Deadly Swagger

Summary

Dateline NBC: “Deadly Swagger” (April 21, 2026) – Detailed Summary

Overview

This gripping Dateline episode, hosted by Keith Morrison and reported by Michelle Bandur and others, investigates the shocking murder of wealthy Lake Tahoe retirees Gary Spohr and the attempted murder of his wife, Wendy Wood. What started as a seemingly random, brutal home invasion spirals into a labyrinth of family rifts, financial motive, long-standing grudges, and a search for justice that would test both survivors and investigators over four years. At its heart: a prosecutorial quest to unmask Gary and Wendy’s killer amidst family secrets, shifting alibis, and a twist-filled trial that culminates with former MLB pitcher Dan Serafini facing life behind bars, and the community reeling from the dark truths beneath Lake Tahoe’s idyllic veneer.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Crime and Investigation Begin

• Lake Tahoe’s Tranquility Shattered

  • On June 5, 2021, paramedics respond to a 911 call at Gary and Wendy’s home. Gary is found dead on the couch, and Wendy is discovered gravely wounded but alive in the bathroom.
    • “There was blood on all the mirrors, on all the vanities, on the bathtub.” – Gary Nelson, paramedic (01:16)

• Investigation Called In

  • Detective Daniel Meyer’s day off is interrupted:
    • “All day’s off, all sleep is off, and we go pretty much all in on it until we’re finished.” (07:01)
  • No forced entry, no clear motive—just a chillingly precise attack.
    • “It was a very personal, targeted attack.” – Detective Meyer (05:33)

• Community Impact

  • The murder sends shockwaves through the affluent, unsuspecting community.
    • “You don’t hear about murder at Lake Tahoe...” – Michelle Bandur (09:56)

Victims and Their Lives

• Gary Spohr & Wendy Wood

  • Former business owners, attractive, generous with employees and family, ultimately self-made millionaires after years in the printing and real estate industries.
  • Daughters: Erin (equestrian, married to Dan Serafini) and Adrian (lives farther away).
    • “She was this tall, beautiful blonde...so independent.” – Judy Muir, former employee (11:05)
    • “They were generous with their employees and especially their daughters...” (11:51)

• Beneath the Surface

  • Despite apparent affluence and happiness, the family dynamic is fraught:
    • “Family didn’t always get along. ...Tension between the sisters. ...Wendy also butted heads with the neighbors.” (12:44)
    • “Wendy...was either named as the plaintiff or defendant in 22 lawsuits.” (13:16)
  • Neighbors and friends describe Wendy as formidable—and divisive.

Early Suspects and Security Footage

• Surveillance Footage

  • Home security video is pivotal:
    • Footage captures a masked figure (hoodie, sweats, mask, backpack) entering via the garage while the house is empty and the family is out boating. The shooter hides for hours before attacking after the family returns (18:02–21:32).
    • “He covered every aspect of his skin, of his face.” – Detective Meyer (18:38)
  • Canvassing gathers supporting footage from neighbors, mapping the suspect’s path and timeline.

• Victims’ Family as Suspects

  • Investigation (per the old adage: "follow the money") reveals that daughters Adrian and Erin inherit the $25 million estate.
    • “Who would gain from this? Well, clearly the two daughters.” (24:04)
  • Both daughters have solid alibis via footage and phone records. Erin’s husband, Dan Serafini, is supported by cell and eyewitness alibi.
    • “His alibi was looking really good.” – Detective Meyer (26:25)
    • Adrian’s boyfriend, initially promising as a suspect due to his past, is similarly cleared.
    • The infamous local disputes (“Rick the water guy,” “Dave the fisherman”) are investigated and dismissed.

Wendy’s Recovery – and Testimony

• Wendy’s Near-Death Comeback

  • Against all odds, Wendy regains consciousness and slowly recovers.
    • “Less than two weeks after she was left for dead, the detectives got a call. She was awake and talking.” (29:10)
  • Early, confused allegations ("Rick the water guy," then “Dave the fisherman”) are examined and ruled out.

• Gary’s Checkered Past

  • Gary’s old narcotics conviction is discovered, widening the suspect pool but yielding no firm leads.

A Web of Relationships

• Dan Serafini and Samantha Scott Emerge

  • Dan’s alibi comes under scrutiny when detectives discover a woman, Samantha Scott, checked in and out of his hotel room, drove Gary’s car, and was closely connected to Dan and Erin.
    • “It started to raise a lot of questions of how deeply are they all connected…” – Detective Meyer (43:00)
  • Interviews with Samantha, and examination of her phone records, reveal contradictions and eventual admissions. Her digital breadcrumb trail puts her—and Dan—near the crime scene.
    • “She made the mistake of presumably just killing off the screen on the phone and did not turn off the entire phone. And it left a digital breadcrumb trail from beginning to end.” – Detective Meyer (49:57)
  • Samantha eventually admits to driving Dan to Tahoe, leaving him, picking him up later, and returning with his instructions to keep her phone off.

• Financial Tensions Become Motive

  • Wendy’s slow recovery and increasing lucidity yield memories and suspicions of Dan’s involvement, leading her to disinherit Erin and fueling Adrian’s drive for justice.
    • “They were very needy for money all the time…We would help them out.” – Wendy (54:07)
    • $90,000 check given to Erin on the day of the murder.

• Wendy’s Apparent Visual Memory

  • Wendy later claims to remember seeing Dan in the house:
    • "I felt that someone was in the house, and I looked up and saw Danny with a hoodie on." – Wendy (55:22)

Arrest, Trial, and Verdict

• Case Closing in

  • By late 2023, digital and circumstantial evidence—plus a “miracle” surveillance clip—convinces detectives to arrest Dan and Samantha.
    • “Today we arrested 39 year old Danny Serafini and 33 year old Samantha Scott.” – Detective Meyer (59:37)

• Samantha Flips, Dan on Trial

  • Samantha turns state’s witness, admits complicity, and testifies about details: Dan’s instructions, the presence of the gun and silencer, and disposal of evidence. She pleads guilty as an accessory and is placed on probation.
    • “She told us what instructions she had received from him to keep her phone off, to keep her mouth shut...he had a gun.” – Prosecutor Catran (61:14)

• Key Evidence Presented

  • Motive: Decades of financial disputes, resentment, and a “joke” about paying $20k to kill his in-laws.
  • Surveillance footage: The shooter’s walk (“swagger with maybe a little bit of a limp”) compared to Dan’s.
  • Samantha’s testimony: Confirms affair, Dan’s threats, participation in the lead-up, and knowledge post-murder.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “He would have stood to inherit quite a bit of money with his wife, but he didn’t want to wait. He wanted it now, and he didn’t want any strings attached.” – Prosecutor Catran (63:27)
• “Today I wore my mom’s engagement ring, and my dad’s ashes are around my neck…” – Adrian Spohr, after verdict (74:26)
• “She actually did with me. And my wife and kids were there, and she ran over to them and gave them a hug as well. ...It was almost like we came full circle.” – Detective Meyer (87:55)

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Trial by Jury, Defense Arguments, Shifting Testimony

• Defense Says: Wrong Man

  • Dan’s new attorney argues: Jury overstepped by scrutinizing surveillance footage, his trial lawyers were ineffective, and Samantha’s testimony is self-preserving fabrication.
  • Dan himself, in jail interview, insists: “My job isn’t to prove who did it. My job was to prove that I didn’t do it. And there’s nothing there to prove that I did it.” (84:37)

• Jury Deliberation

  • Jurors analyze videos, compare gaits and shoes, and debate evidence for four days before unanimously convicting Dan.
    • “We were like investigators.” (73:45)
  • “The jurors were certain the figure in the video could only have been Dan Serafini.” (74:16)

• Aftermath

  • Erin files for divorce, but continues to support Dan.
  • Adrian delivers a powerful courtroom address, excoriating Dan and Erin for treating her parents as "a bottomless ATM" (87:13).
  • Samantha receives two years’ probation and expresses remorse.

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• The Crime & Discovery: 01:13–07:09
• Family Dynamics and Motives Introduced: 11:05–13:57
• Suspect Timeline & Surveillance Analysis: 17:08–22:22
• Investigation of Daughters & Alibis: 24:00–27:22
• Wendy’s Recollections & Neighborhood Feuds: 29:10–32:38
• Focus on Dan, Samantha, & Digital Evidence: 33:38–50:13
• Financial Motive and Family Estrangement: 54:07–56:03
• Death of Wendy; Civil Suits Emerge: 56:42–57:46
• Arrest and Confession: 59:37–61:50
• Trial Highlights: 62:23–67:12
• Defense Arguments, Dan’s Perspective: 69:36–86:51
• Aftermath and Restitution: 87:13–89:05

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Episode’s Tone and Style

The episode masterfully mixes atmospheric true crime storytelling—evoking the natural beauty and hidden darkness of Lake Tahoe—with dry, sometimes sardonic, commentary from Morrison and emotionally raw interviews with family, friends, and investigators. The tension is heightened by the web of plausible motives, shifting alibis, and the question of whether justice can ever untangle the perversity of family betrayal.

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Conclusion

“Deadly Swagger” tracks four years of trauma, suspicion, and dogged investigation after the killing of Gary Spohr and wounding of Wendy Wood. With the conviction of Dan Serafini (despite his continued denials and legal maneuvers), the community of Lake Tahoe—and Gary and Wendy’s family—reach some measure of closure after an ordeal marked by greed, lies, and loss. The case is one of intricate relationships, shattering violence, and the painstaking work of rebuilding truth from fragments, capped by the jurors’ determination, the prosecutors’ tenacity, and a survivor’s indomitable fight for justice.

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Additional Notable Quotes

• “She was this tall, beautiful blonde and she was so confident.” – Judy Muir (11:07)
• "We worked into the master bedroom, and...find a female patient. It was Wendy, Gary's wife. Covered in blood." – Gary Nelson (05:42)
• “Adrian gave you a hug at the sentencing, didn’t she?” – Narrator
  “She did. ...She ran over to [my wife and kids] and gave them a hug as well.” – Detective Meyer (87:46–88:18)
• "For 10 years, Dan Serafini and Aaron Spohr treated my parents like a bottomless atm...But it was never enough." – Adrian’s victim impact statement (87:13)

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This summary covers all critical developments and themes, and incorporates key voices and moments, for both those invested in the narrative and those seeking concrete understanding of the case.

Transcript

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[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Tonight on Dateline.

[Judy Muir (Former Employee)]

She was this tall, beautiful blonde. They were always joyful together as a couple.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

They were worth quite a bit of money.

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

A multimillion dollar fortune that they made.

[Neighbor Witness]

The news is on and I heard murder in Lake Tahoe.

[Gary Nelson (Paramedic)]

There was blood on all the mirrors, on all the vanities, on the bathtub.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

This was a very personal, targeted attack.

[Sarah Ross (Friend of Erin)]

It wasn't shocking to me that they

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

she was in 22 lawsuits.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Good Lord.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

Who would gain from this? Well, clearly the two daughters.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Samantha was a big part of their life.

[Samantha Scott]

We always joke around that we're like a triple.

[Sarah Ross (Friend of Erin)]

Reading all about it, I was like, whoa.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

It was middle of summer and I watched a male run up the street wearing full sweats with a hood on.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

He was hiding in the house for about three hours.

[Judy Muir (Former Employee)]

I see these people who look like they have it all, but you never know what your fate is gonna be.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

A charismatic couple living a life of luxury. Turns out they were also rich in enemies. I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline. Here's Keith Morrison with deadly swagger.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Lake Tahoe.

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

It's one of those bucket list destinations for people around the world.

[Narrator / Reporter]

A setting so sublime. Mark Twain wrote, to breathe the same air as the angels, you must go to Tahoe. He knew whereof. He wrote, if any place could be equated with heaven on earth, then surely it is Tahoe. Snow capped mountains above, crystal clear waters below.

[Prosecutor Christopher Catran]

It is where people go to find peace.

[Narrator / Reporter]

The lucky ones call this home. Never want to leave. Though once upon a time he was

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

waiting inside that house in the very

[Narrator / Reporter]

heart of this paradise.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Then MULTIPLE GUNSHOTS FIRING.

[Narrator / Reporter]

The question of leaving wasn't a choice. It was June 5, 2021. The 911 call was recorded at 9:26pm 911 was the address of the. Hello, 911.

[Gary Nelson (Paramedic)]

All the dispatchers could hear was moaning in the background, or they could hear someone gasping for air, but there was no words.

[Narrator / Reporter]

What was that? Who was that? The 911 operator just couldn't tell, but it didn't sound good. So they dispatched the fire department. Gary Nelson was a captain and paramedic.

[Gary Nelson (Paramedic)]

All we know is there's a possible medical or some type of situation happening, but we don't know what it is. We pull in front of the house. You see behind me with lights on

[Narrator / Reporter]

here, the home of a retired couple named Gary Spore and Wendy Wood. The front door was unlocked. The first responders walked upstairs to the living area.

[Gary Nelson (Paramedic)]

The dogs are moving back and forth. They're just wound up. So we yell, fire department. We get no response. And there's a gentleman laying on the couch. It looked like he was sleeping. His arms were crossed, his legs were crossed, his feet were up on the table or ottoman. And the TV was on like he was watching the news. And we come over behind him not to startle him, and we're like, tap him on the shoulder and go, sir. And yell it loudly, fire department, sir. No response. And that time we look over and my partner looks at him and goes, I don't think he's breathing at that point. We check a pulse. We don't get a pulse. We look across at another section of the couch, and we notice there's blood.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And there on the floor behind the couch, shell casings.

[Gary Nelson (Paramedic)]

And we notice a blood trail leading around the back of the couch. And the dogs that were very agitated, they kept coming between us and back into a master bedroom. They'd go back and forth and back and forth. So we're like, okay, this doesn't seem right. We work into the master bedroom. In the master bedroom, we turn on the lights in there. Nothing obvious. So we go around the corner and we turn on the light in the master bathroom. And that's where we find a female patient.

[Narrator / Reporter]

It was Wendy, Gary's wife, Covered in blood, as were the mirrors, the vanity, the bathtub. An iPhone speckled in blood was by the sink. Wendy had held onto it long enough to call 911. She was alive, but barely.

[Gary Nelson (Paramedic)]

She would only give one word, answers. She would say, yes, no. And she was, I believe, the paramedic when he asked her name, she was able to give her name, and that was it. He was asking, were you assaulted? Were you shot? You know, does she have, you know, Obviously bleeding from the head, obviously bleeding from the arms.

[Narrator / Reporter]

They called in a helicopter, flew her to a trauma center in Reno, 50 miles away, did all they could to keep her breathing. And still, middle of the night, Placer County Detective Daniel Meyer got the call it was going to be his day off. Not anymore. What's it like for you and for the family when. I mean, presumably you make plans for when you're off, and then. Sorry, I have to wait.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

I gotta go. It's really hard. My kids are older, a little bit older now. They're teenagers, so now they understand it. My wife's really good with it. She knows the kind of. When it happens. It's something we have to go do

[Narrator / Reporter]

with a thing like that. All days off and all bets are off, right?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

All day's off, all sleep is off, and we go pretty much all in on it until we're finished.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Investigators at the scene filled him in when he arrived.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

We had a male that had been shot in the head, and we had another victim, the wife. The female that was found also shot. We still didn't know the status, if she was gonna make it through the surgery or if we were going to have a double homicide at the time.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And then Detective Meyer tried to work out what must have happened.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

It appeared that after her husband was shot and killed where he was sleeping, that she was most likely woken up during the shots and had put her arms up in a kind of a defensive kind of posture, trying, then tried to get herself into safety.

[Narrator / Reporter]

No surprise. The search of the house and property turned up no suspect. Long gone, of course. But whoever it was clearly had one purpose in mind.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

There was no sign of forced entry. There was no sign that a fight or anything had ensued. It looked eerily normal, minus, obviously, the. Yeah, the personal destruction to Gary and Wendy.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Now, who in this paradise on earth would want to do a thing like that? You knew the whole damn crime and yet you knew nothing.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Exactly.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Strange.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

We had absolutely no idea who this individual could be.

[Narrator / Reporter]

So she must have had a reputation

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

around town and not a very good one.

[Samantha Scott]

We're like a throuple because he always complains that he has two eyes.

[Narrator / Reporter]

I've got to be challenging because we don't have much time. I have to take.

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

Tell you.

[Narrator / Reporter]

The fear spread at the speed of news, neighbor to neighbor, around the wealth encrusted shores of Lake Tahoe. Murder execution style. That Wendy survived, the neighbors heard, was something of a miracle. Though as the doctors told investigators Continued survival was no sure thing. Did you think maybe she can tell us what happened?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

We were praying she would. We had all of the nurses waiting to give us a phone call the moment she woke up. And we're praying but not hopeful. We knew the severity of her injuries. The likelihood that she would be able to was probably not very high.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Everything about this seemed against the odds, starting with the location of the shooting. A multimillion dollar lakefront home in one of the safest neighborhoods in Lake Tahoe. Michelle Bandeur covered the case for kcra, the local NBC affiliate.

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

You don't hear about murder at Lake Tahoe. You know, you maybe hear of someone falling to their death while hiking, you know, or a boating accident. But a crime where someone kills another person, it's just unheard of in Tahoe.

[Neighbor Witness]

I was standing in my kitchen making dinner and the news is on.

[Yasmin Vasugian (Podcast Host)]

Detectives identifying the victim.

[Neighbor Witness]

And then the next word they said was Gary Spore. Stopped me dead in my tracks.

[Judy Muir (Former Employee)]

I just couldn't believe it. Just shock is all I can remember of just what, you know, these people meant a lot to me.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Judy Muir and Lisa Fernandez once worked for Gary and Wendy. Were with them almost a decade, years and years ago.

[Detective / Investigator]

Gary and Wendy were my favorite owners

[Narrator / Reporter]

of that place ever. The place was the copy house at Print Shop in Sacramento. Gary and Wendy bought it in the 1990s. And Gary and Wendy were more than just bosses. They were better.

[Judy Muir (Former Employee)]

Wendy was such a presence. She made such a impression on me as a female. She was Wendy Wood. She was not Wendy Spore. And at that time in the 90s, that made an impression on me of like, wow, she's so independent.

[Narrator / Reporter]

There's attitude for you. Yeah.

[Judy Muir (Former Employee)]

And she, she was this tall, beautiful blonde and she was so confident.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And Gary, absolutely dashing.

[Samantha Scott]

Oh, yes.

[Judy Muir (Former Employee)]

He drove a cool little Porsche and which again, in my 20s, I thought that was.

[Detective / Investigator]

He was very friendly and he was

[Judy Muir (Former Employee)]

a very good looking man.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Yes, he was. Here they were brimming with charisma.

[Judy Muir (Former Employee)]

And yet I never felt like she looked down on us or treated us like the help. I always felt like they just treated us like we were part of their family.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Gave them presents, perfumes, steak dinners, free weekends at their ski house.

[Neighbor Witness]

They would do things like that for all of us.

[Judy Muir (Former Employee)]

For all of us.

[Narrator / Reporter]

They were so generous with their employees and especially their daughters, Aaron and Adrian. Are you having fun yet, Gary?

[Detective / Investigator]

There was horse lessons and the different things the girls like to do.

[Narrator / Reporter]

But Gary and Wendy could afford to be generous because they were rich. As John Ward, who Acted as their local attorney a few times. Knew well. Wendy and Gary had real estate holdings in California and I believe, in Washington. By 2021, their time was their own. And they loved skiing and boating and spending time with grandchildren. In fact, the very day Gary was shot, they had gone boating with the grandkids and their daughter Erin. She lived in nearby Reno with her husband, a former major league baseball player.

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

Aaron was an equestrian and had a stable in the Reno area.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Younger daughter Adrian and her boyfriend lived about three hours away from Tahoe. Life had been good to Gary and Wendy, but picture perfect. Well, maybe not. The family didn't always get along. There was tension between the sisters. And Wendy, with her strong personality, often fought with her daughters around the lake. Wendy also butted heads with the neighbors, so much so that local prosecutor Christopher Catran was already familiar with Wendy.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

She was either named as the plaintiff or the defendant in 22 lawsuits.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Good Lord. So she must have had a reputation

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

around town and not a very good one.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Gary often backed up his wife in these disputes. Had the couple's neighborhood battles made them a target or their money? Or was there something in their past? Because this certainly wasn't some random violent thief, as detective Meyer could plainly tell. One of the first things that they say is, was it a burglary? Did somebody, you know, go in to steal something and encounter the owners and shoot them and then flee?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

That was our first one of. At least my first thoughts. But there was no signs of any burglary. The normal things that we'll see in burglaries with the drawers being pulled or things being disheveled inside of bedrooms, none of that was present during this.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And the fact nothing was taken, Nothing of any significance you could figure out anyway.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Nothing was.

[Narrator / Reporter]

The first responders could.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

There was even a very high priced tennis bracelet that was not taken. That was left right where Wendy was shot. Burglary wasn't the motive.

[Narrator / Reporter]

They'd piss somebody off and that was that they got killed.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

It was a very, very personal and very intentional act.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Detective Meyer was about to get some help with his investigation.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

There were security cameras inside and outside of the house.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And when he rolled that tape, I

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

knew that at that point that was going to be our shooter.

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[Yasmin Vasugian (Podcast Host)]

Hey there everybody. It's Yasmin Vesugian, host of here's the Scoop, the daily news podcast from NBC News. So the Iran conflict has been a major focus of our coverage even before the war began. Week after week, I've spoken with our team of correspondents and we've heard voices from the region, including from inside Iran. But I want to take the reporting a step further. This week on here's the Scoop, I am on the ground in Lebanon and Qatar, reporting from the war zone firsthand to understand how the bombings, the battle over the Strait of Hormuz, and the uncertainty around what comes next are impacting life in the Middle East. I'll be getting a deeper look inside the region and the people that are caught in the middle. Join us for our special reporting from the Middle east on here's the Scoop on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. I'll see you soon.

[Narrator / Reporter]

What a difference a bit of tech can make. Those little front door cameras, common as clover now, like a gift for a detective in need of a break. You must have thought, hey, this will

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

get our guy pure excitement.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Especially when they spotted one with the

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

perfect angle kind of up above the garage pointing towards their vehicles and their kind of their driveway area.

[Narrator / Reporter]

So if the shooter came in that way, they might be able to see him or her. They started watching the video from that morning and nothing happened for hours. Things picked up when daughter Erin arrived with her two boys at 2:24pm That's Wendy in the driveway as Erin backed in. Bit later, Gary pulled in. Looked like an Audi blue. There was a pause for almost an hour and then Gary headed out, followed by the rest of the family. Down to the lake by the look of it. But then, then something very peculiar showed up on that surveillance tape.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

It was middle of summer, so it was obviously warm up there Even for Tahoe. And I watched a male run up the street wearing full sweats with a hood on, a mask on and a backpack.

[Narrator / Reporter]

I would think. You'd think, looking at that video, oh, oh, oh, there's our shooter.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

I was very hopeful. Yeah, that it was.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Especially when the masked man turned into the driveway.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

I knew that at that point that was going to be our shooter.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Did you happen to think at that moment, all right, this is not going to be so hard after all.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

I did for a little bit until you saw how close he got and then saw we couldn't see his face. He covered every aspect of his skin, of his face.

[Narrator / Reporter]

But surely there were more cameras around the neighborhood. They went hunting.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

We were out here canvassing the full area for several days. We were looking up and down the roads from the Spores residence all the way up to the, what we call the Y up here up in Tahoe City.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Did it show you anything more about where the shooter came from or where

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

he went after it did? Thankfully, we were able to find several cameras along the pathway.

[Narrator / Reporter]

It was enough to start piecing together some kind of timeline anyway, which the detectives laid out for the prosecutor, Christopher Katrin. The first sighting of the apparent shooter was at 5.02pm, almost half a mile from Gary and Wendy's house, walking along the main road towards them. By then, Gary was Wendy, Aaron and the kids were out on the boat. Last person left the house at 3:56pm

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

they walk out the driveway and down the street and you can see out in the lake. We're fairly close to the lake here.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Then 5:06pm, a neighbor security camera recorded the probable shooter walking along the lake.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

On the other side of the roadway, there's a bike path which is used for bikes and pedestrians and things like that. So he's approaching.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Minutes later, the masked man jogged into the view of the outside camera.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

He comes up this hill. You can see the driveway right here.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And like he knew just where to go. He turned towards the house. And then, no mistaking what that was, the sound of the garage door opening. After which a pause. And then around 30 minutes later, the family returned and it's 7:45pm Aaron left the house with the kids and drove away. An hour and six minutes later at 8:51pm, No mistaking that sound either. Gunshots. Five of them. Silence. Five minutes passed and out he came. Same way. He went in through the garage. And away at 9:02, another glimpse faintly in the gathering dark. It's like you're seeing the whole play from these security cameras.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Fortunately, we were able to watch the entire thing Knowing that he was inside the house while the whole family was in there. And they had no idea.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Well, and this guy hid in the house for three or four hours while the family was out on the lake. And he waited all that time.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

He waited almost a time, Enough to let them kind of get comfortable.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Were you able to find a place inside the house where the shooter hid for a period of time?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

We found a place where we believe that he was hiding. They had a very large closet on the bottom floor, and in the back of it, almost a little hidden room that was off there that somebody could stand up, move around in, lay down.

[Narrator / Reporter]

I mean, you knew a whole lot. You knew the whole damn crime and yet you knew nothing.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Exactly.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Strange.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

We saw everything, we heard everything, but yet we had absolutely no idea who this individual could be.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Who was this masked intruder? Was he a hired gun, an enemy from around the lake? Or was the shooter's motive one of the oldest of them all?

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

They're worth a lot of money. And as the old adage goes, follow the money.

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

Right.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Days passed, and the masked shooter who took Gary's life with a single bullet and left Wendy for dead was still out there somewhere. Desperate for leads, the Placer county sheriff's office posted a video of the gunman on social media.

[Yasmin Vasugian (Podcast Host)]

Placer county sheriff's detectives releasing this video from home surveillance cameras.

[Narrator / Reporter]

What made you decide to appeal to the public for help?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Because we needed all the help at that point we could get.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Tips came in, flooded the phone lines. Reporter Michelle Bandur.

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

They continued to ask for help, Even asking people in the area within so many mile radius of checking their security video. Do you see a figure like this or what do you see on, you know, June 5th between these hours?

[Narrator / Reporter]

Did it help much?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Unfortunately, it didn't.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Might scare the hell out of them, though. I mean, this is an affluent community and they hear that some guy was sneaking into houses and shooting people and I mean, that's pretty scary stuff.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

The community was terrified. But the way that it was done and let us feel a little safer to let the Tahoe community know we don't believe that somebody's out there. And we really felt that this was a very personal, targeted attack.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

And as the old adage goes, follow the money.

[Gary Nelson (Paramedic)]

Right?

[Narrator / Reporter]

Yeah, sure.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

Who would gain from this? Well, clearly, clearly the two daughters,

[Narrator / Reporter]

Adrian and Aaron, were the beneficiaries of their parents estate worth $25 million. They would split the inheritance equally. Both agreed to talk to detectives. How Were they taking it?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

They were very, very stoic, very composed. They were obviously upset, like any child's gonna be. But they were very much into trying to figure out what had happened.

[Narrator / Reporter]

You showed them the video, I'm assuming, right?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Absolutely.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Could they identify him at all?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Neither of them were able to identify him.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Of course. They had to check the daughter's alibis. Anyway, even though they were sure the shooter was a man. When you talked to Erin, what could she tell you?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

She was unaware of what could have happened. And she was there with the kids and in genuine shock that that person could have been inside the house with her while her kids and her were present. She was very, very upset at that time.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

Remember, the shooter came in at five o' clock while she, Aaron and the boys are on the boat with mom and dad.

[Narrator / Reporter]

The driveway security camera also showed her leaving her parents home before the shots were fired.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

So she's clearly has a good alibi.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And what about her husband? Aaron told detectives he was out of town when the shooting occurred. Dan Serafini was his name. Ex major league baseball player, Minnesota Twins, Cincinnati Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates, et cetera, et cetera. He was an ex bar owner, too, and now a miner, I believe.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

He was a heavy equipment operator in a mine about three and a half hours east of the Reno Sparks area.

[Narrator / Reporter]

They went to see him. And he had alibis, too. Day before the shooting, he said he attended a training class at the gold mine where he worked, then met up with co workers.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

He was gonna have a couple drinks with some friends that night from work.

[Narrator / Reporter]

He spent the next day in Crescent Valley, Nevada, where he had a trailer he used when working away from his family. Never left. Phone records showed him in Crescent Valley when Gary and Wendy were shot, just as Dan told them he was. So his alibi looked pretty good.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

His alibi was looking really good.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Did Adrian have an alibi?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

She did. She was at work. And we were able to verify that she was working during the time of the murder.

[Narrator / Reporter]

But detectives did wonder about Adrian's boyfriend. Guy named Taylor Hatton. Didn't he have a record, that guy?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

He did.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Taylor was a convicted felon. Confessed to robbing a bank, then ultimately pleaded guilty to a weapons charge.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

He was one of the first individuals that detectives were very interested in during

[Narrator / Reporter]

the commission of that armed robbery. Taylor was covered from head to toe, wore a ski mask, sunglasses, and had a backpack on a hot summer day. Just like the guy who shot Gary and Wendy. Again. Maybe solving this murder wouldn't be so hard after all. Was that Taylor on the surveillance video,

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

we did look into him extensively, and we were able to determine he was actually in Petaluma, California, during the time of the homicide. He was working out there as a contractor, constantly working on his cell phones. And he's significantly smaller than the shooter was.

[Narrator / Reporter]

It couldn't have been him. So there were other possibilities. Remember angry neighbors, potential enemies. And just about then, less than two weeks after the shooting, Wendy woke up and started talking.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

It was a genuine excitement throughout the entire unit that we might finally have that huge break we're looking for.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Around Lake Tahoe, lots of people knew Wendy Wood, and perhaps for all the wrong reasons. After the murder, there were a number of people who said that the suspect list was going to be be at least four or five pages. Family attorney John Ward figured Wendy was the killer's target. I think my knee jerk reaction was that Wendy had pissed off somebody. So how would she have done that? There were two ways to do things. Wendy's way and Wendy's way. Yeah, she had a mind and will of her own. And that she did. Less than two weeks after she was left for dead, the detectives got a call. She was awake and talking.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

It was a genuine excitement throughout the entire unit that we might finally have that huge break we're looking for.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Yeah.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

But she was struggling, coming in and out of consciousness. She made a quick statement of it was Rick the water guy, and she passed back out again. The nurses had told us that she had said it was Rick.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Well, that was something because Rick the water guy was certainly a person of interest.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Wendy and Rick had had a lot of easement issues because Rick would access his water. Access from her property.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Rick owned a water well that sat on Wendy and Gary's property, and Wendy had issues with that. Things escalated, and then Gary sent Rick an email to let him know that Wendy had a permit to use a gun and would if needed. So did Rick use a gun on them?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

We were able to look at him and compare him to the camera. And we knew at that point he was definitely not our shooter.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And then weeks later, more good news.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

Wendy has made a surprisingly miraculous recovery.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Amazing.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

The detectives hear that she's made this miraculous recovery, and of course, now they want to get a statement from her.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Of course. Yeah. So eyewitness to the murder comes back from the dead to tell the story.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

You can't. Can't have it any better than that, I would think.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Wendy struggled, but remembered that she and Gary had gone to the lake with Aaron and their grandkids. And at the end of the boating trip. She recalled covering up the boat.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

That's the last thing she remembers of that day, was putting the tarp on. And then the next thing she remembers is waking up in the hospital ward,

[Narrator / Reporter]

Sat in on this. Did they ask her who she thought it might have been? They did, and she was quite certain that it involved the incident with the paddleboard. Different guy now. Dave, the fisherman.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

So one day, she was out paddle boarding, and there was a gentleman who was a caretaker of one of the lakefront properties, and he was a avid fisherman. So one day he had his minnow trap out.

[Narrator / Reporter]

As Dave watched from shore, he saw Wendy yanking his traps out of the water.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

So while she's on her paddle board, she starts hauling them up.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Now, why would she do that, Keith?

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

I have no idea.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And Dave, he apparently got in a

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

boat, went out to go talk to her, stop her from doing it, and while he was out there, she hit him in the head with the oar or the paddle, and it kind of went south from there.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Dave suffered puncture wounds and abrasions to his head. The cops were called. Wendy was charged. Catran prosecuted Wendy for assault with a deadly weapon. She pleaded no contest, got probation, and was ordered to stay away from the fisherman and his property. That was 2018, three years before the shooting. Was Dave getting his revenge? I mean, there seemed like that might

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

have legs that had legs For a little while. We looked into him. We were able to go through all the cell phone data, including the GPS locations, and found out he wasn't present. He wasn't there. His digital alibi, so to speak, was very good.

[Narrator / Reporter]

So maybe Wendy wasn't the target after all. But Gary. Well, lovely house along the lake. Looks very genteel and sweet. And there's grandparents taking the grandkids out on the boat. It looks so idyllic, but when you dig a little bit. What did you find out about Gary's past?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

I found out a little bit. He did have a past with narcotics. I believe it was a federal case that was brought against him, and that he had kind of worked with the federal government to kind of right the wrong that he had done, so to speak of the crimes that he had

[Narrator / Reporter]

been caught for long ago, mind you, and no records to be found, but some things aren't forgotten. Well, that opens up all kinds of possibilities, though, doesn't it?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

It opened an amazing amount of possibilities. It kind of gave me and my partners a giant moment of pause. Yeah, this could span.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Oh, Lord. Yeah, for.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

I mean, we could be down into anywhere. We have no idea how far this rabbit hole could go.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Meanwhile, they were confirming alibis, like where Dan Serafini, Wendy and Gary's son in law, said he was. Night before the murder, detectives learned that after drinks with his co workers, Dan left to relax in a hotel in Elko, Nevada. When they drove out there, the desk clerk said he was there all right. Security cameras proved it. But then, bit odd. A woman checked out for Dan and checked herself in to the same room. Her name was Samantha Scott. Interesting, because Dan's phone record showed he had received a call the morning of the murder from the same woman.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

They do their, their cop stuff, you know, they get her driver's license, they get a picture, you know, and they find an address for her.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Samantha lived in Reno, Nevada, in an apartment complex about 45 miles north of Tahoe City. A detective drove out there and when he pulled up, he saw something that caught his attention.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

There's an Audi sitting in the parking lot. And he thinks he's seen the car before. And then it dawns on him that the Audi was Gary's.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Oh, boy. The victim of the murder, who was Samantha Scott. Why did she have Gary's car?

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[Detective Daniel Meyer]

He was a young Marine. She didn't care about convention. They made a life together.

[Detective / Investigator]

Then one night, the Marine died.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

And then the death investigation took a wild, unexpected and utterly bizarre turn. I'm Josh Mankiewicz and this is Trace of Suspicion, an all new podcast from Dateline.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Listen to all episodes of Trace of Suspicion now. Wherever you get your podcasts, You've heard it Here before. Sometimes luck is the best, detective. While checking Dan's alibi, detectives came across a woman named Samantha Scott, who checked into Dan's room and just weeks after Gary's murder, was driving the dead man's car.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

It was very, very weird that presumably the girls or somebody within the family structure had given the okay to give her that vehicle, either permanent or a temporary use of the vehicle.

[Narrator / Reporter]

It could happen. Just a little unusual.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Absolutely. It was enough to make us start asking more questions, to start looking a little bit more.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And that is exactly what they did. Hello. Hi. Hi.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

How are you?

[Detective / Investigator]

Samantha?

[Neighbor Witness]

Yeah.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Detectives showed up at Samantha's apartment in Reno, Nevada, about an hour away from Lake Tahoe.

[Detective / Investigator]

You obviously know why we're here to speak to you.

[Samantha Scott]

I mean, I'm assuming. I can assume.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Yeah, sure.

[Detective / Investigator]

What do you think?

[Samantha Scott]

I mean, it probably has something to do with my friend Eric.

[Neighbor Witness]

Yeah.

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

Yeah.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And

[Detective / Investigator]

what can you tell me about that?

[Samantha Scott]

I'm not really sure why I would be involved in it.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Involved in it? What was Samantha referring to exactly?

[Samantha Scott]

So I'm not too sure what to tell you. Okay. More than happy to train. That's English.

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

Okay.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Samantha said she met Aaron about five years earlier when she was looking for a trainer who specialized in equestrian triathlons.

[Samantha Scott]

She's the only one in town that does it. Outside rain bring her around.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Aaron became her trainer, and she would let Samantha boy board her horse in exchange for some work.

[Samantha Scott]

Good.

[Detective / Investigator]

What can you tell me about Aaron's husband, Danny?

[Samantha Scott]

Aaron's husband? I've known her for about five years.

[Detective / Investigator]

Okay.

[Samantha Scott]

And I mean, therefore, I've known him for about five years as well.

[Detective / Investigator]

Okay.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Then without being asked, she launched into her and his whereabouts on Friday, June 4, the night before the shooting.

[Samantha Scott]

I went with him to Elgo, I think that Friday. And that's kind of the first time we've ever hung out.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Why? Because she said Dan needed help with a surprise purchase for Erin.

[Samantha Scott]

We went to look for a truck for Erin, a new Ford. And I had just broken up with someone, so he's like, hey, come. We're having a party. And I was like, okay, cool. And then we didn't look for a truck, though.

[Detective / Investigator]

What did you end up doing?

[Samantha Scott]

Well, I just spent the night up there.

[Narrator / Reporter]

After a night out in Elko, she said she and Dan went back to the suite he had booked, and she slept in the bedroom. He slept in the living room. So she said.

[Detective / Investigator]

So no sexual relations or anything like that?

[Samantha Scott]

No, no, no.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Not ever? Ever. And when she woke up in the morning Dan was gone.

[Detective / Investigator]

Did he tell you that the night before he was going to be leaving early?

[Samantha Scott]

No.

[Narrator / Reporter]

She assumed Dan had left for work, she said. And so she decided she would extend her stay for a little R and

[Samantha Scott]

R. I was getting ready to go and then kind of wanted to stay because I just never been in a

[Narrator / Reporter]

suite before, she said she checked out the following day. And on her drive home, a friend called to let her know what had happened to Erin's parents. And so Samantha said she reached out to Erin and offered to help any way she could.

[Samantha Scott]

Because it's sad, but, I mean, I've known her long enough. Like how she handles things, too.

[Detective / Investigator]

How does she handle things?

[Samantha Scott]

She's pretty structured when it comes to things. Right now she seems pretty adamant about getting her house prepared so her mom can live there, too, when she's released.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And all of that story, all of it could have been quite true, except

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

we could see there was a crack in the armor of fear, really. She was nervous at points when there shouldn't have been nervousness.

[Narrator / Reporter]

If she was an innocent person or didn't know anything.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Correct. If there was nothing that she didn't know. I mean, we understand and expect a certain degree of nervousness, but when the fear continues and the oddities continue, that kind of puts some of the alarms up that something. Something was wrong.

[Samantha Scott]

I'm not super involved with anything but the horses. Can I ask why I'm involved, besides me having been an Elko?

[Detective / Investigator]

Well, we're.

[Samantha Scott]

Seems like Dan's interest.

[Detective / Investigator]

It's. It's an investigation, and so we have to make contact with folks that we come across in the investigation. We're just trying to get the facts. That's it. Obviously, it's a death investigation. You also have his car here. So, I mean, can you understand why we're here talking to you? And that's based on that?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Yeah.

[Narrator / Reporter]

No, I do understand simple explanation, said Samantha. Aaron let her borrow the Audi because Samantha's sisters were in town and they were using her Subaru. In fact, she had taken the day off to meet up with her sisters, who were at a hotel in Lake Tahoe. All perfectly innocent. The detectives wrapped up the conversation. All right, have a good day.

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

Thanks.

[Detective / Investigator]

Samantha.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And drove to the hotel in Lake Tahoe. They watched and waited. And there was Samantha. Not with her sisters, but with Aaron and Dan.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

It started to raise a lot of questions of how deeply are they all connected and who's connected to who and.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Sure.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

What are they doing up here?

[Narrator / Reporter]

Someone held the answers to those questions. Tell me about your relationship with Samantha.

[Sarah Ross (Friend of Erin)]

I idolized her. I thought she was the coolest person.

[Defense Attorney Barry Zimmerman]

Sarah.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Sarah Ross was barely a teenager when she met Erin Spohr.

[Sarah Ross (Friend of Erin)]

I was like, whoa. I was a bit starstruck.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Erin had built her career on riding feral horses and had become a bit of a celebrity in the event riding community.

[Sarah Ross (Friend of Erin)]

She was really, really brave. I think that was her biggest quality. And it didn't really dawn on her to be afraid. In her mind, she could outmuscle it. She could make it do what she wanted to do.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Sara lived across from Erin and Dan's barn in Rideau, Nevada. When she joined Erin's training program, she

[Sarah Ross (Friend of Erin)]

was almost more of a, like, big sister type coach. So she was funny. She wanted to engage, but she also was pretty firm when she had to

[Narrator / Reporter]

be to help with the cost of the sport. Sarah often worked at Erin's barn, and it's how she met Samantha Scott.

[Sarah Ross (Friend of Erin)]

So I'd go schmobbing on the hay cart, and we'd load bales, and we'd just chit chat, and that kind of was our bonding.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Sarah also saw the bond that developed between Samantha and Aaron.

[Sarah Ross (Friend of Erin)]

It started just like a client, like anything. And then over time, when that's kind of your circle, then you all kind of become friends. And so they were quite close friends.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Dan was part of that circle, too.

[Sarah Ross (Friend of Erin)]

He'd come to the horse shows when he could. He'd, you know, be out there fixing fences. He really cared about the horses themselves.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Together, Dan and Aaron were a good time. Everybody gravitated towards them.

[Sarah Ross (Friend of Erin)]

They were just fun to be around. And they had these massive personalities.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Was that what was going on when detectives saw Samantha with Aaron and Dan at that hotel in Lake Tahoe? Friends just hanging out. Little less than a month after the shooting, detectives watched from a distance, saw them walking around the property.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

It started to raise a lot of questions of how deeply are they all connected and who's connected to who and what are they doing up here?

[Narrator / Reporter]

So they asked dad to come in for another round of questions. This time, he brought his attorney. Detective Meyer confronted dad about being with Samantha the night before the murder.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

We went to the Red lion, and you were there with Sam.

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

Oh, no.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

But you didn't tell us that that night. You said you're off with coworkers. You were doing your thing.

[Narrator / Reporter]

But that's not a lie. That's my personal life.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

He was indignant.

[Local Resident / Town Gossip]

Didn't.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Didn't feel like it was a big issue, Kind of like it was my business. You don't need to know about it. Okay? I'm not saying it's a lie, but it's when you kind of sell it one way and then we find out it's on it. And like I told you that day, I am not the marriage police.

[Narrator / Reporter]

You can ask me any questions at all. And I would have told you more if you asked more, but my personal. Sure, but my personal life is my personal life.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Just so I know, are you and Sam in a relationship?

[Prosecutor Christopher Catran]

Absolutely not.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Was that any of. Was that an affair that was up that night? What was it that was up there?

[Narrator / Reporter]

Sam and I are not having an affair at all.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Okay?

[Narrator / Reporter]

Just like Samantha said, they were going to buy a truck for Aaron and that was it. And the day of the shooting, he insisted he was long gone, miles and miles away in his trailer in Crescent Valley. Jolly. I laid in bed, passed out, pretty much the whole. The whole life.

[Detective / Investigator]

Okay, when did I see.

[Narrator / Reporter]

I'll tell you. Even when I took. I took two Vicodin, a shot at nyquil Z, and two Tylenol pms, and then laid them vegged out on my bed. And of course, that phone of his backed him up. Put him a four and a half hour drive away from where his in laws were murdered. So that was. Was that they let him leave. And months went by until in the fall of 2021, Samantha's phone records came back. And our phones can reveal a thing or two. Which is why detectives invited Samantha for another talk.

[Samantha Scott]

I'm happy to answer your questions.

[Narrator / Reporter]

There's a lot of details that we would like to know. Things that only the people in that inner circle will know. Like, for example, her actual relationship with Dan.

[Samantha Scott]

I'm very close with Erin. And I'm very close with Dan. We didn't. There's a recent flirtation going on. I'm sure you'll see my phone with Dan.

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

Okay. Not Aaron.

[Samantha Scott]

No, not with Aaron. And we always joke around that we're in like a throuple because he always complains that he has two wives.

[Narrator / Reporter]

By now, detectives had told Samantha they had her phone records. And maybe that's why her story about the day of the murder was about to change.

[Samantha Scott]

I left the Red Lion. I went to Crescent Valley.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Well. Well, she didn't spend the day at the hotel after all. And what did you do there in Crescent Valley?

[Samantha Scott]

I was just there momentarily, and then I left and went to Tahoe.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Okay, and you were by yourself?

[Samantha Scott]

No, I went with Dan.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Danny went with you to Tahoe. There it was. She confirmed what her phone Record showed that her cell phone traveled from Dan's trailer to Lake Tahoe, and Dan was with her. Okay, so you guys drove together.

[Samantha Scott]

Correct.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Was he ever out of your sight?

[Samantha Scott]

Yes.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Samantha said she dropped off Dan in the afternoon near the shops in Tahoe City, about four miles away from Gary and Wendy's house. And she waited for hours until Dan returned.

[Samantha Scott]

He just said to wait. He had to pick up his package. And I said okay.

[Narrator / Reporter]

She believed, she said that he was there to pick up cocaine. So the digital evidence doesn't support what you're saying. Unfortunately, her phone put her much closer to the crime scene. Did you see him with a gun?

[Samantha Scott]

I did not.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Samantha said she didn't believe Dan had anything to do with the shooting. To which the detective replied, I don't buy that story whatsoever. You are in a lot of trouble. This does not make sense. And something else that didn't make sense. Did he tell you to turn your phone off?

[Samantha Scott]

No. Yes, he did tell me to turn my phone off.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Okay. Okay. Samantha, I'm sorry.

[Samantha Scott]

I know.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Hold on. We're not judging you. This is scary, but you have to be honest. Samantha said Dan told her to turn off her phone hours before they made it into Tahoe. And she did, or thought she did.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

She made the mistake of presumably just killing off the screen on the phone and did not turn off the power off the entire phone. And it left a digital breadcrumb trail from beginning to end.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Detective Meyer and his team watched the interview on FaceTime. Well, they stood by with a search warrant near Dan's trailer in Crescent Valley.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

We were hopefully going to switch from just doing a search warrant out there to maybe we're going to be able to make the arrest.

[Narrator / Reporter]

But Samantha didn't give up anything more. How did that change your thinking about the case?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

We knew at that point we were on the right track, that we had him. We knew that she had just put him there. She had just put Danny there. But now we had the finish line in sight. We were ready to finish it.

[Narrator / Reporter]

That finish line was further than it seemed.

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[Yasmin Vasugian (Podcast Host)]

Hey there, everybody. It's Yasmin Vasugian, host of here's the Scoop, the daily news podcast from NBC News. So the Iran conflict has been a major focus of our coverage even before the war began. Week after week, I've spoken with our team of correspondents and we've heard voices from the region, including from inside Iran. But I want to take the reporting a step further. This week on here's THE Scoop, I am on the ground in Lebanon and Qatar, reporting from the war zone firsthand to understand how the bombings, the battle over the Strait of Hormuz and the uncertainty around what comes next next are impacting life in the Middle East. I'll be getting a deeper look inside the region and the people that are caught in the middle. Join us for our special reporting from the Middle east on here's the Scoop on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. I'll see you soon.

[Narrator / Reporter]

While investigators worked on building a stronger case against Dan and Samantha, Wendy was trying to rebuild her life. She had survived multiple gunshots to the head and now she was doing all she could to regain her strength and her memory. Did it seem to you as if she would make a full recovery physically and mentally?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

I was very hopeful. It had that feeling that she was getting better by the day.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Wendy's rehabilitation was long and strenuous.

[Samantha Scott]

There's miracle Wendy.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Her daughter Adrienne released video of her progress. Reporter Michelle Bandour video of her riding

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

a bike, learning how to walk again, learning how to speak again. Like she had this fight to live.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Amazing. She survived it.

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

Really amazing.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And she kept up with the investigation.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

I spoke to her almost every day.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Oh, really? Okay.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Me and Wendy, we developed kind of a friendship.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Wendy told Detective Meyer quite a bit about Adrian's sister Aaron and brother in law Dan and their financial issues.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

They were taking more from Gary and Wendy than Adrian ever had.

[Narrator / Reporter]

During a recorded phone call with detectives, Wendy described her frustration.

[Neighbor Witness]

They were very needy for money and all the time and there was always something and then you know, we. We would help them out.

[Narrator / Reporter]

In fact, on the day of the shooting, Gary and Wendy forked over a rather hefty sum.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

I believe it was a $90,000 check that Aaron was given prior to leaving the residence. So the money was absolutely flowing in.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Detectives learned that sometimes the money was a gift and other times a loan. Either way, it was a lifeline for the couple.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

At one point, Danny had one failed business venture, a bar in the Reno Sparks area that fell through.

[Narrator / Reporter]

By the time of the shooting, Dan and Aaron owed hundreds of thousands of dollars to her parents. There had been intense fights and sometimes estrangement.

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

Her mother cut her off so many times throughout her life, you know, would cut her off and then bring her back.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And did those heated arguments lead to murder? Wendy started to believe they did. She began to remember things. Right. Gradually, she was trying to, like, maybe she saw Danny. Yes, this is Wendy, almost a year after the shooting, on the phone with a detective.

[Neighbor Witness]

I've had some memory come back. I felt that someone was in the house, and I looked up and saw Danny with a hoodie on.

[Detective / Investigator]

How clear do you remember it?

[Neighbor Witness]

Very clear. I remember him walking over and seeing him shooting Gary and then pointing the gun at me.

[Narrator / Reporter]

It sounded credible. But given her brain injury, were her statements actual memories or a mixture of things she had heard from friends and family? Wendy herself wasn't sure, but she was suspicious enough of Dan and her daughter that she revised her will and disinherited Erin.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

The more lucid she had become, the more involved she had become, the more engaging. Also the more frustrated she had become.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Equally frustrated was her daughter Adrienne, who'd also become suspicious of Dan and her sister. Sergeant Tyler Near, a new supervisor of investigations assigned to work with Detective Meyer, spoke with her.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

She wanted something done, and she wanted justice for her parents.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And life was not easy. Wendy had improved physically, but mentally, she was struggling. And nearly two years after the shooting, Detective Meyer received a call from Adrian.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

She said, my mom killed herself, and I blame you for it to be

[Narrator / Reporter]

accused of being responsible. She's dead. She killed herself. It's your fault.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

It was my fault because we didn't solve the crime, and she felt that it was never going to be done.

[Narrator / Reporter]

What was that like physically, emotionally, to get that call?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

It hurt. It made me angry. I was sad because I'd gotten to know Wendy and to know that she had taken her life. That hurt.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Took it pretty hard, huh?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

It hit. Yeah, it hit really hard.

[Narrator / Reporter]

A few months later, on the second anniversary of Gary's Murder. Adrian filed a wrongful death lawsuit alleging what she had come to believe that both Dan and Aaron were responsible for the shooting. Placer County District Attorney Morgan Guyer. Did you believe that Aaron was involved in this in a. In a substantial way?

[Prosecutor Christopher Catran]

I do.

[Narrator / Reporter]

What things stand out for you?

[Prosecutor Christopher Catran]

Well, the most obvious being the timing of the murder of Gary Spore and the shooting of Wendy Wood. Aaron was there that day. Aaron went out on the boat with her children and her parents.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Almost a two hour window the shooter used to slip into Gary and Wendy's home and wait. Aaron responded with her own lawsuit denying any involvement with the attack against her parents. She alleged that was a lie Adrian used to turn Wendy against her. Aaron is accusing Adrienne of cutting them out of the will and of taking advantage of her mother.

[Prosecutor Christopher Catran]

The allegation was essentially that she had manipulated her mother into disinheriting and she filed a lawsuit to get to the bottom of it.

[Narrator / Reporter]

How did all this complicate your investigation?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

For me, I treated a lot as kind of noise, but I wasn't allowing it really to influence the investigation or influence any direction.

[Narrator / Reporter]

By then they'd found a key piece of evidence. It was video of Samantha on the day of the shooting walking to her parked Subaru at 8pm, a mile and a half from Gary and Wendy's home. She waited there until dark. And then 24 minutes after the shooter left the crime scene, headed in her direction.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

We could see the dome light turn on and presumably that's when he had gotten in the vehicle and they drove away.

[Narrator / Reporter]

The last piece of the timeline puzzle. But before detectives could make an arrest, there was still something they needed to do.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Really closing those doors on other people that could have been suspects or named as potential suspects to really paint the picture beyond a reasonable doubt that it couldn't be anybody else responsible for this.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Seven months after Wendy's death, they believed they had done just that.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Today we arrested 39 year old Danny Serafini and 33 year old Samantha Scott.

[Narrator / Reporter]

The case was finally ready to prosecute. Detectives called Adrian to share the news.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

And we called her and told her it's done, we got him. And she just screamed. She screamed in excitement and told her boyfriend who was with her that it was done, that they finally got him.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Why did you never arrest Erin or charge her?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

There was no evidence that pointed at Erin or showed Aaron had any culpability.

[Narrator / Reporter]

After the arraignments, Adriane talked to reporters about her brother in law.

[Samantha Scott]

I think he is violent, I think he is greedy and I Am just so thankful that Placer county has taken him into custody, because that's where he should be.

[Narrator / Reporter]

The former major league baseball player was about to face a jury. And an unexpected star witness would take center stage. Dan Serafidi and Samantha Scott were in jail, accused of murder and attempted murder. By January 2025, they'd been there 15 months. And Samantha, she'd had a change of heart and sat down with investigators to tell them everything. What did she say that was different than what she'd said before?

[Prosecutor Christopher Catran]

Most importantly, she told us what instructions she had received from him to keep her phone off, to keep her mouth shut. And she indicated that he had a gun with him and had even test fired that gun and silencer on their drive from Nevada to Lake Tahoe.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And then after Dan shot Gary and Wendy, said Samantha, as they were driving back to Dan's trailer, she saw him throw the gun, the silencer, the backpack and some shoes out of the car. By the time investigators looked for that evidence, it was gone. But Samantha's sworn statement would be enough.

[Prosecutor Christopher Catran]

We were already preparing to try him without that testimony because the evidence showed that he did it. But this provided corroboration to a lot of other pieces of evidence.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Samantha agreed to plead guilty to being an accessory after the fact. And she got to go home, well, with a new accessory of her own, an ankle monitor. Four months later, May 2025, Dan Serafini went on trial and prosecutor Rick Miller opened with something. Dan told his brother, I'll pay $20,000

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

to have them killed.

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

That is how the trial started.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Well, he certainly didn't bury the headline, did he?

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

No, he did not. He got everyone's attention.

[Narrator / Reporter]

The prosecutor said Dan's hatred toward his in law.

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

Earlier there are these very contentious emails that the jury heard.

[Narrator / Reporter]

One Exchange was from 2016 when they were arguing over a multi million dollar ranch they had helped purchase for Aaron and Dan. The prosecutor quoted from Dan's email to Wendy, take the house, but if Gary

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

ever says you to me again, I will knock him the out.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Three months before the shooting, there were more. This one, after a disagreement over the couple's kids, Wendy wrote to Aaron. Danny's disdain for us is right at the surface. So he enjoyed berating us. They fought a lot.

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

They fought a lot. They did a lot of fighting.

[Detective / Investigator]

This was way more than just keyboard warriors.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Dan said he wanted them killed and then set out to do that very thing. Said the prosecutor.

[Prosecutor Christopher Catran]

He would have stood to inherit quite a bit of money with his wife, but he didn't Want to wait. He wanted it now, and he didn't want any strings attached.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And it all came to a head on June 5, 2021, the day Wendy and Gary went boating with Erin and her boys. The prosecutor showed that video of a figure walking toward the house and told the jurors to focus on the person's gait. What was it about the walk?

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

Well, it was described as a sort of swagger with maybe a little bit of a limp.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Sure.

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

And then they had another video of Dan Serafini in the lobby of the Red lion in Elko, Nevada, the day before the shootings.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Was the walk the same?

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

Well, you'd have to look for yourself. But the prosecution said the walk was the same.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Had to be Dan, the prosecutor said, because anybody else would have seen the SUV in the driveway and would have thought somebody was home. No one was home, of course. So Dan entered the garage code and walked right in. Then, just over an hour after Aaron drove off with the kids, the jurors heard the five gunshots. Before leaving, Dan put a bag of dog food out because he thought the bodies wouldn't be discovered for days, said the prosecutor. It was all carefully planned, he told the jury. Dan purposely left his phone in his trailer 300 plus miles away so there wouldn't be a digital trail.

[Detective / Investigator]

His phone has a really good, solid alibi.

[Narrator / Reporter]

That phone never moved.

[Detective / Investigator]

Zero steps, zero outgoing communication. Everything goes to voicemail.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Then the prosecutor called his star witness, Samantha Scott. She described what she saw on that drive to Lake Tahoe. The gun, the silencer, the backpack. And something Dan later revealed about that day.

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

He allegedly confessed to Samantha that he shot Wendy.

[Narrator / Reporter]

She also told the jury that Dan threatened to shoot her family if she said anything to anyone. By the fall of 2020, one months after the murder, Samantha said they were having an affair that continued even after they were both arrested.

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

He told her he was in love with her while they were in jail and sent her what they call kites in jail. This is a slang term for sending messages between inmates.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And that, said the prosecutor, was part of the plan.

[Detective / Investigator]

He knows she's loyal. He knows she's in love with him. Everything he's that she has done indicates that. And yeah, even as I'm talking right now, the flame on that candle has not even begun to flicker.

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

She still admitted she was feeling guilty for testifying because she was still had feelings for him.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Then the prosecutor called Erin and asked her about Dan's relationship with Samantha.

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

Aaron said she knew of the sexual relationship that didn't make her upset, but she was more upset that there were emotional feelings that she was finding out about. That's what upset her.

[Narrator / Reporter]

She had once considered Samantha a friend, but now she said she no longer trusted her. And unlike Samantha, Aaron had not turned on Dan. She testified for the prosecution and defended Dan.

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

Correct. She defended her husband at the trial, saying there's no way that was her husband in that video.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Samantha and Aaron on the stand, the two of them. I'm interested in knowing from your observation of them, how they came across.

[Prosecutor Christopher Catran]

They painted two separate pictures. Samantha had accepted defeat, both legally and existentially, and understood that her job now was to connect the dots. Aaron was still in defense mode. She was still actively trying to thwart the truth. So you couldn't have two different perspectives in one courtroom.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Or maybe three perspectives. Dan's defense attorney was about to paint an entirely different picture, and Dan Serafini wasn't in it.

[Detective / Investigator]

The person in the video is built differently than Danny because the person in that video video is not Danny Serafini.

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[Narrator / Reporter]

Hey guys, Willie Geist here reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit down podcast. On this week's special episode, I get together with Hollywood superstar and now business magnate Ryan Reynolds in front of a

[Prosecutor Christopher Catran]

live audience to walk through his life and career.

[Narrator / Reporter]

You can get our conversation for free wherever you download your podcasts. The state that called Dan Serafini a killer that his attorney David Ratman said was flat out wrong.

[Detective / Investigator]

Danny Serafini did not shoot Gary Spohr. Danny Serafini did not shoot Wendy Wood.

[Narrator / Reporter]

That masked man in the video that wasn't him, said the defense.

[Detective / Investigator]

The stature is different, and the person in the video is built differently than Danny because the person in that video is not Danny Serafini.

[Narrator / Reporter]

The height was wrong, the weight was wrong. The walk was wrong. Not the same at all. And anyway, remember those phone records? He was many miles away in Nevada when that masked man shot Gary and Wendy.

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

The defense suggested he could have been binge watching something on his phone, shopping, sitting in his trailer in Crescent Valley.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And remember, counsel, the defense attorney, there was no physical evidence, not a scrap, tying Dan to the Tahoe house on the day of the shooting. Besides, his wife, Erin testified that Dan had no financial motive to kill her parents.

[Detective / Investigator]

These people were quite generous with Danny Serafini and his wife, their daughter Aaron.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And if Dan killed them, he'd get nothing, not a cent.

[Detective / Investigator]

The evidence will also show that Danny Serafini was not a beneficiary of their will. He was not someone that was going to inherit.

[Narrator / Reporter]

As for Samantha's testimony, she lied, said the defense, to save herself.

[Detective / Investigator]

That story is fantastic. That story is a story. It is a really great leap of faith here that the prosecution is asking you to believe. It's like, why would you kill the golden goose?

[Narrator / Reporter]

Before jurors got the case, prosecutor Rick Miller left them with this message.

[Detective / Investigator]

You know why he did it. You know how he did it. You know his motive, you know his opportunity. You know his ability. There's a murderer in this room. He's sitting right there.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And then they were sent away to deliberate.

[Samantha Scott]

And I've never experienced or been through anything like this before.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Karen schroeder, the jury, four person and two other jurors, Allie McKibben and Gracie Buttrick, took page after page of notes as they listened to the testimony and watched Dan.

[Samantha Scott]

I spent the majority of the trial just watching him, to try to see how he reacted to each and every witness and evidence and just try to get a read on him. But he seemed very stoic and disconnected.

[Narrator / Reporter]

They paid attention to every word from

[Samantha Scott]

Samantha Scott, her recollection on the stand, and compare that to what she had already told law enforcement, really trying to pick through. She's telling the truth, what you know, what is she lying about?

[Narrator / Reporter]

And found Dan's wife, Erin, to be,

[Samantha Scott]

well, for lack of a better word, frustrating. It was clear the second she got on that witness stand that her loyalties lied with her husband. And you have to think he's up there accused of murdering your parents.

[Narrator / Reporter]

That first day, the jurors talked no Verdict.

[Samantha Scott]

We didn't take a vote until the end of our second four full day of deliberations.

[Narrator / Reporter]

The vote was not unanimous. Were you surprised? They kept going on and on and on.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

I really thought it was going to be a very quick verdict and had to keep reminding myself the amount of evidence that they had to go through and the complexity of the case. So it kind of gave me that moment of peace to know it's, we're going to get there. It's just going to take a little while to get to where we need to.

[Narrator / Reporter]

You hope.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

I hoped.

[Narrator / Reporter]

The jurors took a closer look at the surveillance videos from the Red lion and the Tahoe house. And they took screenshots.

[Samantha Scott]

There was parts where you could zoom in. And so then we did side by side and looked. Could it be the same person?

[Narrator / Reporter]

They looked at the shoes, the pants, the walk.

[Samantha Scott]

We were like investigators.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And finally, on day four, I understand

[Gary Nelson (Paramedic)]

the jury has reached a verdict.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And years of grief and anger and tension gathered in the courtroom from that moment.

[Gary Nelson (Paramedic)]

We, the jury, in the above entitled

[Narrator / Reporter]

action, find the defendant, Daniel Joseph Serafini, guilty. Guilty of first degree murder and attempted murder. The jurors were certain the figure in the video could only have been Dan Serafini.

[Michelle Bandur (Reporter)]

I felt 100% that's him. No one was able to convince me it wasn't. And nothing in the evidence could tell me that it wasn't.

[Samantha Scott]

Today I wore my mom's engagement ring, and my dad's ashes are around my neck, and I knew that they were here with us today.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Outside the courtroom, Adrian Spohr was grateful.

[Samantha Scott]

Placer county district attorney's office and sheriff's office never gave up. And today, finally, justice was served.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Oh, my gosh. Excitement, tears. A full kind of like four years just finally ended.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Have you ever been this deeply emotionally connected with a case before?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

No, I've never had any case that just exhausted us mentally and emotionally to this degree. And it was when it was done, that relief was pretty awesome.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Except it wasn't done. It wasn't, because Dan Serafini simply refused to accept it. And he found a new attorney who revealed a new piece of evidence.

[Neighbor Witness]

Danny, it's Wendy. I didn't get to tell you that I've been doing this electric therapy and I have a vision as a shooter.

[Defense Attorney Barry Zimmerman]

DA Said, where'd you get that?

[Narrator / Reporter]

Watch out. You know how it is. The jury pronounces guilty. And it's done, cooked, finished. We begin with breaking news.

[Samantha Scott]

A jury has found former MLB pitcher Dan Serafini guilty. Of.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Except this time it wasn't. Dan Serafini, one time Major League baseball pitcher, now convicted murderer, simply refused to accept the verdict. What the hell happened?

[Defense Attorney Barry Zimmerman]

I think what happened, unfortunately for, for everyone, is that due process never happened.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Or you could say this guy is what happened. Dan swapped out his old lawyers for Barry Zimmerman. And Zimmerman had a whole new play in mind. Throw out his conviction and get Dan a new trial. Why? Two reasons, he said. Reason one, jury misconduct. What did the jury do that was so terrible?

[Defense Attorney Barry Zimmerman]

They decided on their own dime to go through the video of the surveillance at the house and the video at the Red lion and make screenshots and then compare screenshots to screenshots to see if they could match who they knew to be Danny Serafini at the Red lion with the perpetrator that Zimmerman said

[Narrator / Reporter]

was outside the scope of the jury's role.

[Defense Attorney Barry Zimmerman]

I was shocked. I thought, this is absolutely misconduct.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And reason two, Zimmerman argued that Dan's trial attorneys had failed him, given him a poor defense. For example, Dan was pushing to go to trial, but Zimmerman said his lawyers should have taken a pause and regrouped, especially after learning that Samantha Scott had flipped.

[Defense Attorney Barry Zimmerman]

The responsible thing for his trial lawyers to have done at that moment was to say, break's on. We're not ready. The cards have changed. The table is now different. We have Samantha Scott to deal with.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Was Samantha Scott the key to it all?

[Defense Attorney Barry Zimmerman]

Yes, absolutely.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Zimmerman claimed Samantha was more involved than she let on.

[Defense Attorney Barry Zimmerman]

I don't view her as being some naive person who just happened to say, I'll do whatever Danny Serafini tells me to do and I won't ask any questions. I don't buy that for a second.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Also said Zimmerman, Dan's attorneys should have let him testify.

[Defense Attorney Barry Zimmerman]

He's not a fool. He knew he had to testify, especially when Samantha was going to testify against him.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Come on, he's his own agent. He could testify if he really wanted to, couldn't he?

[Defense Attorney Barry Zimmerman]

He could, but when the pressure's on. Let me just kind of put you into this. You're facing life without the possibility of parole. You have two lawyers you've paid $400,000 to. They're both telling you you can't testify. It's a mistake. You're going to lose.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And Zimmerman argued the defense didn't call a single witness, but should have called a neighbor who told investigators she saw Dan in Crescent Valley the day of the murder, and a secret lover who told detectives she spent the day with Dan.

[Samantha Scott]

I was with them all day Saturday

[Neighbor Witness]

and then went to work.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

Okay, what did you guys do on Saturday?

[Samantha Scott]

Drank a bunch of disgusting wine.

[Narrator / Reporter]

So Zimmerman got a hearing, and they all assembled in the courtroom, and Dan Serafini shuffled in his garish jail jumpsuit, punctuation for a very unusual proceeding. For several days, he testified about Samantha Scott and his complaints about his attorneys. And with Dan on the staff, Zimmerman revealed evidence the jury never heard.

[Neighbor Witness]

Danny, it's Wendy. I didn't get to tell you that I been doing this electric therapy that allows me to recall visions, and I have a vision as a shooter, and it's not you.

[Narrator / Reporter]

This was Wendy saying Dan was not the killer.

[Defense Attorney Barry Zimmerman]

That was powerful stuff. The DA Said, where'd you get that dramatic.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Or maybe not. During his cross examination, the prosecutor played that other Wendy tape.

[Neighbor Witness]

Someone was in the house, and I looked up and saw Danny with a hoodie on.

[Prosecutor Christopher Catran]

He was able to show that Wendy knew exactly what Danny had done and at some points were keeping them close and making them believe that she didn't think that so that she could remain safe. She still remained fearful for her life up until the end.

[Narrator / Reporter]

As for Dan's alibi witnesses, the prosecutor said his neighbor had the date wrong and Dan told his lover to lie.

[Prosecutor Christopher Catran]

The alibi witnesses would have ultimately provided more incriminating evidence against Mr. Serafini and arguably would have sped up that guilty verdict that he so justly deserved.

[Narrator / Reporter]

So his original defense attorneys were right in withholding those people.

[Prosecutor Christopher Catran]

They were absolutely right in withholding any evidence of the alibi.

[Narrator / Reporter]

The prosecution argued Dan was simply having buyers or wars, and the jury did nothing wrong. Dan watched it all unfold. One more shot at another chance, and he had a lot to say about it.

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

I think you need to stop with those questions because you keep implicating me, and it's not me.

[Narrator / Reporter]

From pitcher's mound to jail cell, Dan Serafini's fall was as steep as they come. I thought about this case a lot. I wondered how somebody with all the talent and the advantages that you've got in life has wound up here. I'd love to understand it. Do you understand it?

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

No, I don't understand it at all. I believed in the justice system, and the justice system failed.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Well, the justice system would say it didn't fail at all, that it was a good circumstantial case. And when they laid it out, there was a lot of circumstantial stuff there. Some prosecutors say that's the best kind

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

of case, circumstantial case. And I believe the circumstantial stuff that they had was just making up a story. They had no proof, no anything.

[Narrator / Reporter]

This, Dan decided, would be his only network interview. There was a time limit, and jail rules required this somewhat awkward arrangement. Through a thick layer of glass, Dan told us he's behind bars because his trial attorneys did not mount a strong defense.

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

And the jury, they just didn't like me. They didn't like my lifestyle. They didn't like the way I acted in court, which I didn't act anyways. I sat there like I was supposed to because my lawyers told me to. Don't react, don't respond. Sit there like nothing's bothering you. And I did. And I got crucified for it.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And then there was the woman who turned against him. Tell me about your relationship with Samantha.

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

Samantha was a very close family friend. We ended up kind of falling into a fling with each other. My wife and I live a certain lifestyle to where, you know, we do our own things when we're apart. Our rule was not to bring any drama home. I left town a lot for work. I was allowed to do what I wanted to do. I screwed up. I made a horrible decision by being with Sam because I broke the rules and brought the drama home. She was too close to home to. To have that kind of relationship.

[Narrator / Reporter]

She told detectives that you would shoot her family. You told her if she spoke up.

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

Of course not. I would not do that. Sam was a big part of my life. Sam was never in danger. It all makes for a really good story.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Dan's story was this. He partied with Samantha the night before the murder and then went back to his trailer the next morning. And Samantha came over later that day to pick up $25,000 as arranged for what he called an investment. Samantha left with the money, but he didn't go with her and he didn't shoot anybody. Why was Samantha say you did it, that you. You committed the murder?

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

Well, because they scared her. With 120 years in prison, I think anybody in this room would do the same thing.

[Narrator / Reporter]

So you're saying she's. She's lying now? You're saying that the authorities encouraged her to lie to get a case against you because they didn't know who else to charge. I mean, who else would it be?

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

I have no idea. But that's not my job. My job isn't to prove who did it. My job was to prove that I didn't do it. And there's nothing there to prove that I did it.

[Narrator / Reporter]

So the state argued it was Dan who was lying. The prosecutors would. You knew the way into the garage and you did. I mean, you'd been there before. You knew the way into the house. You knew where you could hide while they were out doing whatever they were doing before they came back and it was time to act. You knew a lot of these things that nobody else would know. What do you say to those allegations?

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

I say again that they're just guessing. I mean, how hard is it to walk through a garage door? I mean, they're saying that I knew how to get into the house. Of course, everybody knows how to get into a house. No one can even prove that the garage door was open or closed. Understand?

[Narrator / Reporter]

And then there was the man in that surveillance video.

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

They can't say it's me. There's no way they can say it's me.

[Narrator / Reporter]

They can't prove it's you. But they've got this guy who looks kind of like you with your sort of walk, walking on a surveillance camera. And then they've got somebody who knows how to get into the. No, I've got to be challenging because we don't have much time. I have to tell you, you know,

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

I think you need to stop with those questions or.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Well, why?

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

Because you keep implicating me and it's not me.

[Narrator / Reporter]

As for telling his brother he'd pay someone 20 grand to kill his in laws. That brother testified said Dan made the offer in jest.

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

I wouldn't be that my brother was throwing daggers at me because him and I had a falling out after my mom passed away. I never mentioned that once to him. And that's on my kids. That's on my wife.

[Narrator / Reporter]

And speaking of Aaron, Dan said any suggestion that she was involved in some plot to have her parents killed was ridiculous.

[Dan Serafini (Defendant)]

Erin didn't hate her parents. Erin didn't want her parents dead. I didn't want her parents dead. None of us did. And I think for people to believe that that's the kind of society we're in. People want to think that I was broke. People wanted to think that I was a washed up baseball player that didn't have any money. I didn't need anybody's money. I paid my own bills. I did my own things. And I'm proud of the person that I am and that I became. I didn't have a superstar baseball career. I was. I've been very successful and I'm proud of that. And I won't hide from it.

[Narrator / Reporter]

That was it. Our allotted time was up and Dan Serafini went back to his cell, where he will remain in one cell or another for the rest of his life because the judge denied his motion for a new trial. At his sentencing, Adrian called Dan evil and a monster.

[Samantha Scott]

For 10 years, Dan Serafini and Aaron Spohr treated my parents like a bottomless atm. Between loans and gifts, my parents provided them with well over $2 million. But it was never enough. At one point, Dan's attorney asked, why kill the golden goose? And the answer was simple. They got tired of asking.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Detective Meyer was in the courtroom watching Adrian deliver the words she had waited so long to say. Adrian gave you a hug at the sentencing, didn't she?

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

She did. Um, sorry.

[Narrator / Reporter]

That's okay.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

She actually did with me. And my wife and kids were there, and she ran over to them and gave them a hug as well. She got to meet my family that sacrificed all their time while trying to bring conclusion for her family. So it was kind of almost like we came full circle.

[Narrator / Reporter]

Sure. And maybe that went some way toward repairing the terrible pain you felt.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

But what she said, it absolutely did.

[Narrator / Reporter]

One person not in attendance, Erin Spore. She filed for divorce, though she still stands by Dan. Dan's attorney read a statement Aaron wrote on Dan's behalf.

[Defense Attorney Barry Zimmerman]

He may be imperfect, but he is one of the most caring and generous people I have ever met in this world.

[Narrator / Reporter]

The civil suits between Erin and her sister have been privately resolved. Adrian's lawsuit against Dan is ongoing. As for Samantha Scott, I am deeply

[Samantha Scott]

sorry to the families affected by this case and to the investigators who are trying to find the truth.

[Narrator / Reporter]

She was sentenced to two years probation for aiding Dan. And 6,000ft up in the Sierra Mountains, Lake Tahoe glimmers as it always has, deep and clear and unmoved by the dramas that grip mere humans round its sylvan shores.

[Detective Daniel Meyer]

And that's all for this edition of dateline. Don't forget to check out our talking Dateline podcast, in which we'll go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, available Wednesday in the Dateline feed. Wherever you get your podcasts, we'll see you again next Friday at 9, 8 Central. I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night.

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