Alleged killer’s ice-cool reply after he is confronted and accused of murdering a nine-year-old schoolgirl: ‘You shot Charlise Mutten twice. You removed the evidence’

The man accused of murdering a schoolgirl has been in confronted in court and told: ‘You shot Charlise Mutten twice.’

Justin Stein, 34, was under cross-examination by the prosecution for a second day while on trial for the nine-year-old’s alleged murder in the NSW Blue Mountains in January, 2022.

But Stein dismissed the accusation from the witness stand and calmly replied: ‘I understand that, but no I never touched her.’ 

He also denied the accusation he ‘removed whatever evidence’ from the crime scene.

Crown prosecutor Ken McKay SC said Stein had been confident in phone calls with his mother Annemie Stein that police ‘had no crime scene’.

But Stein denied that claim too. 

Now in its fourth week in the NSW Supreme Court at Parramatta, the trial has heard the accused give evidence from the witness box..

Stein denies murdering Charlise, but admits disposing of her body. 

Prosecutors allege Stein placed the child’s body in a plastic barrel and dumped it 50km away on the banks of the Colo River.

On Tuesday, the court heard that Charlise’s mother, Kallista Mutten, made phone calls to three hospitals at Lithgow and in the Blue Mountains, including children’s hospitals.

Detective Sergeant Bradley Gardiner had earlier testified that calls from Ms Mutten’s mobile and a landline at Stein family’s Mt Wilson home in the Blue Mountains had been made just before 9.30pm on Wednesday, January 12, 2022.

Stein claims Ms Mutten killed her own daughter just after 9pm that night and then vanished with the girl’s body.

He said he was in a shed fixing a car and came out when he heard gunshots before he was ordered to find a tarpaulin by Ms Mutten who was standing with a rifle over Charlise’s body on the ground.

But he said that when he came out again, both the girl and her mother were gone, and there was a patch cut out of the ground. 

 So after you come out of shed, a 33.5kg child and Kallista are gone, the firearm is gone, the dirt is gone?’ asked Mr McKay, to which Stein replied: ‘Yes’.  

Stein earlier testified that after the alleged shooting by Ms Mutten, he returned to his bedroom at Wildenstein, wept, smoked a joint, then fell asleep.

Stein said he didn’t know about Google searches of local hospitals and Ms Mutten’s phone calls to them.

GPS data from that time had placed Ms Mutten on the northern end of Wildenstein’s patio at the rear of the house. 

‘So Kallista Mutten is on the patio of the house at 9.24pm, do you accept that?’ Mr McKay asked Stein.  

‘Not only did she do the searches, she then made the phone calls. 107 seconds call to Blue Mountains Hospital. A 74 second call to Lithgow Children’s Hospital from the … landline.

‘You would have been in your bedroom on your evidence? You didn’t know where she was? The landline is a cordless phone? Mount Wilson is very quiet? 

‘You’re in your bedroom just having … some cannabis?’

Stein insisted: ‘No I didn’t hear it.’ 

He said the first time he had known about the phone calls was in custody reading the police brief following his arrest. 

On Monday the court heard a menacing phone call in which Stein threatened to kill the girl’s mother, raging: ‘Guess what? I’ve got my f***ing gun and I’m going to kill you.’ 

In a second call later that morning, played in court, incensed Stein warns: ‘I’m going to hurt you and everyone else. 

‘I’ll tell the police that you’re the one that took your daughter’.

Mr McKay questioned Stein’s earlier testimony and also mocked the alleged killer’s courtroom tears, suggesting he had previously wept while lying to police. 

Charlise was visiting her mother and Stein, who was her fiance at the time, during the 2021/22 school holidays, and spent time in NSW between Wildenstein and Riviera Ski Gardens caravan park in Lower Portland where Stein owned a van.

 Under questioning by his defence counsel on Monday Stein wept in the witness box as he claimed the schoolgirl was shot by her own mother, and gave his account of Charlise’s final moments.

Stein told the jury in his murder trial at the NSW Supreme Court in Parramatta that Ms Mutten shot her daughter in the face and back before screaming at him: ‘You made me do this.’

Stein said he had been on his family property when he heard a shot ring out and Charlise scream his name then cry out ‘Mummy, no’ before a second shot.

‘I walked up to the fence. That’s when I saw Charlise on the ground. (Ms Mutten) had a rifle in her hand,’ he told the court from the witness stand on Monday. 

‘I said, “What the f*** have you done?” and she started screaming “You did this”. She kept screaming “You did this” she then screamed “You made me do this”.

‘She screamed at me to get a tarp. I said, “No”. She then lifted up the rifle as if to shoot. I put up both hands.’

Stein said he then went into a shed and found a blue tarpaulin after about 10 minutes, but when he came out, both Ms Mutten and Charlise were gone.

He said he saw a ’20cm black square cut out of the dirt’ before walking back to the main house.

‘I went… straight to my bedroom… sitting there shaking, rolled myself a joint, broke down in tears for 10 to 15 minutes, stopped crying, smoked that joint, fell asleep,’ he said. 

Stein admitted in court to taking heroin since the age of 12 and said he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was 21.

He said he first met Ms Mutten in jail at Kempsey on the NSW Mid North Coast and the pair had started seeing each other when they got out of jail.   

The prosecution has alleged Stein was the ‘last person’ to see Charlise and had the chance to kill her between 7.16pm on January 11 and 10.06am on January 12, 2022.

But in his testimony on Monday, Stein said the child was shot dead on the evening of January 12, by her mother.

He also claimed Charlise had been ill and vomiting after her mother had given the child his schizophrenia medication. 

Stein said that during their ‘very up and down’ relationship, Ms Mutten had constantly taken methamphetamine and ‘get very paranoid’.

‘She’d … think people are trying to kill her, poison her, she’d worry about drones’ and ‘dshe was always paranoid that the house was bugged’.

He said that Charlise arrived for her holiday, things had become ‘more volatile’ between himself and Ms Mutten who ‘almost became jealous at times’ of the ‘good relationship’ he had with the girl.

He said that he planned to end their romance after Charlise had returned from her holiday back to Queensland, but had also planned on getting married to Ms Mutten.

He said he ‘paid for everything’ in the relationship from money saved and his disability pension for his schizophrenia.

During the Charlise’s holiday he and Ms Mutten ‘had a big fight she then starting cutting herself, then threatening to end her own life’.

But he admitted he had also Googled about marriage and adoption certificates and ‘there was still part of me that loved her and thought she could change’.

On January 12, 2022, when the prosecution alleges Charlise was already dead, Stein said the girl was sleeping in his ute along with his hunting dog, Dozer.

He admitted driving to Sydney to buy ice and cannabis with Ms Mutten, but denied having sex with her at Centennial Park.

Instead, told the court he had been ‘walking the dog while she was shooting up ice in the toilets’.

He said the following day – two days after he’s alleged to have killed Charlise and one day after he claims Ms Mutten shot her own daughter –  he left Wildenstein believing he had an empty barrel in his ute.

‘It was completely empty,’ he told the court. ‘I loaded everything up. I used two ratchet straps.’

Stein told the court it was at night, after he had smoked cannabis and bought ice for Ms Mutten at Drummoyne boat ramp, when he finally learnt Charlise’s body was in the barrel on his ute.

He said the tarpaulin over the barrel had come loose and after pulling over to fix it, ‘I noticed the ratchet straps … were upside down,’ he told the court.

‘I undid the straps … pulling it, I tipped the barrel. That’s when I saw Charlise wrapped in a blue tarp in the barrel. I threw up.’

Stein said that on January 14 Ms Mutten had returned to Mount Wilson and was sitting in the living room, watching TV.

‘I started abusing her telling her [she was] a piece of s***, a putrid dog for what she did. I’ll never forget this, she smiled.’

He said he then ‘threw’ the ice he had purchased for her ‘in her face. She started shooting up.’

Under cross-examination, the accused was asked about his crying while he had testified about hearing a gunshot and then Charlise cry out his name.

‘You were a bit emotional,’ said Mr McKay. ‘Took a couple of tissues to wipe your eyes? You are okay to talk about Charlise being shot?’ 

Stein replied: I’m doing my best.’

Mr McKay then played a police interview with Stein, which was recorded at Penrith Police Station on the Saturday after Charlise vanished but had not yet been found.

In the interview, Stein tears up and asks for a tissue and cries: ‘I feel responsible.’ In court on Monday he admitted telling some lies during that interview.

‘When you became upset you were actually telling police things that weren’t true?’ asked Mr McKay. ‘And at the time you became upset you were in the middle of telling lies?’. 

‘Yeah,’ Stein admitted.

The prosecution suggested that Mr Stein’s testimony was not true.

‘The truth was Charlise was not in the car with you on January 12,’ Mr McKay asked, but Stein repeatedly insisted she was ‘definitely’ in the car.

Mr McKay also challenged Mr Stein’s testimony which claimed Ms Mutten had shot Charlise twice and then vanished from the property with the murder weapon and the child’s body.

Mr Stein said the firearm, a .22 calibre rifle had been in his bedroom with ammunition in the wardrobe, and that Ms Mutten must have taken it while he went outside to fix a vehicle in his shed.

Mr McKay questioned Stein’s story about hearing gunshots and Charlise cry and then being told by Ms Mutten, still armed with the gun, to get a tarpaulin for Charlise on the ground.

‘It was very dark where Kallista and Charlise were?’ said Mr McKay.

‘You came back and both were gone. There was a hole in the ground? You didn’t see a spade with her to cut hole in the ground? 

‘But you go and get a tarp – both are gone and lump of dirt gone?’

Stein said that was what he had witnessed.

‘The house was left open with this psychotic woman running around with a firearm?’ he quizzed Stein.

‘[She] had pointed the gun and threatened you, after having shot Charlise twice, yet you leave the door open? 

‘You don’t think about locking the doors, you don’t think about ringing Triple-0?

‘You didn’t think about it because it didn’t happen.’

Stein insisted: ‘It happened’.

Mr McKay also asked Stein why he had once dialled Triple-0 when Ms Mutten was psychotic on ice but he hadn’t done the same for Charlise when she was shot.

‘You wouldn’t know if Charlise was alive or dead,’ Mr McKay said, to which Stein replied: ‘Hard to tell.’ 

The alarm was raised when Ms Mutten called Triple-0 at 8.15am on January 14, 2022 to report her daughter was missing.

The trial before Justice Helen Wilson continues.