Credit: Placer County Sheriffs Office/Facebook
NEED TO KNOW
- Samantha Scott, 36, was sentenced to two years probation for her role in the shootings of Gary Spohr and Wendy Wood by their son-in-law Dan Serafini
- She struck a deal with prosecutors, agreeing to plead guilty to accessory after the fact and testify against Serafini at his murder trial
- Serafini, who began having an affair with Scott after the shootings, is now serving multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole
The former babysitter and later mistress of Dan Serafini managed to avoid additional jail time for her role in the 2021 shootings of his in-laws Gary Spohr and Wendy Wood.
Samantha Scott was sentenced to two-years probation in Placer County Court this week after pleading guilty to a felony charge of being an accessory after the fact in a deal with prosecutors.
That deal was predicated on her providing crucial testimony during the former Major League Baseball player’s murder trial last summer.
Scott drove Serafini to Lake Tahoe on the day he shot his in-laws, and months later he would confess to her that he had shot his mother-in-law twice in the head.
Scott kept that confession and her role in the killings a secret until after she and Serafini were arrested in November 2023.
It was only after prosecutors charged her with murder that she flipped on Serafini and agreed to testify against him at trial.
Serafini is now serving multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Credit: Placer County Sheriff’s Office
Scott was first questioned by investigators in November 2021, just a few months after the shooting.
At the same time, authorities executed a search warrant at her home and were able to obtain phone records which revealed that she had been near the Homewood, Calif., residence of Spohr and Wood on the day they were shot.
It was these cell phone records that allowed police to start building their case against Serafini.
Related: Jail Love Letters Revealed Between Ex-MLB Murderer Daniel Serafini and His Babysitter Mistress
Scott then told Serafini about the interview and and said a search warrant had been executed at her home, and testified that after she did he confessed to her that he’d shot Wood twice in the head at point-blank range.
That admission made Scott the star witness at Serafini’s six-week trial, which ended with a conviction on murder and attempted murder charges back in July.
Prosecutors argued at the trial that Serafini turned his cell phone off on the day of the shooting, noting that he would send upwards of 100 text messages per day but did not send any texts on the day of the shooting.
Scott has long maintained that she believed Serafini was traveling to Lake Tahoe to purchase a large quantity of cocaine on the day of the shooting. That is why she did not turn off her phone, and why investigators were able to place her car a mile from the crime scene.
Scott’s testimony was bolstered by surveillance footage from a motel in Elko, Nev., which showed that both Serafini and Scott had been together the previous night.
Credit: Courtesy Adrienne Spohr
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Prosecutors said that Serafini carried out the shooting after being dropped off by Scott near the victims’ $3.5 million Lake Tahoe home and sneaking into the residence while the victims were out on their boat with Serafini’s now-ex-wife, Erin Spohr, and their two young sons.
The fact that the shooter entered the home in the middle of the day while there were three cars in the driveway, and that investigators found no evidence of forced entry or anything being stolen from the home, led them to believe the shooter knew the victims.
Serafini is believed to have killed his in-laws in order to gain access to their $23 million estate, which would have been split between their two daughters, Erin and Adrienne.
In the end, Erin received none of that money; Wood disinherited Erin and then died by suicide in February 2023, nearly two years after she was shot.
Erin does, however, still own half of her parents’ Lake Tahoe home, which was put in a trust in her name back in 2017 by her parents.
She has also continued to stand by her husband despite their divorce, and the two, along with Scott, are also facing a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Erin’s sister Adrienne four months before Serafini’s arrest.
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