The mother of murdered schoolgirl Charlise Mutten insists she is not a monster, but admitted in her first television interview that her little girl deserved better.
Nine-year-old Charlise was brutally murdered by her mother’s then-fiancé, Justin Stein, at her family’s luxurious home in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney in January 2022.
Stein, who in August was sentenced to life in prison without parole, shot the girl in the face before dumping her body in a barrel.
Kallista Mutten has previously said that since Charlise’s murder, she had been harassed in public and abused by people on public transport to the point that she could not leave.
She responded to critics as she broke her silence to 60 minutes in an emotional interview that will air this Sunday night.
“I’m not this monster, this unfit mother,” she told journalist Dimity Clancey in a newly released trailer.
“Charlise deserved more.”
“I miss her so much, she believed in me,” Mrs. Mutten says through tears.
Kallista (pictured), the mother of murdered nine-year-old Charlise Mutten, has given an emotional interview in which she responds to her critics.
Charlise (pictured) was brutally murdered by her mother’s then-fiancé Justin Stein at her family’s luxurious home in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, in January 2022.
Mrs. Mutten is informed that the gruesome murder occurred while Charlise was under her care.
“I hate myself for that, I really do.”
The preview also shows footage of an agitated Stein, pacing a small police interrogation room.
As he does so, he blames Charlise’s mother for the murder. It was all her. I can’t sit here and cover for her.
A police detective tells the program that Stein “spun a web of wicked lies and deceit.”
Mrs. Mutten later describes her former partner as “pure evil.”
Another detective, looking at CCTV footage police obtained of Stein driving around Sydney, says: “That’s the moment I know he gets rid of that barrel.”
The show also reaches the thicket where Charlise’s body was found stuffed in an orange barrel.
“As soon as I looked, there was a barrel down there,” says one detective. ‘(He) threw it away like trash.’
Sentencing Stein, 33, in the New South Wales Supreme Court in Sydney, Judge Helen Wilson said he was “completely without remorse” and “without humanity or morality”.
He said the shooting of Charlise was “unspeakably cruel and murderous.”
“They were deliberate acts and the second shot was an execution shot. “He undertook these actions with the intention of killing her,” he said.
‘He tried to blame Charlise’s mother for his own indecent behavior.
‘Charlise wasn’t just a girl; She was a very small girl, nine years and five months old.
‘Charlise had come to refer to the offender as ‘dad’. “This crime represents a flagrant violation of that trust.”
Charlise was murdered after she was drugged with Stein’s schizophrenia medication.
An adult dose of the drug would have a profound sedative effect on a child, the court heard.
Judge Helen Wilson said the shooting of Charlise (pictured) was ‘unspeakably cruel and murderous’.
Stein, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole in August, shot the girl in the face before throwing her body into a barrel (pictured).
Stein is shown leaving the Lane Cove tunnel with the barrel in the back covered by a blue tarp.
‘I would be in a state of pronounced drowsiness; he had even less ability to defend himself and flee from danger,’ the judge said.
Judge Wilson described Stein’s allegedly tearful account of Charlise’s death during the trial as “false” and said the handkerchief he used was dry.
“From where I was sitting I could see very clearly, his eyes were completely dry and he didn’t shed a single tear,” she said with disgust.
Charlise had been visiting her mother and Stein for Christmas from the Gold Coast, where she lived with her grandparents.
She spent the night of January 11 alone with Stein at a property in the Blue Mountains, while her mother stayed in a caravan about a 90-minute drive away.
The same day Charlise’s body was found, investigators charged Stein with her murder after using location data from her phone to determine where the barrel was dropped.
Judge Wilson said Stein probably shot the girl once in the back as she tried to flee, before approaching her and firing another shot directly into her head.
“This was a shockingly cruel crime,” Ms Wilson said.
‘The offender approached Charlise and fired the second shot at close range.
“He shot Charlise twice with a stolen gun,” Judge Wilson said.
“It was not possible to survive and it was not planned to be.”
Stein’s lawyer, Carolyn Davenport SC, said it would be “a very cruel and unusual punishment” to send a man of Stein’s age to prison for the rest of his life.
“There was no reason that we know of,” he said.
Mrs Mutten broke down in tears during an earlier hearing and told her ex-fiancée: “I hate myself for trusting you.”
He read a victim impact statement via audio and video link.
With a trembling voice, Mrs. Mutten told Stein, “(Charlise) just wanted you to be her father.” I just hate myself for being so wrong about you.
“I am forced to live with the fact that I trusted someone and because of my trust I put my daughter in danger.”
Stein blinked rapidly and then closed his eyes for several seconds, his leg shaking restlessly as he listened to Mrs. Mutten and his father’s statements.
“I won’t be able to watch her grow up, have her first boyfriend and get married,” Charlise’s mother said.
‘More than anything, I miss being Charlise’s mother and her saying I love you.
“Charlise was my biggest fan and always said I was the best mom in the world.”
Stein attempted to frame Kallista Mutten (above with Charlise, on Christmas 2021) for murdering her own daughter while she was in a drug-induced state.
A week after the shooting, detectives found Charlise’s 33.5kg body wrapped in a tarp, bound with duct tape and placed upside down inside an industrial barrel on the banks of the Colo River.
During a five-week trial between May and June, Stein attempted to frame Charlise’s mother, then a serious intravenous methamphetamine addict, for murdering her own daughter.
The court heard Kallista was injecting himself with a massive “17 points a day” of ice and had suffered psychotic episodes as he lay on the floor, babbling and incoherent.
But in traumatic trial testimony, she said she had not been with Stein or Charlise the night the murder occurred and believed their story that another woman was babysitting her daughter.
On June 19, after deliberating for 35 hours over eight days, a jury found Justin Stein guilty of Charlise’s murder.
Stein had already admitted disposing of the body, after police showed CCTV of him driving the tarpaulin-wrapped barrel through Sydney, collecting sand from Bunnings to weigh it, and then to the riverbank 100 kilometers northwest. from Sydney.
Stein had claimed that after Ms Mutten shot her daughter, she secretly placed Charlise’s body in the barrel and secured it in the back of her ute without her knowledge.
But the jury did not believe him.
Mutten denied having any involvement in her daughter’s death and broke down in tears when she faced the accusation in court.
Nine-year-old Charlise Mutten, photographed in December 2021, at her last Christmas.
Stein appeared as the defense’s only witness at the trial and spent two days going over his version of events.
Crown prosecutor Ken McKay SC said Stein gave Charlise her schizophrenia medication, Quetiapine, “either intentionally or… accidentally.”
Stein denied giving the medication to Charlise and said he had agreed to a plan by Charlie’s mother to cover up the murder, including lying to police about leaving the girl in the care of a woman who was appraising items on Charlie’s property. Mount Wilson.