Instead of Being Sentenced Today, Ex-MLB Player Daniel Serafini Might Get a New Trial

Former Major League Baseball pitcher Daniel Serafini was scheduled to be sentenced on Monday, Aug. 18, for the 2021 killing of his father-in-law and attempted murder of his mother-in-law.

However, the hearing did not take place. The judge overseeing the case granted the defense’s request for a continuance and agreed to consider 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 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 after a two-year investigation into the June 5, 2021 shooting, which killed Spohr, 70, and severely injured Wood, 68, PEOPLE previously reported.

Serafini was convicted following a six-week trial that included testimony from dozens of witnesses, along with physical, digital, and forensic evidence prosecutors said all pointed to him as the shooter. Prosecutors alleged that Serafini targeted his in-laws to gain a share of his wife’s inheritance from their $23 million estate.

They also claimed that Serafini was financially dependent on his wife’s parents after losing the $14 million he had earned in the major leagues through poor investments. Prosecutors said he received a $70,000 check from them just weeks before the attack.

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

Wood later died by suicide in 2023 while living in 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 naming her sister Erin and Serafini as co-defendants. She is seeking $1.3 million in restitution from the former professional athlete following the jury’s verdict.

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

Serafini and Erin share two children, who were 8 months and 3 years old at the time of the attack. Erin 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.”