Sentencing postponed again for ex-MLB pitcher convicted in Placer fatal shooting
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- A judge postponed the sentencing hearing in the murder case until next year.
- Daniel Serafini was convicted of murder and burglary in the Lake Tahoe-area shooting.
- The defense attorney alleges juror misconduct during Serafini’s trial.
A Placer Superior Court judge on Monday postponed a sentencing hearing until February for a former Major League Baseball player convicted of shooting his wife’s parents in their Lake Tahoe-area home.
This is the second time Judge Garen J. Horst has postponed the sentencing for Daniel Serafini, the retired MLB pitcher convicted of murder and attempted murder who is now seeking a new trial. Serafini faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
Serafini’s sentencing hearing had been scheduled to take place next week. But Horst on Monday postponed the sentencing until Feb. 20 to give the defense attorney enough time to seek a new trial for his client.
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. 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.
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.
Zimmerman told the judge on Monday that he has “grave concerns” about the lack of due diligence by his defense team during his trial. Zimmerman replaced David Dratman and David Fischer, the attorneys who represented Serafini in his trial.
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.
Earlier this month, three jurors testified the jury used court-provided computer equipment to capture screenshots from videos used as evidence during the trial. The jurors said they used the screenshots to compare images of Serafini at a Nevada hotel and the unidentified shooting suspect in his in-laws’ driveway.
The jury was not shown the video evidence that way during the trial. Zimmerman argued the jurors comparing those images is the most prejudicial issue in terms of the misconduct during deliberations.
“That was misconduct on another level,” Zimmerman told the judge on Monday.
Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Miller, who prosecuted Serafini, told the judge that defense attorney’s claims of jurors’ misconduct are “completely without merit” and just a tactic to delay sentencing. He argued that the jury was merely critically examining the evidence presented in the trial.
In the trial, Miller 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.
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.
In a letter submitted to the court, Adrienne Spohr said she has no doubt that Serafini shot her parents.
“The defense’s motion is a baseless attempt to delay justice and shield Mr. Serafini from accountability,” Adrienne Spohr wrote in her letter. “He has shown no remorse.”
This story was originally published October 20, 2025 at 6:54 PM.
