Witness testimony reveals new details in murder trial for accused ex-MLB player
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Key witness Samantha Scott admitted lying to authorities and her attorney for years.
- Defense challenged Scott’s credibility, citing delayed disclosures and plea deal.
- Prosecution claims Serafini offered $20K to kill his wealthy in-laws.
A defense attorney on Thursday continued to question Samantha Scott about what she said happened with her and former Major League Baseball player Daniel Serafini on the day his wife’s parents were shot inside their Lake Tahoe-area home.
Scott testified she lied to investigators when they questioned her on two occasions, only revealing her role in the crime six months ago. She said she lied to her own attorney about it until she met with the prosecution in hopes of a plea deal. She said she lied to her own family and still hasn’t told them.
“I know they’ve already been put through a lot,” Scott said on the witness stand.
Serafini, the retired MLB pitcher, is on trial in connection with a reported burglary at the home of his wife’s parents, Gary Spohr, 70, and Wendy Wood, 68. Serafini, 51, is accused of shooting the married couple four years ago as they watched TV inside their home.
Spohr died after being shot once in the head during the June 5, 2021, burglary at the couple’s 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. Wood received extensive rehabilitation but died a year after the shooting.
Authorities arrested Serafini and Scott in October 2023 in connection with the deadly shooting. Scott has since agreed to a plea deal and is testifying as a key witness for the prosecution in Serafini’s trial, which began May 19. Thursday was Scott’s third day of testimony.
In his opening statement last month, David Dratman, one of Serafini’s attorneys, told the jury that Scott’s decision to cooperate with the prosecution came months after a four-day preliminary hearing, when Scott carefully looked at the evidence and later provided an account “designed to fill in the weaknesses” of the case against Serafini.
New details revealed in murder trial
Dratman’s intent was to challenge Scott’s credibility in front of the jury as he questioned her about her previous testimony and something she never revealed to the prosecution or its investigators until Thursday in court.
Scott testified that she went back in summer 2021 to the area of a freeway exit along Interstate 80 in Nevada, where Serafini threw away his shoes and a backpack on the night of the shooting on their way back from the Lake Tahoe area.
“To see if there was anything there,” Scott said in court.
She didn’t find Serafini’s discarded backpack or his shoes and later told him so. Serafini’s attorney asked her if she never told authorities because it’s a story she made up; Scott said she didn’t make it up.
Scott met Serafini’s wife, Erin Spohr, a few years before the deadly shooting. They met at Erin Spohr’s horseback riding business and became friends. Scott would often do odd jobs for Spohr and her family, including working as a nanny, in exchange for horseback lessons and housing her horse at Spohr’s stables.
Scott has testified that she began an affair with Serafini in October 2021, about five months after the deadly shooting. She said the affair continued up until their arrest two years later. She said they continued to communicate while in custody via “jail kites,” hand-written messages in which he would offer emotional support and she would express her devotion to him.
Vacation with shooting victim
Dratman also asked Scott about a summer 2021 trip to an island along the Washington coast after Serafini’s wife insisted she join them on a family vacation. She said those on the trip included Serafini and his mother-in-law, who at the time was suffering a traumatic brain injury from the shooting.
Scott testified she stayed in a separate bunkhouse away from the rest of the family on that vacation, joining them for family barbecue dinners and a hike that included Serafini’s mother-in-law. Scott said she never told Wood about what she knew, including how Serafini earlier that summer had told her he shot his mother-in-law twice in the head and once in the hand.
Scott also has testified that Serafini threatened to harm her and her family that same summer, but she didn’t take him seriously and never felt threatened by him.
Dratman asked Scott about an alleged insurance fraud scheme she said Serafini proposed weeks before his client’s in-laws were shot in their home.
Scott testified that Serafini came up with a plan to have her gold Subaru stolen, have it covered with a vinyl wrap of a different color and collect the insurance money. During cross-examination, Scott said she didn’t know what would happen to her car after it was stolen.
“I didn’t ask him any specific questions,” Scott said. “I just said I didn’t want my car stolen.”
Scott said she told Serafini days later she didn’t want to go along with his fraud plan, but she did agree to accept $2,000 from Serafini to drive him in her gold Subaru from Elko, Nevada, to Tahoe City so he could pick up a package on the day of the shooting. She said she didn’t know what was in this package but assumed it was cocaine.
Dratman asked Scott why didn’t she ask Serafini whether this road trip to pick up a package was a crime, even though she says Serafini had just proposed an insurance fraud scheme she didn’t want to go along with.
“Because I could always use extra cash,” Scott said on the witness stand. “I thought it was going to be drugs.”
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.
Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Miller has told the jury that Serafini hated his wife’s wealthy parents and told others he was willing to pay $20,000 to have them killed. The jury has been shown transcripts of angry emails and text messages between Serafini and his wife’s parents that show a heated ongoing dispute over a $1.3 million loan from his in-laws to help fund his wife’s fledgling horse ranch business.
‘Queen for a Day’ interview
In January, Scott met with two prosecution investigators for an interview referred to as “Queen for a Day” in which the District Attorney’s Office agreed that anything she said during that nearly daylong interview would not be used against her in court. Scott testified that the DA’s Office had made her that “Queen for a Day” offer before the May 2024 preliminary hearing, but she lied to her attorney telling him she didn’t have any information to provide the prosecution.
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.
The defense attorney told the jury that Scott, if convicted of the more serious charges, could have faced up to 25 years to life in prison until she spoke to investigators earlier this year. Dratman said prosecutors have told Scott that she’ll be released after she testifies with a sentence of time already served in jail, and they have promised her felony accessory charge could later be reduced to a misdemeanor.
On Thursday, Scott testified that part of her motivation to speak to the prosecution was to avoid charges of murder, attempted murder and burglary, along with a potential life sentence.
Scott’s testimony ended Thursday. 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 12, 2025 at 2:40 PM.
