Former MLB pitcher Dan Serafini was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2021 for the attempted murders of his father-in-law and his mother-in-law.
In a Placer County, California courtroom, a jury concluded that Serafini’s actions were “deliberate and premeditated” when he shot his in-laws, Robert Gary Spohr and Wendy Wood, at their home in Lake Tahoe after a serious financial dispute. Wood survived his injuries but committed suicide a year later.
“He was a monster who knew no moral boundaries and had zero reservations about taking lives to benefit himself,” Serafini’s sister-in-law, Adrienne Spohr, said during his sentencing Friday.
During the six-week trial, jurors heard about “heated disputes over financial obligations” and communications leading up to the murder, the Placer County District Attorney’s Office posted on Facebook.
The former MLB first-round draft pick was found guilty in July of waiting at gunpoint inside his mother-in-law’s home before fatally shooting his father-in-law and seriously injuring his mother-in-law.
Serafini and his lover Samantha Scott were arrested two years after the incident. Scott later testified that she gave Serafini a ride on the day of the shooting, believing it to be a drug deal before Serafini later admitted to shooting her mother-in-law.
Prosecutors alleged that Serafini targeted his mother-in-law to access a multi-million dollar inheritance.
According to Adrienne Spohr, Serafini and her sister Erin took millions of dollars from her parents over the years, including millions of dollars for a horse estate and small installments for nanny services and to pay off credit cards. Spohr said Serafini and her sister continued to ask her mother for money after the attempted murder.
“Don showed no remorse,” she said. “He cashed a $200,000 check from his victim’s account just weeks after holding a gun to her head and pulling the trigger.”
Spohr said his sister and Serafini fought his efforts to post a reward announcement for his father’s killer. “And now we know why,” he said at the sentencing.
During the sentencing, Spohr asked that her brother-in-law be given the maximum sentence, including a period of solitary confinement, because Spohr feared that Serafini might conspire with other inmates to kill her. “Don Serafini should never see the outside of a prison again,” Spohr said.
Serafini continued to maintain his innocence during the sentencing, calling the trial a “popularity contest” and offering his condolences to “the victims of this heinous crime.”
Serafini spent seven years in the big leagues, logging time with the Minnesota Twins, Chicago Cubs, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati Reds, San Diego Padres and Colorado Rockies. His busiest season came in 1998, going 7-4 with a 6.48 ERA for the Twins.
He pitched professionally in Japan, Taiwan and Mexico.
