The man who allegedly murdered nine-year-old Charlise Mutten ratted out the girl’s mother in a second interview with police, saying he lied to protect his fiancée but heard her “talking about running”, a jury heard. .
Justin Stein spent more than two hours talking to police on Jan. 14, 2022, two days after prosecutors allege he shot the girl twice and stuffed her body into a barrel before rolling it down an embankment near the river. Colo.
Moments after the interview ended, the jury heard that a second interview had taken place in which a police officer said there were concerns about what Stein said in the first conversation.
The officer said they had an unrecorded conversation in which Stein was told they were “quite concerned” that he had lied.
“You said the previous version was not entirely true and you said you would like to talk to us,” the officer said.
In footage shown to the jury, Stein said there were elements of his story that were true, but there were “some aspects that were missing.”
The 33-year-old faces trial in New South Wales. Supreme Court in Parramatta after pleading not guilty to murder but admitted disposing of the nine-year-old boy’s body.
Stein (pictured) ratted out the girl’s mother in a second interview with police.
Charlise Mutten’s body (pictured) was found with two bullet holes in a barrel near the Colo River
Charlise had been visiting her mother. Kallista Muttenwho at the time was engaged to Stein, during the school holidays.
She spent her time in Sydney split between Stein’s family property in Mount Wilson, where she was allegedly shot dead, and a caravan park called Riviera Ski Gardens in Lower Portland, about 1.5 hours away.
He said that a story about a real estate agent taking care of Charlise was not “his thing,” but rather a story that Ms. Mutten told him to tell.
In the first interview, Stein told police that he had taken Charlise to the home on Jan. 11 and dropped her off with a real estate agent the next morning, and the agent offered to take care of the nine-year-old girl. because he woke up “vomiting chunks.” .
But he changed his story, claiming that Mutten was with his daughter the entire time.
“I can’t describe his reasoning and his thinking that he has a lot of problems when it comes to custody,” he said in the second interview, played for the jury on Friday.
“Kallista has been planning to take Charlise… as to where she really is, I don’t know, I didn’t know when she was going to do it.”
He told officers that his fiancée had been “planning to take Charlise” for a while and that he had “overheard” her talking to another person on multiple occasions.
Stein said Mutten initially did not want to go to the police, despite his desire to contact them.
“For once I haven’t done anything wrong here and that’s the honest truth,” Stein said.
He goes on to tell the police that he has no idea where Charlise is, before insisting that the girl could be with Ms. Mutten’s ex-boyfriend.
When asked how the story about the real estate agent came about, Stein said Ms. Mutten “dumped it on him.”
Stein claimed he was looking for the girl while allegedly driving around Sydney with her body in a barrel in the back of his ute (pictured).
“The next minute all hell breaks loose… that’s why it looks so bad,” he said.
“He basically dumped this implausible fucking load of shit on me… It’s like they’re hanging me dry.”
Stein said he had tried to ask Mutten where Charlise was, but never got a “straight answer from her.”
He said he didn’t know why he lied to police, but that he loved “the woman” and wanted to protect her.
“But at the same time I’m the one who’s going to get screwed… I’m not really involved,” he said in the footage.
The first interview was played to the jury Thursday and showed Stein breaking down in tears, telling police that the schoolgirl “means a lot” to him and that she was going to be his “baby girl.”
Stein was asked if he thought Charlise would no longer be alive, and he responded that he thought she “would be fine.”
“In my heart I think she’ll be okay because I know the kind of girl she is…if something had happened, she would have left a sign or something,” she said.
The officers asked him if he had been involved in the girl’s death.
He replied ‘No…no…never’.
Stein said he had tried to ask Ms Mutten (pictured) where Charlise was, but never got a “straight answer from her”.
“That boy means a lot to me. If something happened, I would never live with myself,” he said.
Stein told police she would have told them in a heartbeat if she had known something bad had happened to the girl.
“That kid really means a lot to me, you know what I mean, I don’t have a lot of experience, but this was my chance,” she said, starting to cry.
“She was going to be my girl.”
Charlise’s body was found in a barrel wedged between trees on an embankment of the Colo River on January 18, 2022.
Stein is accused of killing the girl between 7:16 p.m. on January 11 and 10:06 a.m. on January 12.
After his arrest in January 2022, Stein denied killing Charlise in an interview with a Correctional Services officer, but said he was “in the vicinity when Kallista Mutten shot and killed the girl,” the jury heard.
A toxicology report showed that Charlise had tested positive for Stein’s schizophrenia medication.
The trial continues before Judge Helen Wilson.
