Former MLB player accused in Tahoe murder case will stand trial as Placer judge upholds ruling
A Placer Superior Court judge denied a motion to dismiss murder charges in a case involving a former Major League Baseball player accused of shooting his wife’s parents three years ago at their Lake Tahoe-area home.
Daniel Serafini, 50, and family friend Samantha Scott, 34, are accused in an alleged burglary at the home of the married couple, 70-year-old Gary Spohr and 68-year-old Wendy Wood.
Spohr was shot once in the head, killing him during the June 5, 2021 burglary at the Homewood residence on the west shore of Lake Tahoe, the victims’ family has said. Wood suffered two gunshot wounds to the head but regained consciousness to call authorities for help.
Wood was treated at a hospital for more than a month and underwent extensive rehabilitation, but she died a year after the shooting.
The Placer County District Attorney’s Office last year charged Serafini and Scott with murder in Spohr’s death. The attorneys representing the defendants filed a motion asking the judge to overturn a May 9 ruling ordering Serafini and Scott to stand trial and dismiss the criminal charges.
David Dratman, Serafini’s attorney, argued in his filed motion that the prosecution did not present any evidence that “definitively” identifies him as the unidentified masked suspect captured on video entering and exiting the couple’s home on the night of the shooting.
Judge James Oakley, who presided over the May preliminary hearing, was shown the video of the suspect. Dratman argued that Oakley couldn’t ascertain whether the person in the video matches Serafini’s height, weight or physical characteristics, but relied on circumstantial evidence and testimony from people who know Serafini and investigating officers.
“Simply put, Daniel Serafini was not shown to be the man in the mask,” Dratman wrote in his filed motion. “The commitment order was based on suspicion, speculation and guesswork alone. It relied primarily on the lay opinions of people whose conclusions were not supported by any of the physical evidence.”
Prosecution arguments
Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Miller argued that the prosecution’s evidence “strongly supports” the ruling that ordered Serafini and Scott to stand trial. The prosecutor said in filed court documents that Scott drove Serafini to his in-laws’ home and waited for him outside in a vehicle.
“The man who shot them is Daniel Serafini, their son-in-law of 10 years,” Miller said in his filed opposition to the defense motion. “People who had known Serafini for many years identified him as being the person in disguise who was captured on surveillance.”
The prosecutor also argued that people who had known Serafini heard him offer to pay $20,000 to have his in-laws killed in 2012, openly say in 2016 that he hated his in-laws and say he was going to kill them a few months before the deadly shooting.
Serafini’s wife and children had been at the home earlier in the day and left before the fatal shooting occurred. The prosecutor argued that Serafini’s accomplice, Scott, waited as Serafini went into his in-laws’ home unnoticed and hid inside until after his wife and children left before shooting his in-laws in the head with a .22 caliber pistol.
Court records show Judge Garen J. Horst heard arguments from the attorneys on Monday, denied the defense motion and upheld Judge Oakley’s ruling in the May preliminary hearing.
Murder trial set to begin next year
A trial in the murder case has been scheduled to start the week of March 17.
Only Serafini faces special allegation and circumstance enhancements that allege he used a .22 caliber gun to kill Spohr during a burglary while lying in wait for the victim, according to the criminal complaint. The enhancements made Serafini eligible for the death penalty if convicted. But the District Attorney’s Office in September decided not to seek the death penalty against Serafini.
Serafini and Scott each face a charge of attempted murder in the shooting that wounded Wood. Only Serafini faces an enhancement that alleges he used a .22 caliber gun to shoot her.
The defendants both face a charge of first-degree residential burglary stemming from the June 2021 shooting; only Serafini faces enhancements for allegedly using a gun and causing great bodily injury to two elderly victims during the burglary.
At the time of the shooting, Serafini was married to Spohr and Wood’s eldest daughter, Erin Spohr, and they have two children. Serafini faces an additional charge of child endangerment listing his two small children as victims the day of the shooting, according to the criminal complaint.
Serafini and Scott, who remain in custody at the Placer County Jail, are scheduled to return to court Feb. 10 to determine whether their trial will start as scheduled.
