A former professional baseball player was one of two people arrested on Friday in connection to an infamous Lake Tahoe shooting that killed a man and badly wounded his wife in 2021.
After a two-year investigation, Danny Serafini, 49, and Samantha Scott, 33, were arrested separately in Nevada, hundreds of miles apart in Las Vegas and north-west of Reno.
Authorities say the pair of suspects knew each other. The victims – Robert Gary Spohr and his wife, Wendy Wood – were reportedly Serafini’s father-in-law and mother-in-law, NBC News reported.
Spohr, 70, died in the shooting that injured Wood at their home in an unincorporated community in California off the shore of Lake Tahoe, the Placer county sheriff’s office said.
Officials intend to extradite Serafini and Scott to California, officials said.
“Today, justice was served,” the Placer county sheriff, Wayne Woo, said in a statement. “The apprehension of those responsible for the tragic events that unfolded in Homewood, North Lake Tahoe, in 2021 stands as a testament to the unwavering dedication of our detectives, law enforcement partners and the persistence of our pursuit of truth.”
Serafini’s attorney, David Fischer, did not immediately respond to a phone call and an email on Friday from the Associated Press seeking comment about the arrest. Serafini was a Major League Baseball pitcher who was drafted in 1992 and whose career spanned 11 years with multiple teams, including the Minnesota Twins, the Chicago Cubs, the San Diego Padres, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Cincinnati Reds and the Colorado Rockies.
The Clark county public defender’s office in Nevada did not immediately return a call from the AP about whether Scott had an attorney who could speak on her behalf. Police records do not list an attorney, and a spokesperson with the Placer county sheriff’s office said the department has no information on her representation.
Video surveillance from the Spohr and Wood home showed a man wearing a gray hoodie, face covering and backpack approaching the residence hours before the attack, police said. Another video shows the same man walking up the driveway.
Deputies responded to the home after receiving a 911 call. They discovered Spohr had been shot once, and Wood was shot at least twice. Wood recovered from the injuries but died a year later.
The Associated Press contributed reporting