{"id":275533,"date":"2025-11-10T14:08:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T14:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/275533\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T14:08:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T14:08:23","slug":"parents-grief-as-driver-jailed-for-killing-the-most-beautiful-young-person","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/275533\/","title":{"rendered":"Parents’ grief as driver jailed for killing ‘the most beautiful young person’"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been 393 days since Elise Hodder’s life was cut short, with her family and friends left to pick up the pieces.<\/p>\n

Her killer was today sentenced to 11 years behind bars, with a minimum of seven, after hitting Elise with his car, while drunk, unlicensed and with drugs in his system.<\/p>\n

Michael Hodder will forever be a father without his daughter, heartbroken by the actions of one young man.<\/p>\n

Michael Hodder will forever be a father without his daughter. (A Current Affair)<\/p>\n

“At the end of the day, the sentence that this young man received is nothing like the sentence we’ve been given because of his evil actions… another entitled male that thinks he can drink and drive and couldn’t give a damn about anyone else,” he told A Current Affair.<\/p>\n

Michael wants other families to be saved from the same heartache.<\/p>\n

“This continues due to poor planning and poor legislation in this state,” he said.<\/p>\n

He wants his daughter to be remembered as \ufeff”the most beautiful, gentle, fun, loving young person that you could meet.”<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old had begun to do some modelling, and had her photographs published in New York fashion magazine Vanguard.<\/p>\n

Michael wants other families to be saved from the same heartache. (A Current Affair)<\/p>\n

But day to day, she was a lifeguard at the local pool and hoping to live a life that would give back.<\/p>\n

On October 13 last year she was celebrating her friend’s birthday.<\/p>\n

Her mother, Pauline, dropped Elise off.<\/p>\n

When she spoke to A Current Affair last year<\/a>, she recalled how, within hours, police turned up at their house.<\/p>\n

Connor Mathiasson, 23, was unlicensed but he’d driven his friends more than 50 kilometres from Sunbury on the outskirts of Melbourne to a rave at Kooyong.<\/p>\n

On the way, he was drinking and was caught speeding by a camera.<\/p>\n

He got back in his car around 1am as Elise and her friends were walking through the car park.<\/p>\n

He reversed into the group, then accelerated forward.<\/p>\n

Elise was trapped under the car.<\/p>\n

Michael feels families are being failed by the justice system. (A Current Affair)<\/p>\n

A police officer who witnessed the collision could do little more than comfort her.<\/p>\n

The then-23-year-old was freed on bail after being charged.<\/p>\n

Judge Robyn Harper noted that, while he did eventually plead guilty to culpable driving causing death, it wasn’t until July this year.<\/p>\n

“The thought of that being the end of her life and in those circumstances, without me or Michael there to comfort her, is unbearable,” Pauline told the court.<\/p>\n

“As her parents, we had always protected her and kept her safe. I would have lain beside her, kept her warm, kissed her, comforted her, and told her that we loved her. I would have said goodbye.<\/p>\n

“What a violent, cruel ending for my gentle, loving girl.”<\/p>\n

Connor Mathiasson. (A Current Affair)<\/p>\n

Michael feels families are being failed by the justice system.<\/p>\n

He says the government needs to listen to victims from the beginning, by giving them a chance to be heard when offenders apply for bail.<\/p>\n

Victorian Government statement:<\/p>\n

Our thoughts are with Elise Hodder’s family during this very difficult time – what happened to Elise is a tragedy.<\/p>\n

Trauma can stay with victims for life – that’s why we have made changes to laws and increased support services to reduce that trauma and empower victims’ voices.<\/p>\n

Our work here is never complete and we will always listen to victims on what more can be done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s been 393 days since Elise Hodder’s life was cut short, with her family and friends left to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-275533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}