Disgraced MLB pitcher Dan Serafini’s former sister-in-law, Adrienne Spohr, pleaded for the judge to impose the highest sentence possible after he was found guilty of shooting her parents.
“Dan Serafini should never see the outside of a prison again, and I ask that you give him the full sentence for first degree murder, attempted murder and burglary,” she asked the judge during Serafini’s Friday, February 27, sentencing hearing. “I also ask that you compel him to work to pay back his restitution, much of which is money that he blatantly stole from my parents.”
Serafini, 52, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of his father-in-law Gary Spohr and the attempted murder of mother-in-law Wendy Wood.
At the sentencing, Serafini’s ex-wife, Erin Sphor, submitted a statement of support for the former baseball player. In the letter, read by Searfini’s attorney, Erin asked the judge for leniency in his sentencing.
Adrienne, on the other hand, went on to describe the horrors of the events that transpired on that night in 2021. She claimed a video from outside the house shows Serafini walking “with a swagger that’s unmistakable.”
“Erin Spohr, unfortunately, is my sister,” Adrienne said. “And I wish that she had never brought Dan Serafini into our lives. Dan embodies true evil.”
She continued, “He thought he had gotten away with murder. He thought that he would be cashing out my parents’ estate with his wife in the months afterwards. He was happy while my dad laid deceased while my mom laid bleeding out on her couch clinging to life.”
Spohr recounted the trauma that she and her family experienced in the aftermath of the crime, claiming she has suffered from “PTSD, anxiety and depression” and revealed that she had to quit her job because of the stress, grief, and “constant worry for my safety.”
She then claimed that after her mom died by suicide in 2023, things “escalated” and she had to reveal to her sister and Serafini that Wood had cut them out of her will.
“I knew they would react, because it was always about money for them,” she said. “I genuinely believed and I still believe that Dan wants me dead.”
Spohr described Serafini’s relationship with her parents, claiming that he and Erin treated them like “a bottomless ATM” and claiming that her parents provided the pair with over $2 million.
“When I first took over managing my parents’ financing after the shooting, I was shocked with the amount of money that my parents had loaned or gifted Dan and Erin,” she said. “Their obsession with luxury became a constant source of stress for my parents. They were perpetually on the verge of insolvency, always relying on my parents to bail them out.”
After describing Serafini’s lack of remorse for his crimes, Adrienne reiterated the trauma that she and her family has suffered over the years since the shooting.
“What Dan Serafini did will never leave me,” Adrienne said. “He not only took my parents from me, but he left me with a permanent image burned in my mind: That of my dad, shot in the back of the head, splayed out on the couch in his home, and my mom, lying on her back, clinging to life, bleeding out while a sheriff’s deputy tried to resuscitate her.”
She continued, “He preys on people and destroys life with no remorse. … He never grieved, he gloated. I am forever grateful to the jury for seeing through his lies and his arrogance.”
She concluded by asking the court to remember her parents for who they were, “not just what happened to them.”
“They were adventurous people who loved their community, they loved their dog Maggie, and she is the only thing that I have anymore that connects me to them,” she said. “They should be here today, and they would’ve easily had another 10 years if it weren’t for [Dan’s] greed.”
