Ex-MLB player convicted of Tahoe-area murder testifies while seeking a new trial
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Daniel Serafini testified that his lawyers delayed his trial and failed to hire experts.
- Serafini was convicted in July of murder in the shooting of his wife’s parents.
- The former Major League Baseball pitcher is asking the court for a new trial.
Daniel Serafini, a former Major League Baseball player convicted of shooting his wife’s parents in their Lake Tahoe-area home, testified Monday in Placer Superior Court as he seeks a new trial in his murder case.
Barry Zimmerman, Serafini’s attorney, has argued in court that his client received ineffective assistance from his two trial attorneys, David Dratman and David Fischer.
The jury 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 testified on Monday afternoon that Dratman suffered a hip injury that required daily pain medication and prevented him from doing any work on the case for months as he recuperated. The convicted retired MLB pitcher told the judge that Dratman and Fischer had the court postpone his trial over his strong objections.
“I was upset it was taking too long,” Serafini said on the witness stand while wearing his orange jail inmate uniform with handcuffs linked to shackles around his waist.
The former professional baseball player said in court that he wanted to testify in his trial, but he was advised not to.
Serafini said his trial attorneys told him they needed to delay his trial to have more time hire expert witnesses to testify on his behalf . He told the judge his trial attorneys didn’t hire any witnesses after obtaining about $250,000 from Serafini and his wife to represent the defendant in court.
In court, the judge allowed Zimmerman to play a recording of a 2-minute-42-second voicemail message from his mother-in-law, who survived the shooting but has since died. Serafini testified he received that message sometime after his wife’s mother was released from the hospital to continue her recuperated.
In the message, Wood reminded Serafini how she was receiving some type of electric therapy to help recall what she saw in her home on the night of the shooting.
“I had a vision of the shooter, and it’s not you,” Wood said in the message before telling her son-in-law that she would really like to see her two grandsons.
Serafini testified that, at some point, he, his wife and their two sons were not allowed to visit his mother-in-law in a rehabilitation center.
In his argument asking the judge to allow Serafini to testify, Zimmerman said Serafini’s mother-in-law later changed her mind as the murder investigation focused on her son-in-law and his wife was removed from her parents’ will. Zimmerman said Serafini’s trial attorneys did not present Wood’s voicemail message or information about an alibi for Serafini to the jury.
Security camera video captured a masked intruder on June 5, 2021, enter the couple’s home and leave hours later.
The prosecutor argued in the trial that Serafini was that masked intruder who hid in the home while the couple was away and shot them hours later as they watched TV in a living room. Samantha Scott, a co-defendant who received a plea deal from prosecutors, testified she drove Serafini and dropped him off a few miles away from his in-laws’ home before he returned hours later with a gun she had seen him with earlier in the day.
Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Miller, who prosecuted Serafini, has said in court that Serafini’s trial attorneys had a flimsy alibi from a woman who initially said she saw Serafini on the day his wife’s parents were shot but later clarified she saw Serafini on the day after the shooting.
On Monday, Miller argued that he had never heard of Wood’s voicemail message played in court. The prosecutor also said Zimmerman submitted a heavily redacted declaration to support his client’s request for Monday’s evidentiary hearing in which he could testify.
“Sounds like he just wants to do the trial all over again,” Miller told the judge.
Judge Garen J. Horst scheduled Serafini, who remains in custody at the Placer County Jail, to return to court next Monday to finishhis testimony. The judge also scheduled a Feb. 13 hearing for testimony for other witnesses before the attorneys argue over Serafini’s motion for a new trial.
It’s unclear whether the these proceedings will further postpone Serafini’s Feb. 20 sentencing hearing. The former MLB player faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
