Instead of Being Sentenced Today, Ex-MLB Player Daniel Serafini Might Get a New Trial By Sean Neumann and Chris Spargo

Former Major League Baseball pitcher Daniel Serafini was set to be sentenced on Monday, Aug. 18, for killing his father-in-law and attempting to kill his mother-in-law in 2021.

That did not happen.

Instead, the judge overseeing the case granted the defense team’s request for a continuance and agreed to hear arguments on their motion for a new trial in October.

Serafini, 51, was found guilty in July for the shooting of his wife Erin Spohr’s parents, Gary Spohr and Wendy Wood — wealthy real estate investors who were attacked at their Lake Tahoe home in June 2021.

The former pitcher, who played for the Minnesota Twins and the Chicago Cubs in the late 1990s, was arrested in October 2023 following a two-year investigation into the June 5, 2021 shooting, which killed Spohr, 70, and severely wounded Wood, 68, PEOPLE previously reported.

Serafini was found guilty after a six-week trial which included testimony from dozens of witnesses, as well as physical, digital, and forensic evidence that prosecutors said all pointed to the retired baseball player as the killer. During the trial, prosecutors alleged that Serafini wanted to kill his in-laws so that he could share his wife’s inheritance of their $23 million estate. 

Prosecutors alleged that Serafini was financially dependent on his wife’s parents after losing the $14 million he had earned in the major leagues on bad investments. During the trial, prosecutors alleged that Serafini received a $70,000 check from his in-laws just weeks before the attack at their home.

Wood, who was shot twice in the head, told police she and her husband often clashed with their son-in-law over politics and money. PEOPLE reported that Wood could not remember the attack — having suffered brain damage from her injuries in the shooting — but she told police she believed it was Serafini who pulled the trigger.

Wood later died by suicide in 2023 while living at an assisted-living facility. “The heartbreak of losing my dad — and knowing who was responsible [for his death] — became too much,” her youngest daughter, Adrienne Spohr, 35, told PEOPLE earlier this year. “She said it felt like she had lost her right arm.”

Adrienne has since filed a wrongful death lawsuit in which her sister Erin and Serafini are co-defendants. She is seeking $1.3 million in restitution from the former professional athlete after the jury’s verdict in his criminal trial.

Authorities also arrested Serafini’s accomplice, Samantha Scott, 35 — a close friend of his wife with whom he was having an affair. Scott later struck a deal with prosecutors for a lesser accessory charge in return for testifying against Serafini in court, where she told the jury she drove Serafini to and from Lake Tahoe on the day of the shootings and watched him test the weapon beforehand.

Serafini and Erin share two children, who were 8-months-old and 3-years-old at the time of the 2021 shooting. She remained by his side throughout the trial.

“There can never truly be closure for Gary and Wendy’s family and friends,” Placer County D.A. Morgan Gire said in a statement following Serafini’s conviction last month. “We hope this verdict provides some semblance of resolve as they move forward.”