who did this.

And if you look at the facts of the case,

Jared Bridegan was leaving after

dropping off the twins that he shared with Shanna Gardner

at Shanna and Mario's house.

He was taking a specified route which he took to his home

which is in another city and it goes down into

a wooded area.

And it's really one of the few wooded areas

in this beach coastal town that is Jacksonville Beach.

And that's where it's dark.

That's where there's not a lot of cameras.

That's where you've got this little one lane narrow road.

And he runs into this tire.

And I think that's just what really had people thinking

this was not some sort of random murder.

This wasn't a random thrill kill.

This wasn't a robbery because he had his wallet on him.

This was a planned, calculated attack.

And we learned very early on, I think the week

that this happened, I learned from the police chief

and investigators that this was going to be

a targeted murder.

And you just have to look and trace it back.

And you're going to immediately find out that

Shanna Gardner is going to be a prime suspect here.

You know, what's interesting is their horrible, horrible,

tortuous, contentious relationship.

And I don't get it, Vic.

All that money from her parents who have

that paper company, like party favor type

paper company,

millions and millions of dollars.

She's never had to work a day in her life.

Why is she so bitter and resentful toward him?

It's just a very, very long, bitter divorce and just

an ugly battle for custody of these children as well.

She wants to potentially move these children somewhere else.

Jared Bridegan wants to keep them in North Florida.

And we can see this by reading the court documents.

They're not publicly available online,

but I was able to read them, dozens of pages of them.

And you could just see such a contentious divorce here

leading up to this murder.

There's medical conditions in there.

There's allegations of abuse in there.

She apparently locked him out of the master bedroom.

Their house had all kinds of cameras so that

she could potentially keep surveillance

on Jared Bridegan.

And Nancy, this goes back...

a very long time, potentially back to 2015

before they were even separated and divorced.

And if you look at the indictment, you'll see that there

are allegations that potentially she plotted to kill him.

She wanted to, quote, "Shut him up," as far back as then.

-[Nancy] Ooh. -So we're talking about it.

[Nancy] That's what she said at the tattoo parlor, right?

-Yeah. -Shades of Tot Mom Casey Anthony.

She said, did you guys know?

She actually said at a tattoo parlor, "Hey,

you know anybody that could shut my husband up?"

Yeah, that was while she was getting her genitals pierced.

Okay, I wasn't going to say that 'cause I'm not judging.

-But you, but you... -Oh, we gotta put out all the facts.

In terms of questionable behavior, which maybe we filed

that under questionable, Vic, I wonder if you have

any details on Shanna's behavior after the murder that

also raised eyebrows about her potential involvement.

Mara, the behavior was very bizarre

and I heard this from the Bridegan family.

I heard it from sources in the case and I also heard it

from neighbors.

She was still out and about. She was going to parties.

She threw a party around the time of Jared's funeral,

according to multiple sources here,

and I know that she was still attending parties

in the Jacksonville Beach area.

Given Jacksonville Beach is not used to crime like this

in the greater Jacksonville area this far.

So far this year alone, we've had 110 homicides.

Vic, do you see any issues now?

Obviously, Mario and Shanna have separated.

We have the paper trail with the checks that were written.

We have phone conversations between Mario and Henry.

Now Jose Baez is on this case.

Do you see a situation where Shanna is going to come out

and say, "Listen, I didn't know what was going on.

Mario did this on his own."

Are we going down that road?

Absolutely, Derrick. I think that that is

a very plausible thing that we could see here in court.

She's going to try to separate herself

from Mario Fernandez and Henry Tenon.

Now, we know that Mario Fernandez owned

a home where Henry Tenon rented a room.

And in fact, I went by that home.

I talked to Henry Tenon's roommate about it.

Very bizarre because they said that Henry Tenon

was just a quiet guy, but he needed the money.

So there is the potential here that Jose Baez,

being a very talented defense attorney,

could paint the picture saying,

"Look, Mario Fernandez, for whatever reason,

did not like Jerry Bridegan and plotted against him."

And then he found somebody that needed some money.

That somebody would be Henry Tenon.

And they did it because those checks,

there are three checks, go from Mario Fernandez

to Henry Tenon.

We do not see Shanna in there.

And then phone records are huge in this case, too.

That's a big piece of the evidence.

We're talking about more than 70 phone calls.

-Yeah. -And who are the phone calls between?

From what we know from the documents,

those are between Mario Fernandez and Henry Tenon.

-Man, she's smart. -Not Shanna Gardner

-She has kept her hands clean this whole time. -from what's been released.

Vic Micolucci, thank you so much for being with us.

This week marks one year since the murders at

the University of Idaho and the saga of

suspected killer Bryan Kohberger.

This week, we think of them and their families.

On Crimefeed, we bring you the biggest crime cases

across the country and some you may never have heard of.

On behalf of Mara and Derrick and myself,

good night, friends.

[inaudible conversation]