Samantha Scott, Danny Serafini (in Las Vegas and Placer County Jail mug shots); Serafini pictured exiting a plane in handcuffs following his extradition from Nevada to California (Placer County Sheriff’s Office)
A .22, a burglary, a murder by lying in wait, and an attempted murder — all while abusing, neglecting, or endangering two young children.
Those are the latest allegations from court documents in the murder case against a former MLB pitcher in the 2021 shooting of his in-laws in Homewood, California.
Daniel “Danny” Joseph Serafini, 49, and Samantha Maria Scott, Serafini’s 33-year-old alleged accomplice said to be a “close friend” to his wife, are accused of murdering 70-year-old Robert Gary Spohr and attempting to murder 68-year-old Wendy Louise Wood, who died a year after the June 5, 2021 shooting at the couple’s Lake Tahoe-area residence.
On Oct. 27, the Placer County Sheriff’s Office provided an update on the status of the case against the former MLB pitcher and Bar Rescue tavern owner, sharing video of a plane out of Humboldt County, Nevada, landing in California. Serafini was on that plane.
Robert Gary Spohr, Wendy Spohr (Image via KXTL/screengrab), Danny Serafini and Erin Serafini pictured on a 2015 episode of Bar Rescue (Image via YouTube/Paramount screengrab)
“Today, Placer County Sheriff’s deputies from our Transportation Unit traveled to Humboldt County, Nevada, to pick up North Lake Tahoe homicide suspect Daniel Serafini,” the sheriff’s office said. “He arrived in Placer County at 11 a.m. and was booked into the Auburn Jail shortly after his arrival.”
When Danny Serafini disembarked from the plane, he was in handcuffs.
Samantha Scott was previously arrested in Las Vegas and was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on a fugitive warrant, but there has not been an update on her extradition status yet.
There is now more information, however, as to why Placer County investigators believe Scott and Serafini were both involved in the shooting. Investigators had only said before that both Serafini and Scott “are known to each other and to the victims,” but reports also said Scott was connected to the victims as a nanny.
Danny Serafini (left in a Humboldt County, Nevada, mug shot); Serafini (center) and Samantha Scott (right) in arrest photos provided by the Placer County Sheriff’s Office in California.
According to a criminal complaint, Serafini and Scott “did unlawfully, and with malice aforethought murder” Robert Gary Spohr, who was shot to death with a .22 at his home.
Serafini was a “principal in the foregoing offense, and, in the commission of the offense, at least one principal intentionally and personally discharged a firearm, to wit, a .22 caliber firearm,” documents said, alleging that the former left-handed pitcher was lying in wait and committing a burglary when Spohr was killed.
Serafini and Scott were further accused of the “willful, deliberate and premeditated” attempted murder of Wendy Wood, who was also shot by a .22 caliber firearm.
A lawsuit filed in June by Adrienne Spohr against Serafini and her sister Erin, Serafini’s wife, detailed that Wood had to “relearn basic skills, including how to walk, talk, and eat again,” after she suffered “two gunshot wounds to the brain.”
“She never regained memory of the June 5, 2021, incident,” the lawsuit said. “Eventually, her injuries stemming from the June 5, 2021, incident led to her death.”
The first-degree residential burglary felony count against the defendants claimed that they “did willfully and unlawfully enter an inhabited dwelling house and trailer coach and inhabited portion of a building occupied” by the victims.
A fourth count alleged that Serafini committed felony cruelty to a child by abuse, neglect or endangering health — because two children, one of them 3 years old and the other 8 months old, went through “unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering” or were “placed in such a situation where his or her person or health was endangered.”
California authorities announced the suspects’ Nevada arrests on Oct. 20 after two years of investigation.
“During the early stages of the investigation, video surveillance was obtained from the home and along West Lake Boulevard, revealing a hooded male wearing a face-covering and a backpack walking to the residence several hours before the homicide occurred,” the sheriff’s office said. “Since then, PCSO detectives have worked tirelessly over the course of the past two years, devoting countless hours of follow up by detectives, along with the DA’s Office.”
Authorities said and court records show that Serafini is scheduled to be arraigned at 1 p.m. PST on Tuesday.
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