The man accused of murdering Charlise Mutten claims the schoolgirl yelled ‘Mummy, no’ before she was shot in the face and back by her own mother who was on a three-day ice bender, a court has heard.
The court was played a phone call which Justin Stein allegedly made to his mother days after his arrest, where he says he witnessed the moment the nine-year-old was shot.
In the call, mother Annemie Stein begs her son not to say the fatal shooting occurred on the Steins’ luxury Mount Wilson property in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney.
In reply, Stein agreed and said instead it was ‘on crown land, behind the shed, on the fire break’.
‘She (Charlise) ran down, screamed my name, then you heard “Mummy, no” and then the second gunshot,’ the court heard him allegedly say in the recorded phone call made from behind bars.
He said that Kallista was ‘three days deep into an ice bender’ and severe ‘paranoia … You saw what it was getting like, I was losing my shit,’ the jury heard.
Justin Stein, 33, is on trial in NSW Supreme Court at Parramatta after pleading not guilty to murder, but admitting to disposing the body of Charlise.
The girl had been visiting her mother, Kallista Mutten, who was engaged to Stein at the time, during the school holidays.
He is accused of killing the girl between 7.16pm on January 11 and 10.06am on January 12, 2022, and was arrested on January 18 after Charlise’s body was found in a barrel on the Colo River, 58km from Mount Wilson.
Several prison phone calls between Stein and his mother after his arrest were played to the court, in which she asked him to explain why Charlise’s body had been in a barrel in the back of his ute.
They also discussed the fact that Kallista was pregnant because, Justin explained, her medication ‘f***ed with the contraception’ prevention, the jury heard.
‘So it’s going to be born an ice addict,’ Annemie allegedly asked her son in the call.
Stein had earlier said in the call that ‘I don’t want to have it’, but Ms Stein replied that Kallista ‘is going to have it’, the court heard.
Annemie also said to her son in the call that Kallista had once threatened that ‘she was going to take you and me down’, the court heard.
Justin Stein is on trial for the alleged murder of Charlise Mutten, 9, and the court heard a phone call with him claiming to his mother that it was Charlise’s mother Kallista who shot the child while on an ice bender
Stein allegedly told his mother that having Charlise’s body in a barrel in the back tray of his ute was Kallista’s idea and he hadn’t known the girl’s remains were in there until later, the jury heard.
‘That was her doing. She put it on back of (his vehicle). I picked up stuff to do cement work,’ he said in the record call played in court.
;I get a phone call at Bunnings and she says “you’ve got Charlise with you”.
‘I was driving around with a f***ing girl in the back of my ute.’
Stein agreed with his mother that was why he drove around for five hours before the barrel was dumped, because he didn’t know what to do, the court was told.
‘I was panicked,’ he added in the call.
In another phone call to his mother in February 2022, Stein told her he had been only a couple of days away from splitting with Kallista when the shooting death happened, the court heard.
‘I was so close to getting rid of her, a couple more days and that girl would be on a flight,’ he said in the call playe din court.
‘Now I’m sitting in jail. If she (Kallista) doesn’t go to jail I will literally lose my s*** when I get out.’
Two NSW Corrective Services staffers who met Stein on arrival at Silverwater jail on January 20, 2022 testified he had insisted to them that Kallista Mutten killed her daughter.
Stacey Sweeney told the court she asked Stein ‘did you do it’, and he replied, ‘No. Her mum shot her twice. Her mum was on ice all week.
‘I heard a shot then heard her screaming out for me and then I ran back and I heard another shot.’
Justin Stein claimed in a phone call that Kallista Mutten shot her daughter once, then after the girl cried out ‘Mummy, no’ shot the schoolgirl a second time
In phone calls between Justin Stein (above) and his mother after his arrest and incarceration, he claims it was Kallista who shot Charlise while she was high on methamphetamine
Ms Sweeney said Stein had become ’emotional’ and she had handed him paper towels.
She said he added: ‘I keep having flashbacks.
‘I’m not going down for that bitch. Thank you for letting me vent, I’ve been trying to tell people since the day. No-one will listen.’
The jury was shown photographs taken inside the barrel where police found Charlise’s remains, blood-stained soil, sand, a tarpaulin and a white PVC hessian bag.
Charlise was dressed in black leggings or track pants, a skirt, a red top and a black hoodie.
Justice Helen Wilson instructed the jury that while the images might be confronting, none of them showed Charlise’s wounds and that they should not prejudice their minds one way or the other.
The jury also watched drone footage of police along the Colo River with a blue crime tent over the scene on January 18, 2022 when the girl was found wrapped up inside the barrel.
The court heard that Stein had bought three bags of ‘play sand’ and two bags of coarse sand from Bunnings at Marsden Park around 5.30pm 13 January 2022.
He had partly used a Bunnings gift card to buy the items, and took another gift card as change.
Previously, the court heard Stein used eBay to order a gun scope to be sent to his mother’s address which attached to a .30 calibre Winchester lever-action rifle.
This and another weapon, a BSA .22 calibre bolt-action rifle, had been stolen from a neighbour’s home near the Steins’ Mount Wilson property and were connected with the alleged shooting murder, the jury was told.
Police found both weapons wrapped up and either inside or alongside Coles and Woolworths bags along a fire trail not far from the Mount Wilson property, the court heard.
The trial is into its second week.
Last week, the court heard Charlise split her school holiday with her mother on Stein’s family property, where police allege she was shot and killed, and a caravan park named the Riviera Ski Gardens in Lower Portland, about 1.5 hours away.
The alleged killer Justin Stein pretended he to be out searching for nine-year-old Charlise Mutten while he was trying to dispose of the girl’s body, a court has heard
Stein allegedly told Ms Mutten Charlise was feeling ‘wrecked’ and was being taken care of by a real estate agent at the house while he left.
The court heard he told the same alleged lie to police and his mother.
It is alleged Stein pretended he was out searching for the nine-year-old while he was trying to dispose of the girl’s body.
He left the property about 4pm on January 13, with a barrel covered by a tarp in the back of his Holden Colorado ute and towing his boat, the court was told.
The jury saw CCTV footage of Stein purchasing five 20kg bags of sand from Bunnings, before stopping at a 7/11 where he bought a can of Coke, a Snickers bar and a Slushie.
Stein then drove around multiple wharves in Sydney, with the girl’s body in the barrel still in his ute, the jury heard.
Justin Stein claimed he was searching for the girl as he allegedly drove around Sydney with her body in a barrel in the back of his ute. Picture: NSW Police
While he was out, Stein had lied to his mother, claiming he was ‘camped in the car watching’ for Charlise, the court was told.
The jury heard his mother wrote: ‘I think Kallista has done all this and everything else at the property, lots of things not adding up’.
When Stein suggested it was ‘possible’, his mother queried whether Ms Mutten was as ‘distraught’ as him, the court heard.
She allegedly 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, the court heard.
Stein told his mother he was ‘going to get to the bottom’ of it, Detective Sergeant Bradley Gardiner told the court last week, as Stein continued to drive between Rose Bay Wharf and Drummoyne Wharf with the girl’s body in the ute.
The jury heard he would eventually drive to an area near the Colo River and push the barrel down an embankment.
Stein later suggested criminals associated from his past with ‘bad blood’ may have been responsible for the girl’s disappearance, the jury heard.
It comes after the jury previously heard Ms Mutten and Stein had sex in a park in the hours after prosecutors allege he killed the school girl.
The mother of a murdered schoolgirl, Kallista Mutten (pictured), and her daughter’s alleged murderer bought methamphetamine the day following the child’s death and had sex in a park
In the hours after the schoolgirl was allegedly shot, Stein and Ms Mutten drove to Surry Hills near Sydney’s city centre to buy methamphetamine, the court was told.
They then went to nearby Centennial Park where Ms Mutten told police they had sex, the jury heard.
But afterwards, Ms Mutten grew suspicious and searched online for ‘blood coming from penis after sex’ and ‘blood coming out of penis after ejaculation’, the court heard.
She then allegedly accused Stein of cheating on her and contracting the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhoea.
Police alleged Ms Mutten messaged Stein saying, ‘You’re a liar, cheat and now I’ve lost my daughter.’
When the couple arrived back at Mount Wilson, Ms Mutten allegedly called Lithgow hospital and Blue Mountains hospital after making online searches for children’s emergency rooms in the area.
Ms Mutten left the Mount Wilson property the next day in Stein’s red Holden Colorado ute, the jury was told.
‘If you don’t bring it back I’m going to hurt you as well as everyone else,’ Stein said in one of the messages, the court heard.
‘I’ve got me f***ing guns and I’m going to kill you.’
Stein is accused of shooting Charlise Mutten (pictured) in the head and disposing of her body in a barrel weighed down with sand
Police alleged Ms Mutten (pictured) messaged Stein saying, ‘you’re a liar, cheat and now I’ve lost my daughter’
Stein claims Ms Mutten shot her own daughter, the court has heard.
His lawyer told the court last week that his client had initially lied to police to cover for Ms Mutten because the pair were in a relationship.
Stein spent more than two hours being interviewed at Penrith Police Station on January 14, 2022, two days after prosecutors allege he shot the girl twice and put her body in a barrel before rolling it down an embankment near the Colo River.
The alleged killer broke down in tears during the police interview, the court heard, and told officers Charlise was his ‘little girl’ and that she ‘means the world’ to him.
The jury was told Stein told police he left Charlise with a real estate agent on January 12, who had offered to look after the nine-year-old because she woke feeling unwell.
It was after this that Stein and Ms Mutten travelled to Sydney to buy drugs and have sex in a park, the court heard.
When they returned shortly before 9pm, the house was locked and Charlise was nowhere to be found, the jury was told.
Stein said he had ‘no reason to lie’ about the real estate agent story, even though he failed to take her name or number, and told police he would say in a ‘heartbeat’ if anything bad had happened to the schoolgirl, the court heard.
‘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 through tears, the jury heard.
‘She was going to be my little girl.’
Stein allegedly told police he spent that time travelling to locations across Sydney, including Rose Bay and Drummoyne, to ask contacts from his criminal past if they knew what happened to Charlise.
Prosecutors allege Stein was in fact looking for a suitable location to dump Charlise’s body.
When asked who those people were, Stein was unspecific, adding while he didn’t have ongoing conflicts, there was ‘bad blood’ between him and a co-offender in a cocaine importation scheme over which he spent five years in jail, the court heard.
Stein had also allegedly reported his car stolen the day after he said Charlise went missing, with police officers attending the property in relation to that report.
In the video shown to the court, the officers questioned why Stein didn’t tell police at that time Charlise was missing.
‘There was police at the house yesterday and there was a report made about a car being stolen but not about a nine-year old being missing,’ one of the officers said.
‘Can you appreciate where we’re coming from?’
The questioning then turned to whether Stein or Ms Mutten had anything to do with what happened to Charlise, either accidentally or deliberately.
The officers suggested Charlise may have been accidentally run over, or taken medication from which she didn’t wake up, the jury heard.
‘Have you been involved in the death of Charlise?’ one of the officers asked.
‘No, no,’ Stein replied.
The trial before Justice Helen Wilson continues.
