Ex-MLB Pitcher Found Guilty in Father-in-Law’s Murder

The former first-round draft pick was first arrested in 2023.

Dan Serafini pitches against the Pirates in 2003. / Andy Lyons/Getty Images

Dan Serafini, a former Major League Baseball pitcher for six teams over seven seasons from 1996 to 2007, was found guilty Monday of killing his father-in-law in June 2021.

According to a Facebook news release from the district attorney's office in Placer County, Calif., Serafini was convicted of both first-degree murder and attempted murder—the former of his father-in-law Gary Spohr and latter of his mother-in-law Wendy Wood. He is also guilty of first-degree burglary.

Police arrested the 51-year-old Serafini in Oct. 2023 after an investigation that took more than two years. During that time, Wood—who survived Serafini's '21 attack—died by suicide.

A report on the verdict from Doc Louallen of ABC News said prosecutors labeled the attack "financially motivated."

Serafini pitched for the Minnesota Twins, Chicago Cubs, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati Reds, Colorado Rockies and San Diego Padres during his career, as well as in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball, in Taiwan's Chinese Professional Baseball League, and for Italy in the World Baseball Classic.

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