Samantha Scott on Tuesday told a jury about the first time former Major League Baseball player Daniel Serafini told her how he was involved in a shooting of his wife’s parents at their Lake Tahoe-area home.

Daniel Serafini, the retired MLB pitcher, is accused of murder in connection with a reported burglary at the home of his wife’s parents, Gary Spohr, 70, and Wendy Wood, 68. Serafini, 51, is accused of shooting the pair four years ago as they watched TV inside their home.

Spohr was shot once in the head during the June 5, 2021, burglary at the couple’s Homewood residence on the west shore of Lake Tahoe, the victims’ family has said. Wood suffered two gunshot wounds to the head but regained consciousness and called authorities for help. Although Wood received extensive rehabilitation, she died a year after the shooting.

Authorities arrested Serafini and Scott in October 2023 in connection with the deadly shooting. Scott has since agreed to a plea deal and is testifying as a witness for the prosecution in Serafini’s trial, which began May 19.

Shooting confession

Serafini’s murder trial continued Tuesday with Scott’s second day of testimony. She said Serafini told her about the shooting as they sat in his pickup truck one day in summer 2021 at his wife’s horse ranch.

“He had told me that he had shot Wendy twice in the head ... and she had survived,” Scott said on the witness stand Tuesday. “It was shocking.”

She said Serafini didn’t tell her anything about how his father-in-law was shot.

Scott testified that up until then she had “suspicions” Serafini was involved in the shooting, but she didn’t think he was capable of it. She had already been questioned by sheriff’s detectives, and she said Serafini told her investigators might think she was involved.

In court Friday, Scott testified about how she saw Serafini test-fire a handgun with a makeshift silencer hours before his wife’s parents were shot, and how she drove him back to Nevada as he got rid of the gun, his clothing, gloves and his backpack. Miller, the prosecutor in the murder trial, has told the jury that investigators never found those items.

“He said try not to say anything else,” Scott said in court on Tuesday. “Try to come up with a plan why you were in Tahoe.”

Scott is a key prosecution witness in the murder trial. Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Miller has told the jury that Scott drove Serafini in her Subaru from Nevada to California, dropping him off near his wife’s parents’ home before he snuck into the home and waited to ambush his in-laws as they watched TV.

Scott met Serafini’s wife, Erin Spohr, five years before the deadly shooting. They met at Erin Spohr’s horseback riding business and became friends. Scott would often do odd jobs for Sporhr and her family, including working as a nanny, in exchange for horseback lessons and housing her horse at Spohr’s stables.

Scott has said in court that Serafini told her they were picking up a package on the day of the shooting in Tahoe City. She assumed the package was drugs. She said she didn’t know at the time that she dropped him off on the day of the shooting less than two miles away from his wife’s parents’ home. She testified that she waited for him for hours before he returned and they drove away.

Days after the shooting, Serafini convinced her that a pre-existing minor damage to the tailgate of her Subaru made the vehicle too recognizable, Scott has testified. So, he drove the back of his pickup into the rear-end of her Subaru to create more damage that would require her to have it fixed at an auto body repair shop, Scott said. He gave her money for the repairs.

Affair began at hotel

Scott testified her affair with Serafini started with flirtation in October 2023, about five months after his wife’s parents were shot, and they decided to meet at an Elko hotel, where they had sex for the first time.

She said she never told her friend, Serafini’s wife, she was having an affair with her husband that stopped a couple of months later but continued up until their arrest.

“I feel it wad a bad decision on my part,” Scott said about never telling her friend about the shooting.

Serafini and Scott were arrested in October 2023. The Placer County District Attorney’s Office charged Serafini and Scott with murder in Spohr’s death, along with a charge of attempted murder in the shooting that wounded Wood. The filed charges indicate prosecutors believe Serafini was the person who shot his wife’s parents, not Scott.

In February, Scott pleaded guilty to a felony charge of being an accessory after the fact in the crime. Her sentencing hearing has not been scheduled. Prosecutors have said the accessory charge could result in a sentence of 16 months to three years.

Lied to detectives

Scott’s testimony resumed Tuesday with the jury hearing an audio recording of Placer County sheriffs detectives questioning her several days after the shooting. She has testified that she lied to the detectives, telling them she had been with Serafini in Elko, Nevada looking for a pickup truck for his wife.

“Dan had said we were staying there to look at trucks,” Scott said in court. “That’s what we were saying if anyone asked.”

She testified that she was “anxious” at the time because she knew she would not be telling the detectives the truth. Scott said Serafini later asked her to add him to her Verizon cell phone service, because he was concerned detectives investigating the shooting were looking into his records.

In his opening statement last month, David Dratman, one of Serafini’s attorneys, told the jurors they will have to judge the credibility of the witnesses in this trial. Dratman argued that Scott sat through a four-day preliminary hearing last year, when the prosecution presented its case to a judge to determined whether there was sufficient evidence for a trial.

He said Scott carefully looked at the prosecution’s evidence and months later provided an account “designed to fill-in the weaknesses” of the prosecution’s case against Serafini. Dratman has argued the prosecution does not have any physical evidence that links his client to the crime scene.

As a result of the plea deal, prosecutors dropped charges of murder and first-degree residential burglary against Scott. She had been in custody since her October 2023 arrest, but she was released on her own recognizance in February after pleading guilty.

The defense attorney told the jury that Scott, if convicted, could’ve faced up to 25 years to life in prison until she spoke to investigators earlier this year.