How cops allege girl was killed, dumped

Charlise Mutten was excited to travel to Sydney to spend the Christmas and New Year period with her mum and the man she hoped would be a “good dad”.

But on the day she was due to board a return flight home to her grandparents in Tweed Heads on the far NSW North Coast, the nine-year-old’s body was found in a barrel on an embankment near the Colo River.

Charlise had been living with her grandparents when she planned to visit her mother Kallista Mutten and her fiance Justin Stein over Christmas 2021 and into January 2022.

A jury has been told the nine-year-old was excited to see her mother and had even asked if Mr Stein “would be a good dad” before embarking on the trip.

She spent her time in Sydney split between Mr Stein’s family property at Mount Wilson, where she was allegedly shot and killed, and a caravan park named the Riviera Ski Gardens in Lower Portland, about 1.5 hours away.

It is alleged Mr Stein was the last person to see Charlise and is accused of killing her between 7.16pm on January 11 and 10.06am on January 12, 2022.

He has pleaded not guilty to murder and is facing a trial in the NSW Supreme Court but admits to disposing of the nine-year-old’s body.

The jury, consisting of five women and 10 men, has heard five days of evidence outlining the last days of Charlise’s life and the investigation into her death.

December 21, 2021

The jury was told the schoolgirl had flown to Sydney on December 21, 2021 to spend the Christmas and new year period with her mother and Mr Stein.

Charlise’s grandfather Clinton Mutten Sr, whom she was living with at the time, told the jury that his granddaughter showed potential in school and wanted to be a vet when she was older.

Mr Mutten described Charlise’s relationship with her mother as “unconditional and very loving”, and Charlise was “excited” for the trip to Sydney.

“She said she really liked Justin and she asked me if I thought he would be a good dad,” Mr Mutten told the court.

December 25, 2021

Charlise spent Christmas with Ms Mutten, who sent two images of the nine-year-old to her mother, Deborah.

The photos show a smiling Charlise holding Christmas presents and beaming next to her mother.

January 10, 2022

Days before Charlise was allegedly killed, she had spent time swimming in the pool at the Riviera Ski Gardens, with her mother sending two photos to her grandparents.

The final photo of the schoolgirl alive was sent to Ms Mutten’s parents at 6.20pm.

January 11, 2022

The jury was told Charlise travelled with Mr Stein to his family’s property at Mount Wilson, named Wildenstein, while her mother remained behind at the Riviera Ski Gardens.

Ms Mutten messaged her fiance twice asking if they had arrived home safe.

At 8.20pm he replied: “Hey bubs, sorry left my phone in the car … looked inside for it … I’m just cooking up some chicken, Charsy is watching TV and playing with balloons.”

Crown prosecutor Ken McKay SC alleges Mr Stein was the “last person” to see Charlise, claiming he killed the girl between the night of January 11 and the following morning.

January 12, 2022

Mr Stein told police in his first interview, which was played to the jury, that he woke on January 12 to find Charlise had vomited all over the bed and floor.

He said the girl had woken up in the night “ash white” and came into his room before waking up sick at 5.30am until 6am.

The 33-year-old sent a text to Ms Mutten at 10.06am telling her that Charlise was “wrecked” and staying in bed because she was unwell.

Mr McKay told the jury that Stein lied about a real estate agent, who he claimed had come to value the property for an upcoming auction and said they would look after Charlise.

Mr Stein travelled to the Riviera Ski Gardens and picked up Ms Mutten before the pair drove to Surry Hills in Sydney and bought drugs.

They travelled to Centennial Park, where they had sex, before driving back to Mount Wilson and arriving at 8.44pm with Charlise nowhere to be found.

Ms Mutten called two local hospitals to try to locate her daughter before the couple went to sleep.

“I went around and checked everything … her bag was gone, her hoodie was gone,” Mr Stein told police in the interview.

He called his mother and told police he found out some “pretty shocking information” – the real estate agent wasn’t supposed to be at the house until the following week.

Mr Stein told police that he started to “panic” and walked around the property looking for Charlise but couldn’t find her.

January 13, 2022

In the early hours of the morning, Ms Mutten went through her partner’s phone and found out he was cheating on her.

At 3.39am, she called him a “liar and a cheat” in a text message.

The text continued: “Now I’ve lost my daughter and I’m going to neck myself, I’m so stupid.”

Fifteen minutes later, the jury was told Ms Mutten took her partner’s car and drove to a local camping ground to “get emotions together”.

“I’m grabbing my daughter and taking her to my brother’s. I’m not losing her over you. I’m so stupid,” another text to the accused read.

She also messaged a friend, saying she read through Mr Stein’s phone and didn’t want to go to the police as she will “lose” her daughter

“I’m devo and now my daughter is missing,” she wrote.

Ms Mutten returned to the Mount Wilson property about 5.47am when the jury was told there was a “confrontation” between the couple. Ms Mutten again took off in Mr Stein’s car, prompting him to leave eight voicemails on her phone.

“If you don’t bring it back I am going to f**king hurt you as well as everyone else, and I’ll tell the police you’re the one who took your daughter so they will bring back my f**king car,” the recording, which was played to the jury, said.

The jury heard another voicemail where Mr Stein said: “I’ve got my f**king guns and I’m going to f**king kill you now, and I’m f**king serious, you’ve f**ked me over for the last time … it was you doing this to Charlise to f**k me wasn’t it c**t, I’m going to kill you.”

January 13, 2022 – 4pm

The jury was told Mr Stein left the house about 4pm, telling Ms Mutten and his mother, Annemie Stein, that he was going out searching for Charlise.

CCTV footage played to the jury shows Mr Stein’s red Holden Colorado ute towing his boat, with a barrel in the back of the car hidden under a blue tarp.

He drives to Marsden Park Bunnings where he is seen on CCTV purchasing five bags of sand.

The jury was told Mr Stein then travelled to 7/11 where he bought a can of Coke, a Snickers bar and a slushie before filling the boat up with fuel at a nearby BP.

January 13 – 6.51pm

Mr Stein drives his car to Rose Bay Wharf in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, circling the carpark before leaving and travelling to Drummoyne wharf in the inner west.

At 7.28pm, his mother asked how things were going.

His mother wrote: “I think Kallista has done all this and everything else at the property, lots of things not adding up.”

When Mr Stein suggested it was “possible”, his mother queried whether Ms Mutten was as “distraught” as him.

She told her son “any mother would be inconsolable” and claimed Ms Mutten knew “where Charlise is”.

“I’m beside myself and she has no connection to me … what the f**k is going on here?” she wrote.

Mr Stein said he was going to “get to the bottom of it”, as Detective Sergeant Bradley Gardiner told the court that the killer was at the wharf at the time.

January 14 – 12.21am

In the early minutes of January 14, Mr Stein received messages from Ms Mutten saying she was “going to bed” and “don’t come back unless she’s with you”.

At 12.21am, the jury was told, Ms Mutten messaged Mr Stein to “knock down the door and say where’s my daughter”.

Mr McKay told the jury that Mr Stein had googled “Windsor boat ramp” at 12.38am, with Ms Mutten asking him 10 minutes later to “please get our baby back”.

Later that night, Mr Stein’s car was seen driving through David St at Windsor at 1.19am.

At 1.42am he left the Windsor boat ramp and travelled to an area at the lower Colo Rd, remaining there until 2.36am, the jury was told.

Sergeant Gardiner told the jury that Mr Stein pushed the barrel off the embankment down towards the Colo River before doing a U-turn at 2.45am and heading home.

“The Crown case is during that period the accused acted in a way he was trying to convince Kallista Mutten and his mother that Charlise was taken by other people and he was in effect trying to rescue her,” Mr McKay told the jury.

“On the Crown case … he knew about Charlise’s death and he knew she was in the barrel … taking the steps to purchase the sand, put petrol in his boat, to travel to areas considering using his boat to dump the barrel in the water but ultimately discarding the barrel down that embankment which leads to the Colo River in the isolated area.”

Mr McKay said when police later recovered the barrel with the girl’s body, there was also 99kg of sand inside.

Mr Stein arrived back at Mount Wilson at 4.26am.

January 14 – 8.12am

Ms Mutten reported her daughter missing at 8.12am, two days after she had vanished, the jury was told.

The recording of the call was played to the jury, who heard Ms Mutten sobbing as she told the triple-0 operator that she was reporting a missing child.

“I’m sorry, I need to report my daughter missing … she’s nine,” Ms Mutten tells the officer through tears.

The officer asks when the last time Ms Mutten saw her daughter. Ms Mutten, still crying, said “two nights ago”.

“She was here (the Mount Wilson property) … I wasn’t here, my partner was here and during the morning she was really … she was sort of sick, lethargic, and I was two-and-a-half hours away,” Ms Mutten said.

“Justin and the lady that came over to do the auction for his mum … he asked if she could mind her while he went and got me because he didn’t want her in the car because she’d been throwing up.”

Ms Mutten told the officer the woman told Mr Stein to “take his time” but when they arrived there was no one in the house.

“I rang all the hospitals,” Ms Mutten explained.

January 14 – 10.21am

Mr Stein travelled to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney where he was due to get a monthly injection to combat his heroin addiction.

But he was called by police and asked to go to Penrith Police Station before he could receive the injection.

He spent more than two hours talking to police in his first interview, and a second interview later that day went for one hour and 40 minutes.

About an hour into the interview he began to get emotional and broke down, saying he felt “responsible” for leaving the girl with the woman he believed was a real estate agent.

When he was questioned if he was telling the truth, Mr Stein said he had “no reason to lie”.

Mr Stein was asked if he believed that Charlise may no longer be alive, responding that he thought she would “be OK”.

“In my heart I think she’ll be OK because I know the kind of girl she is … if something would’ve happened she would have left a sign or something,” he said.

The officers asked if he had been involved in the girl’s death.

He responded, “No … no … never.”

He dismissed claims Charlise had been hurt in an accident or killed by his ute, claiming he would take her to hospital.

“That kid means the world to me, if something happened I’d never live with myself,” he said.

Mr Stein told police he would have told them in a “heartbeat” if he knew anything bad had happened to the girl.

“That kid really does mean the world to me, you know what I mean, I don’t have much experience but this was my chance,” he said, beginning to cry.“ She was going to be my little girl.”

He told police he didn’t think Ms Mutten cared about her children as much as she claimed, telling them she “hadn’t woken up” after going to prison.

Mr Stein claimed he was trying to “build a new life” while Ms Mutten “sat on her arse doing nothing”.

Through tears he told the officers that Charlise going missing was “f**king killing” him and alluded to his partner having something to do with her daughter’s disappearance.

“I don’t even know and that’s what’s f**king killing me … I feel like I’m having a constant panic attack like I can’t really breathe,” he says in the footage, which was played to the jury on Thursday.

“Going off my gut I think it’s got something to do with Kallista and her family.”

Mr Stein later suggested criminal associates from his past with “bad blood” may have been responsible for the girl’s disappearance, the jury was told.

Mr Stein later told police Charlise had not been with him on the property and he had last seen her on January 10, claiming he only found out she was missing on January 14, the jury was told.

January 18, 2022

Charlise’s body was found with two gunshot wounds, one to the side of the face and one to the lower back, in a barrel rolled down an embankment near the Colo River.

Mr Stein was arrested on the same day, with the jury hearing he was asked by a Corrective Services officer whether he killed the girl.

He said he did not kill her but was “in the vicinity when Kallista Mutten shot and killed the girl”, the jury heard.

The trial before Justice Helen Wilson continues.