The man accused of murdering Charlise Mutten claims the schoolgirl shouted “Mum, no” before she was shot in the face and back by her mother, who was in an ice bender for three days, a court heard.
The court heard a phone call Justin Stein allegedly made to his mother days after his arrest, where he says he witnessed the moment the nine-year-old boy was shot.
In the call, Stein’s mother, Annemie Stein, pleaded with her son not to say that the fatal shooting occurred at the family’s luxurious Mount Wilson property in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney.
In response, Stein agreed and said he was instead “on crown land, behind the shed, on the firebreak.”
“She (Charlise) ran, screamed my name, then you heard ‘Mom, no’ and then the second shot,” the court allegedly heard him say in the recorded phone call from behind bars.
Justin Stein is on trial for the alleged murder of 9-year-old Charlise Mutten
He said Charlise’s mother Kallista Mutten had “three days submerged in an ice bender” and “severe paranoia… you saw how she was getting, she was losing her mind”, the jury heard.
Stein, 33, is on trial in the New South Wales Supreme Court in Parramatta after pleading not guilty to murder but admitting disposing of Charlise’s body.
The girl had been visiting her mother, who was engaged to Stein at the time, during the school holidays.
He is accused of killing the girl between 7:16 p.m. on January 11 and 10:06 a.m. on January 12, 2022, and was arrested on January 18 after Charlise’s body was found in a barrel in the Colo River, 58 km 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 truck.
They also discussed the fact that Kallista was pregnant because, Stein explained, her medication “screwed up contraception,” the jury heard.
“So he’ll be born addicted to ice,” Annemie allegedly asked her son in the call.
Stein had said earlier in the call that “I don’t want to have it”, but Annemie responded that Kallista “will have it”, the court heard.
Annemie also told her son in the call that Kallista had once threatened “he was going to take you and me down”, the court heard.
Stein allegedly told his mother that having Charlise’s body in a barrel in the rear tray of his ute was Kallista’s idea and that he did not know the girl’s remains were there until later, the jury heard.
That was her doing. She put it in the back of (her vehicle). I would pick up things to do cement work,’ she said in the phone call played in court.
“I get a phone call to Bunnings and she says ‘you’ve got Charlise with you’.”
“I was driving with a bloody girl in the back of my ute.”
Justin Stein claimed in a phone call that Kallista Mutten shot his daughter once, and then, after the girl screamed ‘Mom, no,’ he shot her a second time.
Stein agreed with her mother that was why she drove for five hours before the barrel was thrown, because she didn’t know what to do, the court was told.
“I panicked,” he added in the call.
In another phone call to his mother in February 2022, Stein told her he was just a couple of days away from breaking up with Kallista when the shooting death occurred, 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 played in court.
‘Now I’m in jail. If she (Kallista) doesn’t go to jail, I will literally lose my mind when she gets out.”
Two NSW Correctional Services employees who met Stein upon his arrival at Silverwater Prison on January 20, 2022 testified that he had insisted to them that Kallista killed his daughter.
Stacey Sweeney told the court she asked Stein “did you do it?”, and he replied: “No.” His mother shot him twice. “Her mother was frozen all week.”
“I heard a gunshot, then I heard her yelling at me, and then I ran back and I heard another gunshot.”
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 meth.
Sweeney said Stein had become “emotional” and handed him paper towels.
She said he added: ‘I keep having flashbacks. I’m not going down for that bitch. Thanks for letting me vent, I’ve been trying to tell people since that day. No one will listen.’
The jury was shown photographs taken inside the barrel where police found Charlise’s remains, blood-stained dirt, sand, a tarp and a white PVC burlap bag.
Charlise was dressed in black leggings or sweatpants, a skirt, a red blouse, and a black hoodie.
Judge Helen Wilson instructed the jury that while the images may be contradictory, none showed Charlise’s injuries and that they should not prejudge their minds one way or another.
The jury also noted Police drone footage along the Colo River with a blue crime tent above the scene on January 18, 2022 when the girl was found wrapped inside the barrel.
The court heard that Stein had purchased three bags of ‘play sand’ and two bags of coarse sand from Bunnings in Marsden Park at around 5.30pm on January 13, 2022.
He had partly used a Bunnings gift card to purchase the items and took another gift card as change.
Previously, the court heard that Stein used eBay to order a scope to be sent to his mother’s address, which was attached to a .30-caliber Winchester lever-action rifle.
This and another weapon, a .22-caliber BSA bolt-action rifle, had been stolen from a neighbor’s home near the Steins’ Mount Wilson property and were linked to the alleged shooting death, the jury was told.
Police found both guns wrapped and in or next to bags from Coles and Woolworths along a fire trail not far from the Mount Wilson property, the court heard.
The trial continues.
