Placer murder trial for ex-MLB player continues with angry emails, text messages
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Prosecutors allege Daniel Serafini shot in-laws years after dispute over $1.3M loan.
- Text messages, emails and security video were part of the prosecution's evidence.
- Samantha Scott, Serafini's alleged accomplice, pleaded guilty and will testify at trial.
Testimony in a Placer County murder trial continued Tuesday with an investigator reciting angry emails over a $1.3 million loan for a fledgling business between a Lake Tahoe-area couple and their former Major League Baseball player son-in-law who is accused of shooting them.
Daniel Serafini, the retired MLB pitcher, is accused of shooting his wife’s parents, Gary Spohr and Wendy Wood, four years ago as they watched TV inside their home.
Serafini, 51, is accused of murder in connection with a reported burglary at the home of the married couple, Spohr, 70, and Wood, 68. Serafini has remained in custody at the Placer County Jail since his 2023 arrest.
Spohr was shot once in the head 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 and called authorities for help. Although Wood received extensive rehabilitation, she died a year after the shooting.
$1.3 million loan
Justin Infante, an investigator with the Placer County District Attorney’s Office, testified about numerous emails between Serafini, his wife and his wife’s parents. Spohr and his wife were wealthy and had given their daughter a $1.3 million loan to fund her horse ranch business that offered stable services and horse lessons.
“All we ask for is for financials, and you treat us like scum,” according to a March 2016 email from Spohr and Wood to their son-in-law.
Serafini married Erin Spohr, the shooting victims’ eldest daughter, in 2012, joining the wealthy family.
In a follow-up email, Wood explained how she and her husband had many mentors as they amassed their wealth learning as they went. She advised Serafini and his wife to do the same. She also told Serafini he spoke differently to them in person, but then hid “behind text messages” and became “vicious and belligerent” with them.
“Stop fighting with us, we do know what we’re doing,” Wood told Serafini in the email.
Serafini responded by telling his in-laws that he did not come “empty-handed” into the marriage with their daughter.
“I’ve always offered to pay my way since day one,” Serafini said in a March 2016 email. “So, you keep on judging my character and we’ll see how it turns out.”
His wife also responded to her parents, telling them that instead of giving them a chance, they have chosen to “insult, berate and belittle” them with their emails.
Serafini later sent an email to Wood without including his wife and her father in the message, telling his mother-in-law that they can take the ranch property. He also warned Wood that if her husband ever cursed him out again in an email, he would knock out Spohr.
“That’s your final warning warning,” Serafini said in the email to Wood.
The family dispute over the loan only escalated when Spohr in an email said, “We are selling the ranch to pay back the $1.3 million you owe us.”
Murder trial began last month
In opening statements last month, Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Miller told the jurors that the retired MLB player hated his wife’s wealthy parents and had been heard telling others he would pay $20,000 to have them killed. The prosecutor said security camera video shows Serafini wearing a mask and sneaking into the home when he knew nobody else would be inside.
Miller said Serafini hid in the home and waited with a gun for about four hours, before he shot his wife’s parents.
David Dratman, one of Serafini’s attorneys, has told the jury that the prosecution does not have any physical evidence that links his client to the crime scene, noting that security camera video showed a masked intruder who appeared to be younger with a smaller and thinner body frame than the retired professional baseball player.
Authorities in October 2023 arrested Serafini and family friend Samantha Scott. The prosecutor has said Serafini and Scott were having an affair up until their arrest.
The Placer County District Attorney’s Office charged Serafini and Scott with murder in Spohr’s death, along with a charge of attempted murder in the shooting that wounded Wood. The filed charges indicate prosecutors believe Serafini was the person who shot his wife’s parents, not Scott.
Only Serafini’s charges included 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 said it would not to seek a capital sentence.
Serafini also faces 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, along with an enhancement that alleges he used a .22 caliber gun to shoot Wood.
In February, Scott pleaded guilty to a felony charge of being an accessory after the fact in the crime. The prosecutor has said Scott will testify in the trial about her role in the alleged plot to help Serafini kill his wife’s parents.
Scott pleaded guilty to a felony accessory charge. Her sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled. Prosecutors have said the accessory charge could result in a sentence of 16 months to three years.
Text messages read to the jury
The prosecutor has told the jury that Scott met Serafini’s wife five years before the deadly shooting at Erin Spohr’s horseback riding business. They became friends, and Scott would often do odd jobs, including working as their family’s nanny, in exchange for Spohr’s horseback lessons and housing Scott’s horse at the stables.
On Tuesday, Infante testified about text messages collected as evidence from a cell phone. Infante said Scott gave investigators a passcode for that cell phone in January.
The District Attorney’s Office investigator read the text messages out loud while on the witness stand.
The October 2021 text messages between Serafini and Scott, some of them with explicit language, showed the two were involved in an affair as Scott continued to work for the family as their nanny. The text messages showed Serafini’s wife, four months after her parents were shot in their home, didn’t know about the affair.
In one text message to Scott, Serafini described Scott as the “best girlfriend” he’s ever had, even though Scott wouldn’t call him her boyfriend.
Placer Superior Court Judge Garen J. Horst has said he expects the murder trial will continue through July 25 with jury deliberations possibly beginning July 18.
This story was originally published June 3, 2025 at 4:58 PM.
