In recent weeks, the Sacramento District Attorney’s Office shut the files on several murder investigations, sending three different men to state prison, potentially for the rest of their lives. There wasn’t a lot of fanfare around those court victories, though one county north, a small army of reporters packed into the historic Placer County Courthouse in Auburn on Aug. 18 for a homicide sentencing that they’d been eagerly waiting for – only for the whole thing to get cancelled at the last minute by legal maneuvering from the defendant.    

Dan Serafini just landed on the cover of People Magazine for all the wrong reasons: A former major league baseball player and footnote in reality television, Serafini was convicted of murdering his father-in-law Gary Spohr, and almost killing his mother-in-law Wendy Wood, after a seven-week jury trial in the landmark courthouse. He stood accused of ambushing the couple at night with a pistol inside their home on the shores of Lake Tahoe.

Struggling with devastating injuries, Wood later took her own life.

Jurors heard from dozens of witnesses throughout June and July. They eventually found Serafini guilty of First-degree Murder with the special circumstances of lying in wait. While Serafini’s wife, Erin – one of the victims’ daughters – has been standing by him, Monday was supposed to be the day when their other daughter, Adrienne, got a chance to confront Serafini with a victim’s impact statement. After that, the once-popular athlete would be remanded into the custody of California correctional officers and spirited off to state prison.

But none of that happened.

In the proverbial eleventh hour, Serafini filed a court motion to fire both his defense attorneys, David Dratman and David Fisher.

Then, Serafini wanted his sentencing delayed while he started shopping for a new lawyer.   

More than twenty members of the media waited in a warm, stuffy court hall for over an hour-and-a-half as Judge Garen Horst held closed-door discussions with Serafini’s current defense counsel and Placer County Deputy District Attorney Rick Miller. When the journalists were finally allowed in, a fourth attorney named Jeff Wood was also sitting in the wings. Serafini had made it known that he wanted hire Wood to run his legal defense.

However, with everyone looking on, and without publicly stating why, Wood declined to take the case.  

“Mr. Serafini still wishes to substitute an attorney for myself and Mr. Fisher at some point,” Dratman told the judge. “We anticipate new counsel will be coming in.”

Dratman followed those comments by announcing that, even though he was being relieved, he would nonetheless be starting the process of filing a motion to get Serafini a new trial, which he’d already sent the judge a notice of the night before.  

“For the record, Mr. Dratman and Mr. Fisher have not been discharged,” was all that Miller had to say in open court. “They are here and still acting as his attorneys today.”

Judge Horst told the gathering that Serafini had a right to have a sentencing brief filed on his behalf by an attorney, and because of his last-minute lawyer shuffling, that brief hadn’t been submitted yet. Horst added that Serafini’s sentencing would also have to be delayed by the intended motion for a new trial.

“I haven’t had time to digest the contents of the motion, with it having arrived at 10 p.m. last night,” the judge remarked. Turning to those jurors who were present, Horst continued, “granting a motion for a continuance today should not be seen as a judgement on its merits.”  

Smoother sailing this summer for the Sacramento District Attorney

Serafini’s latest hearing was preceded by three Sacramento County murderers meeting their sentencing fates in a manner that wasn’t delayed.

On July 7, Jesus Lopez learned that he’d be spending 30 years-to-life behind bars for strangling his cellmate to death inside Folsom prison.

According to prison authorities, Lopez first landed in the facility on a 14-year rap for voluntary manslaughter. That crime happened in 2003. In February of 2020, Lopez was being housed in a double-bunk cell with an inmate named Jose Garcia. At some point late at night, Lopez climbed on top of his cellmate while the other man was sleeping. He then began violently choking Garcia.

Strangely, a few minutes into the attack, Lopez briefly stopped and began to “pace around the cell,” prosecutors mentioned in a summary.

Lopez soon decided to go back to strangling Garcia. After his victim was motionless, Lopez flagged down a correction officer to announce that he thought he killed his cellmate.

“During an interview with investigators, Lopez stated he ‘just flipped out’ when he decided to kill his cellmate,” the Sacramento DA’s Office noted after the verdict. “Lopez later claimed he heard voices in his head telling him the victim was planning to hurt him, so he needed to kill the victim. Lopez also admitted that he waited for the correctional officer to pass their cell during the hourly rounds to ensure he would have enough time to kill the victim before officers can intervene.”

The case was assigned to Sacramento prosecutor Sterling Wilkins. 

Early on, Lopez entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. However, two psychiatrists that did independent examinations determined he was sane at the time of the killing. He ultimately changed his plea to guilty of second-degree murder and was sentenced by Sacramento Superior Judge Deborah Lobre.

Then, only July 25, two different Sacramento men convicted of murder were sentenced on the same day.

One of them was Tashiri Abdur-Raheem, who’d put a mask on before gunning down a man named Daniel Cunningham in a parking lot on El Camino Avenue. That killing happened on January 31, 2022.

Sacramento PD homicide detectives clocked Abdur-Raheem through a series of surveillance videos. They later chased him into a south Sacramento neighborhood with help from patrol deputies and CHP officers. Abdur-Raheem reportedly tossed a gun while he was running away. He was sentenced to 53-years-to-life in state prison for Cunningham’s murder.

That same day, convicted murderer Hayden Peterson met a similar judicial fate in Sacramento court. 

The week before Halloween 2020, Peterson decided to rendezvous with a man named Eduardo Kenney for an apparent drug deal. Authorities say the two met in a secluded part of Antelope.

Sacramento Sheriff’s homicide detectives later determined that shortly after Kennedy pulled up, Peterson opened fire on him while he was still sitting in his car. Kennedy was hit by “multiple rounds” but somehow managed to steer his car out of the area.

But the waylaid man’s escape would be short-lived.

Evidence shows that Peterson pursued his victim, ultimately cornering him at a nearby gas station. That’s when he fired the final shots that ended Kennedy’s life.

Though Peterson quickly left the crime scene, he was later identified and apprehended by the Sheriff’s Homicide unit. A jury then found Peterson guilty of First-Degree murder. In late July, Sacramento Judge David Bonilla sentenced him to 45-years-to-life in state prison.