Prosecutors have called for a life sentence for the man who killed schoolgirl Charlise Mutten before dumping her body in a barrel.
A jury found Justin Stein guilty of the nine-year-old’s murder despite his claims throughout his trial that the girl’s mother Kallista Mutten was the one responsible for the callous shooting.
Police located Charlise’s body on January 18, 2022, near the Colo River, northwest of Sydney, with close-range gunshot wounds to her face and lower back.
Stein was in a relationship with Mutten at the time of the killing and today she told a sentence hearing in the NSW Supreme Court she put her daughter in harm’s way by trusting the 33-year-old man.
“Charlise just longed for a dad,” a distraught Mutten told the court.
“She trusted in my judgment and I just hate myself for being so wrong about it.
“You took away Charlise and with that my future as a mother.”
Charlise had been visiting her mother and Stein over Christmas from the Gold Coast, where she lived with her grandparents, at the time of the murder.
She spent the night of January 11 alone with Stein at a property at Mount Wilson, in the Blue Mountains, while her mother stayed at a caravan at the Riviera Ski Park, about a 90-minute drive away.
Stein continues to deny killing Charlise, depriving her mother and others of being able to learn the truth about what happened.
“All I want to know is why … but I don’t think I’ll ever get that,” Mutten told the court.
Charlise’s grandfather Clinton Mutten, who was her primary carer, said the failure to protect the young girl would haunt his family for the rest of their lives.
“Her murder by a person of whom she trusted, was calling ‘daddy’ and hoped for him to one day be a caring father for her, I believe breaches all sense of decency and trust,” Mutten told the court.
“Was Charlise hunted down, incapacitated and murdered, pleading for her life?
“These are questions that I believe will never be answered and will be a burden that I will carry for the rest of my life.”
Crown prosecutor Ken McKay SC said the only appropriate sentence for Stein was life in prison.
“The offender made the conscious decision to shoot Charlise Mutten in the back and then follow this up with a fatal shot to the face at close range,” he said.
“He went to great lengths to avoid being held responsible for his actions.”
The same day Charlise’s body was found, investigators arrested and charged Stein with her murder after using location data from his phone to pinpoint where the barrel was dropped.
Stein would later admit dumping the body, but he claimed he panicked after discovering it on the back of his ute.
Toxicology results revealed Charlise had traces in her body of the anti-psychotic drug Seroquel, for which Stein had a prescription to treat schizophrenia.
An adult dose of the drug would have a profound sedating effect on a child, the court heard.
Justice Helen Wilson will deliver a sentence on Monday.
