Ex-MLB player Serafini guilty of murder in 2021 burglary of in-laws’ Tahoe home
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Jury convicted Daniel Serafini of murder, attempted murder and burglary in Tahoe shooting.
- Prosecutors accused Serafini of ambushing his in-laws after financial disputes.
- Key witness testified Serafini used a silenced gun and discarded evidence post-crime.
A Placer County jury on Monday convicted retired Major League Baseball player Daniel Serafini of shooting his wife’s parents four years ago in their Lake Tahoe-area home.
Serafini, 51, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of his father-in-law, Gary Spohr, 70, and guilty of attempted murder in the shooting that severely wounded his mother-in-law, Wendy Wood, 68. The jury of 10 women and two men found true the additional special finding of lying in wait in the killing of Spohr and additional enhancements in connection with the crimes.
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.
Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Miller, who prosecuted Serafini, has told the jury that the former MLB pitcher hated his wife’s wealthy parents and told others he was willing to pay $20,000 to have them killed.
“There’s a murderer in this room. He’s sitting right there,” Miller said in his closing arguments last week while pointing to Serafini.
After the verdict was announced, Miller said that Serafini faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole. Superior Court Judge Garen Horst scheduled Serarfini to return to court Aug. 18 for his sentencing hearing.
“We are very thankful for the jurors. This was a difficult case,” Miller told news reporters outside the courthouse. “They took their time and took it seriously, and we thank them for the work they put in.”
David Dratman, one of Serafini’s attorneys, has argued 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 entering the couple’s home who appeared to be younger with a smaller and thinner body frame than the retired professional baseball player.
Last week, Dratman told the jury that Serafini had a rocky relationship with his in-laws. But Spohr and Wood were generous with Serafini and his wife, giving them loans and taking them along on lavish vacations. After the deaths of his wife’s parents, the defense attorney said all that would end.
“Does that provide a motive for murder? That’s killing the golden goose,” Dratman said in his closing argument.
Dratman and David Fischer, Serafini’s other attorney, declined to comment about the jury’s verdict.
Serafini sat stoically in the courtroom as the verdict was announced. He momentarily turned to his left and looked at his wife who was crying before turning forward again to look at the judge.
The jury deliberated on Thursday and Friday. The jurors returned Monday morning to the Auburn Historic Courthouse and resumed deliberations for another few hours before reaching their unanimous verdict Monday afternoon.
Gracee Butrick, one of the jurors, said she and other jurors were focused on security camera video of the shooting suspect entering and leaving the Lake Tahoe-area, along with video of Serafini at a Nevada hotel several hours before the shooting. She said comparing those videos made the difference for the jury.
“We spent a good 20 minutes pausing video and just staring at shoes,” Butrick told reporters after the verdict. “From the hotel video all the way to the garage video. It’s the same exact shoe and the walk, the hitch in the hip nailed it in. I really think Mr. Miller tied it all in nicely for us.”
Burglary charge
The jury also found Serafini guilty of first-degree burglary for the break-in at the couple’s West Lake Boulevard home that led to the shooting.
The prosecutor told the jury Serafini snuck into the house while his wife and their two children were spending time with her parents on the lake. Miller said Serafini then waited in the house for four hours for his family to leave and head back to Reno before he ambushed his wife’s parents.
Dratman argued that an FBI expert who testified for the prosecution said the masked suspect in the video stood 6-foot-2, plus or minus three-quarters of an inch. The defense attorney said that two law enforcement investigators testified that Serafini’s height is 6-foot-3.
“You can’t put a round peg into a square hole. And that’s what they’re asking you to do here,” Dratman told the jury. “I realize we’re talking about inches here, but inches matter.”
The former MLB player was found not guilty of child endangerment. His two children, 3 years old and 6 months old at the time of the shooting, were listed as victims in the child endangerment charge. The prosecutor argued that charge stemmed from what could’ve happened if Serafini was found hiding in the house that day leading to “something going wrong and catching two children in the crossfire.”
Serafini was drafted in 1992 by the Minnesota Twins. A left-handed pitcher, he also played for the Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati Reds and Colorado Rockies, according to Baseball Reference.
He played his last professional game in 2007 before being suspended for 50 games after failing a drug test, according to an ESPN report. Two years later, he played for Italy in the World Baseball Classic.
Serafini’s marriage
Serafini married Erin Spohr, the shooting victims’ eldest daughter, in 2011. Erin Spohr testified in the trial that her parents forced Serafini to sign a post-nuptial agreement a year after the wedding, an agreement that means he wouldn’t get any of his wife’s money if the marriage were to end.
Serafini’s wife testified that her parents made her younger sister the sole trustee of their parents’ estate worth more than $20 million — wealth built over many years buying and selling real estate properties. If their parents died, the sisters would split their inheritance.
Lawsuits between Erin Spohr and her sister, Adrienne Spohr, allege money played a role in the June 2021 deadly shooting.
After the verdict, Adrienne Spohr said “justice was served today” as she thanked the jurors for their service. She thanked the prosecutors and the Placer County Sheriff’s Office for never giving up on the investigation and her parents “despite how many people were trying to lie and manipulate.”
“It’s been four years since my mom and dad were shot,” she told news reporters outside the courthouse. “And it’s been four years of just hell.”
She wore her mother’s engagement ring and a small portion of her father’s ashes in a locket on her necklace. Adrienne Spohr said she is now focused on making sure Serafini spends the rest of his life in prison.
Erin, who had been awaiting the verdict at the courthouse since deliberations began on Thursday, openly wept upon hearing the verdict of the first count read aloud. She did not speak to reporters after Monday’s hearing.
The jury was shown transcripts of angry emails and text messages between Serafini and his wife’s parents showing a heated, ongoing dispute over a $1.3 million loan from his in-laws to help fund his wife’s fledgling horse ranch business. The emails and text messages also included heated arguments between Serafini’s wife and her parents.
Spohr testified that her relationship with her late parents “was always a little tumultuous,” and she and her husband had heated arguments with her parents over money. The former MLB pitcher’s wife said that she and her parents always made up.
She said in court her parents still helped her financially from time to time, and her mother gave her a $90,000 check before she left her parents home on the day they were shot. Her parents, not long before the shooting, had given Serafini a loan to buy a GTO, the car of his dreams.
Authorities arrested Serafini and family friend Samantha Scott in October 2023 in connection with the deadly shooting. Scott has since agreed to a plea deal and testified as a key witness for the prosecution in Serafini’s trial. The Placer County District Attorney’s Office charged Serafini and Scott with murder and attempted murder in the shooting that wounded Wood.
The initial charges indicated that prosecutors have always believed that Serafini was the person who shot his wife’s parents, not Scott. She later agreed to a plea deal and testified as a key witness for the prosecution in Serafini’s trial.
Gun with makeshift silencer
Scott testified that Serafini convinced her to drive him from Nevada in her Subaru Outback and drop him off a few miles from his wife’s parents’ home. Scott told the jury that she assumed Serafini was heading to Lake Tahoe to pick up cocaine, and she saw him earlier that day test-fire a handgun with an attached PVC pipe to act as a makeshift silencer.
Scott testified that she didn’t know Serafini’s in-laws lived nearby. She said she dropped him off and waited hours before Serafini returned. She said she drove him back to Nevada with Serafini getting rid of his clothing, a backpack and the handgun by throwing the items out of the moving vehicle along the highway.
“I was with someone who I did trust,” Scott said in court. “He told me I didn’t have to worry about it.”
Scott 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.
Serafini told his wife and Scott separately that he’s been working on writing a book while in custody.
The prosecutor told the jury that one of the jail kites showed Serafini promising Scott — before she agreed to cooperate with the prosecution — they would be reunited after the criminal case concluded and they would make money from the book to pay their lawyer fees.
Serafini’s wife testified that she’s aware of the book her husband wants to write, a recap of his life as an MLB pitcher that leads up to his arrest in the murder case.
This story was originally published July 14, 2025 at 2:55 PM.
