Charlise Mutten’s mother texted saying she was ‘devo’ and wanted her daughter back after the nine-year-old went missing, but didn’t report the girl missing for two days, a court heard jury.
The day after her daughter was allegedly shot twice, once in the face and once in the lower back, Kallista Mutten sent a message to her then-fiancé and alleged killer Justin Stein.
“I just love my daughter,” the text said.
He would spend the next few days searching the bush surrounding his partner’s property at Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, before Charlise’s body was found on January 18, 2022.
Stein, 33, faces trial at the NSW Supreme Court in Parramatta after pleading not guilty to murder but admitting disposing of the nine-year-old boy’s body.
Charlise Mutten’s body was found with two gunshot wounds, in a barrel near the Colo River
A toxicology report showed that Charlise had tested positive for Mr. Stein’s schizophrenia medication.
The girl was visiting her mother and Mr Stein during the school holidays, and spent her time in Sydney split between Mr Stein’s family property in Mount Wilson, where she was allegedly shot dead, and at a caravan park called Riviera Ski Gardens in Lower Portland, about 1.5 hours away.
On January 11, 2022, crown prosecutor Ken McKay SC told the jury that Charlise was taken to Mount Wilson from the caravan park with Stein, while Mutten was left behind.
McKay alleges that Stein was the “last person” to see Charlise and have the opportunity to kill her between 7:16 pm on January 11 and 10:06 am on January 12.
The jury was told that Mr Stein picked up Ms Mutten from the caravan park later on January 12, and the mother was under the impression that Charlise was unwell and was being cared for at the property. Mount Wilson.
When they arrived and discovered Charlise was not there, Mutten called two local hospitals to try to locate her daughter on the night of January 12, before the couple went to sleep.
During the night, the jury was told Ms Mutten checked Mr Stein’s phone and saw he had been accessing adult dating sites which caused him “distress”.
In the early hours of January 13, Ms. Mutten took Mr. Stein’s Holden Colorado pickup truck and went to a nearby park where she sent messages to friends “consistent with her belief that the child was missing,” Mr. McKay said.
“I am devo and now my daughter is missing,” one message said.
When she later returned to the property, she sent a message to Mr. Stein saying: “I just want my daughter.”
Justin Stein (pictured) is accused of killing his fiancee’s daughter
Kallista Mutten (pictured) texted her friends saying she was ‘devo’
The jury was told there was a “confrontation” between the couple at the house before Mutten left again in his car, prompting Stein to leave eight voicemails on his phone.
‘If you don’t bring him back, I will hurt you and everyone else, and I will tell the police that you were the one who took your daughter so they can bring me my face.’ king car,” said the recording, which was played before the jury.
The jury heard another voicemail in which Mr. Stein said: “I’ve got my damn guns and I’m going to kill you now, and I mean it, you’ve done it.” *You invited me last… you were the one who did this to Charlise to screw me, right? I am going to kill you.’
In another message, Stein tells his then-fiancée that he is “doing the right thing” by “taking care of her” before telling her that she is “going down.”
Ms Mutten did not report her daughter missing until 8.12am on January 14, when the jury heard her triple-0 call in which she told police she had been looking for Charlise in bushland.
Kallista Mutten (pictured outside court) reported her daughter missing to police two after her nine-year-old daughter went missing.
“I’m sorry, I need to report my daughter missing… she’s nine years old,” Mrs. Mutten tells the officer through tears.
‘She was here (the Mount Wilson property)… I wasn’t here, my partner was here and during the morning she was really… she was like sick, lethargic, and I was two and a half hour away.
Charlise’s body was found in a barrel on an embankment near the Colo River four days after her mother reported her missing.
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 Mr. Stein’s schizophrenia medication.
The trial continues before Judge Helen Wilson.
