Key prosecution witness testifies in Placer murder trial for former MLB player
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Defense says Samantha Scott's account filled prosecution gaps, lacks physical evidence.
- Scott said Serafini got rid of a gun, clothes and a backpack.
- Scott received a plea deal in February that reduced her charges.
Samantha Scott felt uneasy Friday in court for a Placer County murder trial testifying against a friend she trusted, Daniel Serafini, a former Major League Baseball player, accused of shooting his wife’s parents in their Lake Tahoe-area home.
Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Miller asked Scott why she cried during a courtroom break Friday morning and how she was feeling sitting on the witness stand several feet away from Serafini, a married man she had an affair with now accused of murder.
“Stressed... there’s a lot of things that I feel and think,” Scott said about testifying for the prosecution against Serafini. “Sad. I don’t know... I still care about him.”
At the Auburn Historic Courthouse, Scott testified about how she saw Serafini test-fire a makeshift silencer on a handgun hours before his wife’s parents were shot, and how she drove him back to Nevada as he got rid of the gun, his clothing, gloves and his backpack. Miller, the prosecutor in the murder trial, has told the jury that investigators never found those items.
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, the retired MLB picther, 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.
Scott befriended Serafini’s wife
Scott met Serafini’s wife, Erin Spohr, five years before the deadly shooting. They met at Erin Spohr’s horseback riding business and became friends. Scott would often do odd jobs for Sporhr and her family, including working as a nanny, in exchange for horseback lessons and housing her horse at Spohr’s stables.
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.
In February, Scott pleaded guilty to a felony charge of being an accessory after the fact in the crime. Her sentencing hearing has not been scheduled. Prosecutors have said the accessory charge could result in a sentence of 16 months to three years.
Scott is a key prosecution witness in the murder trial. Her testimony Friday focused on what she and Serafini did on the day of the shooting, before and after she dropped him off less than 2 miles away from his in-law’s home.
In his opening statement last month, David Dratman, one of Serafini’s attorneys, told the jurors they will have to judge the credibility of the witnesses in this trial. Dratman argued that Scott sat through a four-day preliminary hearing last year, when the prosecution presented its case to a judge to determined whether there was sufficient evidence for a trial.
He said Scott carefully looked at the prosecution’s evidence and months later provided an account “designed to fill-in the weaknesses” of the prosecution’s case against Serafini. Dratman has argued the prosecution does not have any physical evidence that links his client to the crime scene.
As a result of the plea deal, prosecutors dropped charges of murder and first-degree residential burglary against Scott. She had been in custody since her October 2023 arrest, but she was released from jail on her own recognizance with GPS monitoring in February after pleading guilty.
Murder charge was dropped
The defense attorney told the jury that Scott, if convicted, could’ve faced up to 25 years to life in prison until she spoke to investigators earlier this year. Dratman said prosecutors have promised Scott that her felony accessory charge could later be reduced to a misdemeanor and be released after she testifies with a sentence of time already served in jail.
Since her release from jail a few months ago, Scott appeared different Friday than before, including her hair, which has been lightened.
On June 4, 2021, the day before the Lake Tahoe shooting, Scott met with Serafini at the Red Lion hotel in Elko, Nevada, about a 4-hour drive east from Reno, where Scott was living. She said Serafini had asked for him to drive him to pick up a package, which she thought was drugs, the following day.
Scott testified that Serafini told her not to tell his wife about their plans that weekend. She said she didn’t, even when Erin Spohr invited Scott to join her and her two children to visit her parents at their Lake Tahoe-area home.
Erin Spohr and her children did visit her parents on the day of the shooting, but she went back to her Reno home with her children before her parents were shot as they watched TV.
On the witness stand, she said she didn’t think it was strange Serafini told her not to tell his wife. Scott said she believed they were picking up drugs, and that’s why Serafini didn’t want his wife to know.
“He was paying me to drive him, and part of that was not to tell her,” Scott said in court.
Nevada hotel room
Serafini also had told Scott to remove stickers from her Subaru’s windows because they made the vehicle too recognizable. She testified her relationship with Serafini at that time was friendly and platonic, he was her wife’s husband. But she also said they snorted cocaine together in the hotel room, before drinking at a bar and returning to the hotel room to sit in a Jacuzzi tub.
She testified that she got in the hotel room Jacuzzi wearing her underwear and bra, and Serafini was already in the tub naked. Scott said Serafini told her he wanted to get out of his marriage but he wanted to wait until after his children were old enough to understand.
In court, Scott did not say she had sex with Serafini that night in the hotel room. She said they both went to sleep in the room’s only bed that night.
The following day, Scott testified, that she saw Serafini pull out a gun with a PVC pipe from his backpack. She said he fired one shot from the gun at a sandy hill. Scott said he told her he had attached the PVC pipe to the gun to act as a silencer.
“He said he was just checking to see if it worked,” Scott said on the witness stand.
Scott drove her Subaru west on Interstate 80, with Serafini in the passenger seat. She testified that Serafini told her to turn off her cell phone, “so we wouldn’t get tracked.” She said Serafini hadn’t brought his cell phone..
“I was with someone who I did trust,” Scott said in court. “He told me I didn’t have to worry about it.”
Along their road trip west, Serafini told Scott to exit the freeway at Hirschdale Road in the Truckee area to avoid weigh stations along Interstate 80, she testified. Scott said in court that she knows there are surveillance cameras at the weigh stations.
Scott said she took the detour and got back on I-80 before Serafini instructed her to exit the freeway to head to Tahoe City. She said Serafini then told her to turn right at the “Y” intersection in Tahoe City, so he could show her where she would be picking him up later.
In court, Scott said she didn’t know she dropped off Serafini less than 2 miles away from Erin Spohr’s parents’ home.
She said Serafini took his backpack and grabbed one of the masks she had in her Subaru. The masks were to prevent further spread of COVID-19; many pandemic safety protocols were still in effect. But Scott said she thought it was strange Serafini grabbed one.
Waiting in Tahoe City
Serafini told Scott she could go into town in Tahoe City, but he wanted her to return to pick him up at that location later. Scott said Serafini didn’t give her an approximate time for when he would he return, and he didn’t tell her where he was going.
“I felt impatient at times not knowing how long I would have to wait,” Scott said on the witness stand.
She drove northwest to nearby Kings Beach to fill up on gas using cash because Serafini told her to do so. Scott grabbed some pizza and returned to park her Subaru near the West Shore Market to wait for Serafini.
He returned a few hours after she dropped him off, Scott testified, and they drove away heading east on I-80 to Nevada. She said Serafini seemed “a little bit rushed, maybe” when he got into the car.
She said she asked him how it went, believing he was there to pick up drugs. Scott said Serafini told her it went well, but the two didn’t talk much during the drive.
After they crossed the Nevada state line, Serafini rolled down a window and started throwing stuff out of the moving vehicle, Scott said on the witness stand. She said the road was in an area along a rugged canyon where he threw out the PVC pipe and gloves, along with what sounded like him taking apart the gun and also throwing it out of the vehicle.
“I asked him if he wanted me to stop if he wanted to throw stuff out? He said, ‘No,’” Scott testified.
Farther down the road, along the Truckee River, Serafini threw out clothing from the moving vehicle, Scott said. She didn’t remember asking him why he was throwing out these items.
She continued driving until he directed her to exit I-80 somewhere in the Nevada desert. Scott testified that Serafini threw away his shoes and the backpack in different directions at the freeway exit before they headed to his trailer home in Crescent Valley, Nevada.
Scott is expected to continue on Tuesday testifying about what happened in the immediate aftermath of the Lake Tahoe shooting and about how she lied to Placer County sheriff’s detectives as they questioned her about what she did with Serafini that day.
