The father of the young college grad fatally shot by her ex-Biden staffer beau inside their San Francisco apartment described his daughter’s boyfriend as an angry, abusive drunk and said she repeatedly tried to leave him.
Nation Wood, 25, was charged with involuntary manslaughter after what he called the accidental shooting of Samantha Emge, 22, a 2025 graduate of San Francisco State University, at the home they shared in the city’s Sunset District.
Emge’s father Bill Phipps painted a dark picture of the couple’s relationship in an exclusive interview with the California Post, questioning whether the shooting was accidental.
“Their relationship was not good, and he was an abusive boyfriend. Samantha had been trying to break up with him for a while,” he said. “She was unable to break up with him, and she was looking forward to him going away.”
Emge staged an intervention with Wood and demanded he quit drinking after he became emotionally and physically abusive, Phipps claimed. At one point, she moved out of a house the couple had shared with roommates because they couldn’t tolerate his behavior, he added.
“All of her friends were constantly trying to tell her she should break up with him,” said Phipps, a surgeon who lives in Florida.
Wood had boasted on his LinkedIn profile that he was as a part-time security staffer who worked with President Joe Biden’s White House Secret Service team starting in 2023. A photo shows him smiling with former VP Kamala Harris in front of a presidential jet.
The well-connected San Francisco State grad was days away from joining the National Guard when he shot Emge and told police he did it accidentally.
Emge had moved into Wood’s apartment just days before her death because it was larger than her old space and Wood was meant to leave for basic training in less than two weeks, her father told The Post.
The aspiring designer was still unpacking her things when Wood fired his pistol through a wall into the bathroom where Emge had just emerged from the shower at around 10:30 p.m. on March 24, authorities said.
The bullet tore through a medicine cabinet where Emge was using the mirror and struck her in the face.
A neighbor called 911 as Wood carried Emge’s body from the apartment out to the street. Officers discovered him with his injured girlfriend on the sidewalk. Emge was taken to a hospital where she died.
Wood pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter in San Francisco Superior Court on March 27.
He told police he was “dry-firing” his gun when it went off and claimed he didn’t know it was loaded.
He was released to a psychiatric hospital in San Francsico on $300,000 bail.
Wood’s attorney Paula Canny had sought for Wood to be allowed to go to a clinic in Tucson for treatment, but on Wednesday dropped the request after Emge’s parents protested.
Phipps said Wood should’ve known better than to fire a gun at his daughter even if he thought the weapon was unloaded.
Canny said Wood had been sober for 16 months at the time of the killing and has been suicidal since it happened.
“Samantha told Nation’s family how much she loved Nation and how much she loved being a part of their family,” the lawyer said. “Nation’s family is devastated by this tragedy and their hearts go out to Samantha’s family and loved ones.”
San Francisco DA Brooke Jenkins said in a statement that the investigation into Emge’s killing is still active and her office may decide to bring different charges against Wood.
“As the investigation unfolds, 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,” Jenkins said.
Like Phipps, Emge’s mother and friends also described Wood as an aggressive and controlling partner during their two-and-a-half-year relationship.
Emge’s friends told the San Francisco Chronicle that Wood would yell at her and make racist and homophobic comments.
Wood’s LinkedIn page identifies him as an “independent pre-event site security advisor.”
He worked at the White House through July 2025, finishing out his term under President Donald Trump, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Wood was a political science and government major at SFSU, graduating in May 2024.
He posed with Harris and her husband, former second gentleman Doug Emhoff, in front of a presidential jet in 2024, in a post shared to his LinkedIn profile.
Emge worked in interior design, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Her Instagram account shows her spending time with Wood. One post shows the couple smiling and sporting baseball caps.
“Travelled, ate, built a table, and became a real adult in 2025,” Emge captioned The Post.
The couple visited Yosemite in June, according to Emge’s social media.
Prosecutors and police need to examine every shred of evidence in the case before determining his daughter’s killing was involuntary, Phipps said.
“I think maybe it wasn’t an accident,” he said.
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