Jurors testify in Placer County case for former MLB pitcher convicted of murder
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Daniel Serafini wants a new trial, alleging juror misconduct.
- Three jurors testified they compared screenshots from video evidence during deliberations.
- The judge has postponed sentencing to Oct. 28; Serafini faces life without parole.
A Placer Superior Court judge on Tuesday heard testimony from three of the 12 jurors in a murder trial for a former Major League Baseball player convicted of shooting his wife’s parents in their Lake Tahoe-area home.
Daniel Serafini, the retired MLB pitcher convicted of murder and attempted murder, is asking the court for a new trial. Serafini, 51, believes he received “ineffective assistance” from his attorneys during the trial, according to a motion filed Aug. 22 in Placer Superior Court by his new attorney Barry Zimmerman.
Serafini, who remains in custody at the Placer County Jail, also claims there was juror misconduct in the trial; that the guilty verdict was contrary to evidence presented; and that he was denied due process and a fair trial as a result of excluded evidence, limits on cross-examination of witnesses and the right to present evidence that could potentially clear him of wrongdoing.
Zimmerman replaced David Dratman and David Fischer, the attorneys who represented Serafini in his trial.
On July 14, a jury of 10 women and two men found Serafini guilty of first-degree murder and attempted murder for the shooting that killed his father-in-law Gary Spohr, 70, and severely wounded his mother-in-law, Wendy Wood, 68, at their home near Lake Tahoe. The jury also found Serafini guilty of first-degree burglary for the break-in at the couple’s West Lake Boulevard home.
Spohr died after being shot once in the head during the 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.
Gracee Butrick, one of the jurors, was called to testify Tuesday in an evidentiary hearing for Serafini’s new trial motion. Buttrick, along with jurors Caryn Schroeder and Ali McKibben, participated in an interview with KCRA published online July 17.
Butrick testified that court staff brought in a large monitor into the deliberation room, where they watched video of what was supposed to be Serafini at a Nevada hotel and an unidentified suspect at the victims’ home hours before the shooting.
She said in court the jury used the court-provided computer equipment given to capture screenshots from the videos and compare them together on the screen. The jury was not shown the video evidence that way during the trial, and Butrick told the judge that it didn’t occur to the jurors to ask the court for permission.
“It didn’t affect my decision whatsoever,” Butrick testified.
Serafini’s attorney also asked Butrick about telling KCRA about seeing Serafini’s demeanor in court during the trial.
“There were looks and appearances, but I did not consider them during deliberations,” Butrick said on the witness stand.
The three jurors testified that a group text message called “Jury Fam” was created by the jurors after the verdict was announced, and the text message thread remains active among the group.
Schroeder said in court “we had thoughts” about side-by-side comparisons of the screenshots during deliberations, but they weren’t allowed to come up with conclusions. She said the jury relied heavily on the court’s jury instructions as they deliberated, along with a lot of notes the jurors took during the trial.
“That was really all we needed at that point,” Schroeder testified. “We took it very seriously.”
In an Aug. 18 motion filed by Serafini’s trial attorneys, Dratman and Fischer, they argued that the jurors said in the KCRA interview that the jury compared the unidentified suspect’s shoes.
The defense attorneys said the issue of “matching shoes” was not discussed by either side during the trial, and no evidence was submitted on this subject.
“It was a similarity we found between the two videos,” McKibben testified. “I did feel strongly that they were the same shoes.”
Sentencing postponed
Serafini had been scheduled on Aug. 18 to be sentenced for the June 5, 2021, shooting at his in-laws’ home. Serafini faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
However, Judge Garen J. Horst postponed Serafini’s sentencing until Oct. 28, giving Serafini’s attorney an opportunity to argue in court for a new trial.
Serafini married Erin Spohr, the shooting victims’ eldest daughter, in 2011. She testified in the trial that her relationship with her late parents “was always a little tumultuous,” and she and her husband had heated arguments with them over money. The former MLB pitcher’s wife said that she and her parents always made up, and she doesn’t believe her husband shot her parents.
Lawsuits between Erin Spohr and her sister, Adrienne Spohr, allege money played a role in the June 2021 deadly shooting.
Sister-in-law condemns defense motion
In a letter attached to an Aug. 13 filed prosecution motion opposing delaying the sentencing, Adrienne Spohr said she has no doubt that Serafini shot her parents. She said Serafini is seen in security camera video at her parents’ home as he “arrogantly swaggered from the scene of his crimes, leaving my father dead and my mom fighting for her life.”
“The defense’s motion is a baseless attempt to delay justice and shield Mr. Serafini from accountability,” Adrienne Spohr wrote in her letter to the court. “He has shown no remorse.”
In the trial, Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Miller, who prosecuted Serafini, 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. The prosecutor said Serafini entered the couple’s home while nobody was there and waited for hours before shooting them as they watched TV in their living room.
Dratman argued in the trial that the prosecution does not have any physical evidence linking 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.
Authorities arrested Serafini and family friend Samantha Scott in October 2023 in connection with the deadly shooting. The initial charges indicated that prosecutors have always believed Serafini was the person who shot his wife’s parents, not Scott.
Scott has since agreed to a plea deal with the Placer County District Attorney’s Office and testified as a key witness for the prosecution in Serafini’s trial. Scott told the jury she drove Serafini and dropped him off a few miles from his in-laws’ home that day, before he returned hours later and got rid of his clothing, a backpack and a handgun while returning to Nevada.
