Why a Judge Feared Sam Wood Could Interfere With Daughter Eve If Freed

Eve Markoski-Wood has been seen for the first time since the alleged attack that devastated her family, as details from Sam Wood’s unsuccessful bail application highlighted her crucial role as a witness.

Wood is facing at least another year behind bars, along with the collapse of his fitness career. Since Friday’s Supreme Court bail hearing in Queensland, Eve’s position as the first person to respond and the main witness to the alleged incident has become increasingly clear.

The fashion student, who is enrolled at a university in the United States, was visiting Noosa when the alleged incident on October 3 tore her family apart. This week, she was photographed in Melbourne supporting one of her three younger sisters — the eldest daughter Snezana shares with Wood — during a shopping trip to Woolworths.

Eve was the only adult witness, apart from Wood and Snezana, to the incident that resulted in Wood being charged with offences the judge described as “choking, suffocation and strangulation in a domestic setting, and assault occasioning actual bodily harm”.

During Wood’s unsuccessful bail hearing in October, Snezana’s police statement detailed the alleged strangulation and “the banging of her head on the floor. She couldn’t breathe. She thought she was going to die.”

Eve was the person who called police to the scene. She is expected to give evidence if the matter proceeds to trial, making her testimony potentially central to the prosecution case.

Supreme Court Justice Patrick McCafferty KC referred to Eve as “the witness” who allegedly heard Wood tell her and her mother: “You can both die, I’m going to send you back to your family.”

In refusing Wood bail, Justice McCafferty accepted the prosecutor’s argument that the former Channel Ten star posed an “unacceptable risk to the safety and welfare of others, particularly” Snezana, and could “obstruct the course of justice (and) interfere with the witness”.

Justice McCafferty said that, after Wood allegedly stated “you can both die”, “the witness” shut and locked a door, then heard her mother gasping as her voice became muffled. Snezana was allegedly pushed against a wall with Wood’s hand around her throat, with his grip tightening until she could not breathe or call out.

“(Wood) grabbed the complainant (Snezana) by the throat and pushed her against the wall with his hands on her throat,” he said.

Crown Prosecutor Jessica Guy told the court that Snezana fell to the ground as she “tried to remove his hand or hands upon her neck and hit the skirting board and he was not deterred despite there being in a large part the presence of an adult witness”.

Snezana then allegedly “banged her head against the wall or the corner of the floor”. Eve subsequently found her mother “sitting against the hallway, slumped forward… holding [her] neck”.

Wood’s barrister sought to challenge Ms Guy’s argument about the dangerous, and sometimes fatal, nature of strangulation and choking as a predictor of future or escalating domestic violence.

Paula Morreau KC accepted that “the offences are serious”, but argued that “they are not the most serious” choking or strangulation offences, which can carry a sentence of up to 14 years in prison. She also said the case against Wood “rests on witness testimony”.

Ms Morreau told the court that, if granted bail, Wood would live in Tasmania with his two siblings and father. He would leave “the island surrounded by water” only to attend court hearings in Queensland.

She said that since the incident, Wood’s ’employment has been placed in a precarious state’ and, if released on bail, he would attend ‘a men’s behavioural training program’.

Wood’s father, Andrew ‘Woody’ Wood, is believed to have offered a $1million surety as part of a proposal for his son to be released on bail and live in Tasmania.

Andrew Wood, a retired restaurant manager who formerly worked front of house at Hobart’s popular Fish Frenzy, has owned the West Hobart house where Sam grew up for almost 40 years.

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But Justice McCafferty found the risks to Snezana and Eve too great. In delivering his decision to deny Wood bail, the judge said he had to consider both ‘the complainant and the witness’.

‘The most significant matter is the risk of [Wood] committing an offence on bail or further domestic violence offences.

‘The allegations are trustworthy and credible evidence in my opinion.’

It is unclear if and when Eve will return to her studies at Parsons School of Design, the private art and design college in New York, as she supports her mother and sisters.

She appeared to joke on her TikTok page about her financial situation, describing herself as a ‘fashion student’ with a ‘mysterious income’.

While Sam Wood adjusts to his indefinite stay at the maximum-security Wolston Correctional Centre west of Brisbane, the family’s financial future is uncertain, with his fitness business, 28 By Sam Wood, in upheaval.

Snezana and Sam Wood’s $7million house in Brighton, in Melbourne’s south-east, is on the market. The couple also own a $3.2million home in Mount Martha, on the Mornington Peninsula.

Wood, who the court heard last week had been living a ‘party lifestyle’ involving ‘alleged drug use, alcohol use’, could make a third attempt to secure bail.

Between his first and second bail applications, Wood replaced his original lawyer with the more prominent Ms Morreau KC.

Any new lawyer would have to convince the court there had been a substantial change in Wood’s circumstances to justify release and propose additional conditions to mitigate risk.

Sam Wood and Snezana Markoski, who was a single mother from Perth, met on the 2015 season of The Bachelor and married in 2018.

In Brisbane court last week, his own legal counsel said the couple is ‘expected to separate’.

In April last year, Wood revealed in a Mamamia podcast interview that he and Snezana began marriage counselling, partly due to disagreements over how best to discipline Eve.

He claimed tensions between them escalated during the Covid pandemic, describing their home as a ‘pressure cooker environment’.

‘Everyone thinks, “Oh, you guys have got it all worked out.”  We don’t have it worked out. We are a dog’s breakfast. It’s a madhouse, and it’s stressful, and we’re exhausted and we’re probably like everybody else,’ he said.

He admitted that Instagram did not show the reality of their family life behind closed doors, adding that his relationships with Snezana and Eve were tested during lockdowns.

Wood explained that his stepdaughter ‘was working herself out’ as a teenager and ‘she was pretty challenging’ at ages 14, 15, and 16.

‘So it was a pressure-cooker environment and I thought she needed more discipline, and Snez didn’t, and that put a strain on our relationship. And we do butt heads a lot on boundaries and what they need,’ he said.

Wood added that he was initially resistant when Snezana suggested couples counselling, saying he ‘got defensive as soon as it was suggested’.

‘I was like, “But what’s wrong with us? Why do we need that? What do we need to fix?” I didn’t go kicking and screaming, but I wasn’t rapt in the idea, even walking in the door,’ he said.

However, Wood went on to say he eventually ‘flipped over time’ and began to see marriage counselling as a ‘calming’ and ‘vulnerable’ experience.