A heartbroken father collected broken earrings and damaged bracelets from the police, all that remained from his only daughter’s last night alive.

‘They were like her body – broken, scarred and distorted,’ Michael Hodder told a court while holding back tears.

His youngest child, Melbourne model Elise Hodder, suffered a violent death last year at the hands of a drunk and high driver.

The 24-year-old was on the cusp of a successful career, having just featured in fashion magazine Vanguard, and was due to head to Sydney for a well-paid job when her life was cut short.

After celebrating her best friend’s birthday, Ms Hodder was hit by Connor Mathiasson and became stuck under his Commodore until she fell unconscious and died.

Two police officers spoke to her as she lay under the vehicle ‘fighting for her life but struggling to survive’, the County Court in Melbourne was told on Friday.

Ms Hodder’s mother said the nature of her daughter’s death had made her grief ‘unbearable’.

‘To learn Elise had been trapped under the car for hours… I was overcome with grief,’ Pauline Hodder told the court as tears streamed down her face.

‘What a violent, cruel ending for my gentle, loving girl.’

She had dropped Ms Hodder off at a friend’s house in Collingwood, and they headed to her best friend Emma Sword’s birthday party on the evening she was killed.

‘She looked me in the eye and said “you’re a special woman mum, I love you”,’ Mrs Hodder said. 

‘I had no idea this was the last time I would ever see my daughter alive.’

The devastated parents then had to identify Ms Hodder’s body, while Mathiasson had already been freed on bail.

‘To then see her at the Coroners Court, to hug and kiss her while knowing her offender was free, was unbearably cruel,’ Mr Hodder said.

Mathiasson, who has only spent one day behind bars after he was granted bail the day after the October 13, 2024, crash, also hit Ms Swords and injured her when he drove into the group of friends inside a Kooyong car park.

Dozens of Ms Hodder and Ms Sword’s loved ones filled the courtroom on Friday as Mathiasson faced a pre-sentence hearing where emotional statements were read about the impact of his offending.

The then 23-year-old had been drinking at a rave and had cocaine and cannabis in his system when he got behind the wheel.

A marked police car was inside the car park at the time and two officers said they saw Mathiasson’s vehicle drive ‘straight into a group of pedestrians’, with Ms Hodder dragged underneath the car and becoming stuck.

Ms Swords told police she remembered walking and then getting hit ‘really hard’ by the Commodore.

‘I feel like I heard a car rev really loud, but it just hit me so quick – I didn’t see anything I just felt it,’ she said in a statement read by prosecutor Neill Hutton SC.

‘It all happened so quick, we had only been out of the car for like 30 seconds.’

The officers ran over and blocked Mathiasson’s Commodore from leaving and asked why he did it. 

‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it,’ Mathiasson replied, the prosecutor said.

Police then turned to Ms Hodder, who was still conscious but ‘fighting for her life’ underneath the Commodore.

‘With the weight of the vehicle on her I felt all I could do was talk to her. My thoughts at the time were that her injuries were probably not survivable,’ one officer said.

Mathiasson has pleaded guilty to culpable driving causing Ms Hodder’s death and negligently causing serious injury to Ms Swords, who suffered broken ankles.

He is facing up to 20 years behind bars.