JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – For more than a year, the daughter and widow of Jared Bridegan, the man who was ambushed and murdered in Jacksonville Beach in February 2022, have been turning a tragic experience into a beautiful act of kindness aimed at helping children who are in the middle of crime scenes or investigations.
Following Jared’s murder, Kirsten Bridegan started a nonprofit called the Bridegan Foundation to provide “Bexley Boxes” – a kit, named after their 4-year-old daughter, Bexley, that contains essentials and comforting items to calm children in times of crisis or traumatic events.
Recommended Videos
The Bridegan family has already delivered dozens of boxes to police departments from Florida to Texas. But on Friday, the Bridegan Foundation reached a special milestone – its 50th Bexley Box.
RELATED | Jared Bridegan’s daughter delivers ‘Bexley Boxes’
To mark the occasion, Kirsten and London on Friday delivered one of their special boxes to the Homeland Security Investigations office in Jacksonville.
“I’m just so grateful that we’ve gotten so much help to get to where we are,” Kirsten said at the ceremony.
Members of the Northeast Florida Intercept Task Force said the Bexley Box would be a great addition to the resources that they provide to their victims.
“We are very honored that you guys chose us to be the recipient of the box,” a Homeland Security Investigations official said.
Bexley was in the back seat of her father’s SUV in February when he was shot several times. She was 2 at the time and luckily wasn’t hurt. Officers rushed her to the police station after the murder.
Meanwhile this week, a judge ruled that the murder trial of Mario Fernandez and his estranged wife Shanna Gardner, who are accused in the death of Gardner’s ex-husband Jared, can’t move forward until an issue involving State Attorney Melissa Nelson’s Office is resolved.