- Mason Andrew Ohms' parole request was denied by the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole.
- Ohms, convicted of killing 13-year-old Eli Mitchell, will remain in prison.
- Eli's family emphasized their ongoing grief and opposed Ohms' early release.
SALT LAKE CITY — A man convicted of running over and killing a 13-year-old boy on a bicycle and then driving off will spend at least another six years in the Utah State Prison.
The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole has denied Mason Andrew Ohms' parole request and scheduled another hearing in August 2032.
On April 26, 2022, Ohms, now 54, while driving a Chevy Silverado, was waiting at a red light to make a right turn when he "accelerated hard into his right turn, hitting (Eli Mitchell) just as he entered the crosswalk," charging documents state.
Eli, 13, was on his bicycle and was riding home after buying candy from a store and his treats were hanging in a bag on his handlebars, when he entered a crosswalk at 1510 W. 9000 South and was hit.
Prosecutors say Ohms never braked after hitting Eli, and then made a U-turn in the street and drove past others who were administering help to the young boy and kept driving. Ohms drove to the parking lot of a nearby business, pulled the bicycle out from under his truck and then drove to his Saratoga Springs home, according to the charges.
He parked about a block away from his house, but was arrested by waiting police when he arrived. Hours after the accident, Ohms' recorded blood-alcohol level was 0.10%, which prosecutors argued meant he likely had a level of 0.22% at the time of the crash.
Ohms, a repeat DUI offender, hit Eli right after leaving a bar that he and his co-workers had been at for six hours.
He was convicted of automobile homicide and failing to remain at the scene of an accident involving death and was sentenced to up to 20 years in prison. He will be released in 2042 if he serves his full time.
In February, Ohms went before a member of the Board of Pardons for the first time.
"I don't have an excuse. I know the choices I made that day were horrific. They were life-changing. Just when I thought I had everything in my grasp and (under) control … I had a relapse," he told the board.
But members of Eli's family told the board that serving four years of a possible 20-year sentence isn't enough, especially for a repeat offender.
"The grief in our home is constant," Jeremy Mitchell, Eli's father, told the board, "This is our life sentence. There is no parole from it."
In reaching their decision, board members acknowledged that Ohms had been successful with treatment programs while incarcerated and had not been a discipline problem. However, because his crime "is characterized by extreme cruelty or depravity" and because of his history of DUI and alcohol-related crimes, the board rejected granting parole at this time.
