Shortly before a young man fatally shot his girlfriend in his Sunset District apartment in what he told police was a “dry-firing” accident, she had moved in. Samantha Emge planned to live in the small one-bedroom unit while her boyfriend, Nation Wood, went off for basic training with the National Guard.
As Emge’s parents said goodbye to the 22-year-old woman after helping her move in on March 22, they felt both worried and hopeful, they said in an interview with the Chronicle.
A photo of Samantha Katherine Emge, a 22-year-old San Francisco resident and recent graduate of San Francisco State University, who was fatally shot by her boyfriend, Nation Wood, is seen in her family’s home in Sacramento on Sunday, April 5, 2026.
Andri Tambunan/For the S.F. Chronicle
Wood, 25, was set to leave for Missouri a few days later and had moved out all of his belongings so Emge could make the space her own. His months away, they thought, would provide an opportunity for them to convince her to permanently leave behind an unstable relationship.
Article continues below this ad
Two days later, Emge was dead.
Wood, a former college baseball player and low-level White House staffer, has told authorities he was dry-firing — a form of gun practice — by pulling the trigger of what he thought was an unloaded pistol while pointing it at a wall adjacent to the apartment’s only bathroom, where Emge was preparing for bed.
San Francisco Chronicle Logo
Make us a Preferred Source to get more of our news when you search.
Add Preferred Source
The San Francisco State graduate and budding interior designer who loved ones called “Sam” was struck in the head by a single bullet that ripped through the wall and a medicine cabinet. She died at a hospital shortly thereafter.
After city homicide detectives arrested Wood on suspicion of felony involuntary manslaughter, prosecutors filed the same charge in court, signaling they believed they could prove the killing was negligent, but not willful. Wood pleaded not guilty, appearing to cry throughout his arraignment, and within days was released on a $300,000 bail to UCSF’s psychiatric hospital after he was deemed suicidal, court filings show.
Article continues below this ad
“The only information that we have is that this conduct was not — or that the death was not — intentional,” District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said after a hearing on April 1.
The case is in its early stages. But already, tensions are mounting over how Wood should be treated.
In letters attached to a motion filed Monday by his attorney asking the judge to release him to an intensive trauma program in Arizona, his family members described Wood as a “kind and loving soul” suffering from debilitating grief over Emge’s death. They said Wood had excelled as a student and baseball player growing up in Kirkland, Wash., despite his mother’s alcoholism and “severe verbal and psychological abuse.”
“I fully understand the importance of justice,” wrote Lois Wood, his grandmother, who is the former chief deputy prosecutor in Franklin County, Wash. “I also know that when someone is at genuine risk of harming themselves, ensuring they receive proper care is not only humane, but also essential to preventing this tragedy from being compounded further.”
Wood’s attorney, Paula Canny, wrote in her filing that the case did not involve domestic violence in its “common meaning,” and that the couple was in a loving, committed relationship. She said Wood’s family believed he had been sober for 15 months on the night of the fatal shooting.
Article continues below this ad
But Emge’s parents, sisters and friends tell a different story. In interviews, they said they worried about Emge throughout the couple’s 2 ½-year-long relationship, citing incidents they witnessed or that were recounted by Emge. Not long after the couple got together in December 2023, they said, the relationship became defined by Wood’s alcohol use, possessive behavior and aggressive outbursts — and Emge’s repeated attempts to leave him.
The family of Samantha Katherine Emge, (L-R): Jason Spears, Laura Emge, Sierra Spears, Kate Spears, and Elle Spears, look over her old sketchbook at their family home in Sacramento, CA on Sunday, April 5, 2026. Emge, a 22-year-old San Francisco resident and recent graduate of San Francisco State University, was fatally shot by her boyfriend, Nation Wood.
Andri Tambunan/For the S.F. Chronicle
William Phipps, Emge’s biological father who lives in Florida, said he and his wife felt “unimaginable sadness, emptiness, loss, disbelief, anger, disgust, resentment and regret. There is no way to express the combination of all of these feelings,” he said.
Laura Emge said that when she repeatedly warned her daughter that Wood’s behavior was unacceptable, her daughter would promise to break up with him, eventually. “That’s what her common words were: ‘Don’t worry mom, I will,” Laura Emge said in an interview at the family’s Sacramento home. “I think her heart just bled for him.”
She and other family members said they did not fully believe Wood’s account and did not understand how the district attorney’s office could conclude so quickly that the shooting was accidental.
Article continues below this ad
Experts on law enforcement practices and gun training said dry-firing helps build shooting mechanics, but that safety — making certain to use an unloaded gun and aim at an impenetrable target — is the most important consideration.
Edward Obayashi, a special prosecutor and policy adviser to the Modoc County Sheriff’s Office, said he would not advise anyone to dry-fire in a home or any uncontrolled environment. Don Cameron, a former Berkeley police sergeant who has trained at police academies, said the situation was “boggling his mind.”
“You either didn’t rigidly check the gun, the chamber, or the magazine,” Cameron said. “All of that says he left the round somewhere where it shouldn’t have been.”
Asked about the family’s concerns, Jenkins said Tuesday in a statement, “My office will continue to do everything we can to support them and seek justice in the courthouse for them.” She said the case was still under investigation and that “If any new evidence comes to light that is admissible in court and sufficient to meet our burden of proof, we may seek to file an amended complaint to reflect more or different charges from what was initially charged.”
In interviews, Samantha Emge’s family and friends described her as a woman with a keen gift for style and the visual arts, constantly drawing and decorating, seeing beauty and promise in things discarded or overlooked.
Article continues below this ad
Born in Akron, Ohio, she took on the nickname “Snow White” due to her fair skin, dark hair and blue eyes. She moved to California as a toddler after her parents separated, raised at first by her mother, a pediatrician, and maternal grandparents near Sacramento. The family later expanded when her mother married a hospitalist, Jason Spears, whose four young daughters, along with a younger sister born soon after, formed a tight-knit group of six girls.
“She would get something that everybody would think was ugly, and then she would put it on, and it was perfect,” said one of her sisters, Sierra Spears, 24, a University of Hawaii student working on her master’s degree in landscape architecture. The two had dreamed of opening up a design studio in the future.
A photo showing a heart tattooed on the wrist of Samantha Katherine Emge and some members of her family is seen on Sunday, April 5, 2026 in Sacramento. Emge, a 22-year-old San Francisco resident and recent graduate of San Francisco State University, was fatally shot by her boyfriend, Nation Wood.
Andri Tambunan/For the S.F. Chronicle
Emge’s family said she decided on S.F. State because it was highly ranked for interior design. Moving to the city, she worked at Joybird, a furniture store in the Marina, where she would spend her work breaks making 3-D layouts of friends’ and family members’ homes, to see if a couch she thought would be perfect for the space would fit. Often, she had memorized the dimensions.
In the winter of her junior year, she met Wood in a political science class.
Wood had transferred from Saddleback College, a junior college in Mission Viejo (Orange County), where he’d compiled a .449 batting average for the baseball team during a pandemic-shortened season. Seeking to follow in the footsteps of his father, who had played baseball for the University of Washington, he had initially landed a scholarship offer to join Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo in 2022 as an outfielder.
But the school withdrew the offer for unclear reasons. (Cal Poly officials declined to comment, citing privacy reasons.) After injuries to his hand and shoulder, he decided he would never play at the level he had hoped to reach, his attorney said. “He had a lot of dashed dreams,” Canny said.
San Francisco resident Nation Wood, pictured playing football, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of his girlfriend, Samantha Emge, 22. Wood told authorities he was “dry-firing” his weapon when the bullet struck Emge in their apartment on March 24, 2026.
Provided by Mike Wood
While studying at S.F. State, Wood began working part-time for the White House between November 2023 and July 2025. A White House spokesperson confirmed that he was employed during the Biden administration.
Within weeks of their first meeting on campus, Wood asked Emge to be his girlfriend and invited her to visit his family in Washington, her family and friends said. But within a month, Emge told friends that Wood had “some issues,” many stemming from experiences with his mother, her friends said.
In court filings, his family members wrote that they believed Wood at a young age felt a “deep sense of responsibility” for his mother during erratic episodes when she threatened to harm herself.
The relationship between Emge and Wood was still nascent when he departed for Spain for a study-abroad program. At the time, Emge was living with roommates in Parkmerced near S.F. State. Wood’s drinking escalated in Spain, leading to an altercation at a bar that left him hospitalized, Laura Emge said. Canny confirmed the incident but said Wood had been “jumped” while partying in Madrid.
After Wood returned home in May 2024, Emge’s close friends and roommates, Avani Nunez and Olivia Cusenza, told her they did not feel comfortable with Wood sleeping over. They were disturbed by episodes when he would yell at Emge, show up drunk at their doorstep and make racist and homophobic comments, they said in interviews. They said they began locking their bedroom doors at night when he was over.
That same month, Nunez told Laura Emge about Wood’s behavior and her concerns for her daughter, according to text messages reviewed by the Chronicle. Nunez said she also told Samantha Emge that things her boyfriend did — such as breaking up with her for no reason before pretending he was joking — were examples of emotional abuse.
“While Sam had done a lot of growing and she had become confident in a lot of ways, I think Sam had never felt like she had a lot to offer in a relationship, until she met Nation,” Nunez said. “She always felt like she wouldn’t find someone who would accept her.”
A collage of pictures and personal belongings of Samantha Katherine Emge, a 22-year-old San Francisco resident and recent graduate of San Francisco State University, who was fatally shot by her boyfriend in her apartment, is seen in her family’s home in Sacramento.
Andri Tambunan/For the S.F. Chronicle
In a September 2024 text to Nunez, who by that point had moved out, Emge expressed feeling “guilty” for being a “bad friend” who spent too much time worrying about Wood.
“Something happened between (me and Nation) the other day and we’ve barely spoken but it’s made me realize how many things were wrong with our relationship that I was trying to protect and disregard,” Emge wrote, not elaborating on what had occurred. “He literally turned me into the worst version of myself and I wish I would have listened to you and Olivia because I just feel lost.”
After several temporary break-ups, Emge staged an intervention, demanding Wood seek treatment for alcoholism. In December 2024, he entered an intensive outpatient program in San Francisco, Canny confirmed. Emge’s parents and sisters said they voiced their worries during this period about the continued turbulence he was bringing to her life. But she told her mother he had been nicer while committing to sobriety and wanted to give him another chance.
The promise of something better didn’t last long, her friends said in interviews.
Haven Silva, who worked with Emge at Joybird, recalled that at nearly every one of their periodic dinners, Emge fielded calls and texts from Wood demanding to know details of what she was doing. He would often impose “curfews” of 10 p.m., though they did not live together, Silva said.
In December 2025, Emge broke up with him again, telling friends she was tired of his controlling tendencies, they said. But within months, the couple was back together and Emge sheepishly told her friends she felt silly about being upset over behavior that was rooted in how much he cared for her.
Last fall, Emge landed a job as a design assistant for Chantal Lamberto Interior Design in Presidio Heights. But by that time, she had already been living on her own in a small studio in Oceanview.
In January, Wood was sworn into the National Guard’s Special Forces. Wanting a bigger place that had a kitchen, Emge gave up her studio and decided to live in his apartment while he was gone, a decision she made in part because he said he would pay the rent, her family and friends said.
As he prepared to leave, packing his things in boxes and moving them into the garage, Emge seemed calmer than she had in previous months, her family and friends said. She sanitized the empty apartment, excited to decorate. She said she was looking forward to hosting dinners at the place she had set up as her own, going out with friends without drama, staying out late and setting her phone to “Do Not Disturb.”
A new life was just days away.
Photos of Samantha Katherine Emge with her sisters, are seen on the fireplace mantle of her family’s home in Sacramento on Sunday, April 5, 2026. Emge, a 22-year-old San Francisco resident and recent graduate of San Francisco State University, was shot dead by her boyfriend, Nation Wood.
Andri Tambunan/For the S.F. Chronicle