
Eve Markoski-Wood has been pictured for the first time since the alleged attack that shattered her family, as explosive details from Sam Wood’s failed bail bid reveal the vital role she played as a witness to the events at the centre of the case.
As Wood faces at least another year in jail and the collapse of his fitness career, Eve’s position as the first responder and primary witness has become increasingly clear since Friday’s Supreme Court bail hearing in Queensland.
The young fashion student, who is enrolled at university in America, was on holiday in Noosa when the October 3 incident blew her family apart. This week, she was seen back in Melbourne supporting one of her three younger sisters – the eldest daughter Snezana shares with Wood – as they went shopping at Woolworths.
Eve was the only adult witness – besides Wood and Snezana – to the incident that led to Wood being charged with offences described by the judge 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 described the alleged strangulation and ‘the banging of her head on the floor. She couldn’t breathe. She thought she was going to die.’
It was Eve who called police to the scene. She is expected to testify if the case goes to trial – evidence prosecutors may rely on.
Supreme Court Justice Patrick McCafferty KC described 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 considered the prosecutor’s argument that the former Channel Ten star posed an ‘unacceptable risk to the safety and welfare of others, particularly’ Snezana, and that he could ‘obstruct the course of justice (and) interfere with the witness’.
Eve Markoski-Wood, the sole adult witness to the alleged assault by Bachelor star Sam Wood against her mother Snezana, called Triple-Zero when Snezana believed she ‘was going to die’
Eve, pictured with one of her younger sisters, will face the difficult task of testifying against her stepfather, who is charged with choking, suffocation and strangulation in a domestic setting, as well as assault occasioning actual bodily harm
A Supreme Court judge said Eve – pictured placing a protective arm around her younger sister near a Woolworths supermarket in Melbourne – was ‘the witness’ who ‘shut the door and locked it, heard her mother gasping, and her voice becoming muffled’
Justice McCafferty recounted that, after Wood allegedly said ‘you can both die’, it was ‘the witness’ who ‘shut the door and locked it, heard her mother gasping and her voice becoming muffled… as she was pushed against the wall with his hand around her throat, felt his grip become tighter and could not breathe and could not yell.’
‘(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 ‘banged her head against the wall or the corner of the floor’, and the witness [Eve] then found her mother ‘sitting against the hallway, slumped forward… holding [her] neck’.
Sam Wood’s barrister attempted to counter Ms Guy’s argument about the dangerous, sometimes fatal ‘nature of strangulation and choking as a predictive risk factor for future and escalating domestic violence’.
Paula Morreau KC acknowledged that ‘the offences are serious’, but argued that ‘they are not the most serious’ choking or strangulation offences, which could attract up to 14 years’ jail, and said the case against Wood ‘rests on witness testimony’.
Ms Morreau told the court that if granted bail, Wood would stay in Tasmania with his two siblings and father, and would only leave ‘the island surrounded by water’ to attend court hearings in Queensland.
Snezana Markoski and Sam Wood met on the 2015 season of The Bachelor, married in 2018, and share three young daughters. Their marriage is now expected to end
Eve Markoski-Wood, a New York-based fashion student, was on holiday in Noosa, Queensland, with her mother, stepfather and younger sisters when the alleged violent incident occurred
Sam Wood’s daughter Eve enjoys a holidays destination at Noosa
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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.
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.’
Sam Wood’s father, Andrew ‘Woody’ Wood, is pictured leaving court after his son’s second failed attempt to get bail
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.