Charlise Mutten’s accused killer Justin Stein makes huge claim about schoolgirl’s mother in court

Charlise Mutten’s alleged killer claimed he had no idea he was driving with the nine-year-old girl’s body in the back of his pants until he received a phone call while in Bunnings, a jury has been told.

Justin Stein, 33, faces a trial in the NSW Supreme Court in Parramatta after pleading not guilty to murder but admitting disposing of the schoolgirl’s body.

He is accused of killing Charlise, the daughter of his former partner Kallista Mutten, at a property owned by his parents before dumping her body, which was hidden in a plastic barrel, near the Colo River area.

The girl was visiting her mother and Mr Stein during the school holidays and spent her time in NSW, split between Mr Stein’s family property at Mount Wilson, where she was reportedly shot and killed, and at the Riviera Ski Gardens caravan park in Lower Portland, about 1.5 hours away.

The body of Charlise Mutten (photo) was found in a barrel on a dike near the Colo River, four days after her mother reported her missing

Conversations between Mr Stein and his mother, conducted from prison in the weeks after the alleged murder, were played to the jury on Tuesday.

The jury heard his mother, Annemie Stein, ask her son why he was traveling with the barrel in the back of his Holden Colorado business.

“Well, I didn’t even know, Kallista put it on the back of the ute,” he is heard saying in the recording, which was played for the jury.

Mr Stein claims he thought the barrel was in his car so he could do some work at another property.

In another conversation he repeated the claims, saying he “didn’t even think about it” when Ms Mutten put the barrel on the back of the ute.

“I’m literally at Bunnings and I get a phone call saying ‘You’ve got Charlise with you’, and I said ‘what’,” the jury heard Mr Stein say in the third call.

“Yeah… I was driving around with a damn kid on the back of my pants.”

The jury later heard the call Stein refers to while in Bunnings making an outgoing call from his phone to Ms Mutten.

Stein allegedly drove around Sydney with Charlise’s body in the back of his pants (pictured)

Earlier in the trial, the jury was told that on the evening of January 13, 2022, Mr Stein drove around Sydney for hours, into the early hours of the next morning, with Charlise’s body in a barrel on his back.

Mr Stein drove to Marsden Park Bunnings, where he is seen on CCTV buying five 20kg bags of sand.

Crown prosecutor Ken McKay told the jury when police later recovered the barrel containing Charlise’s body, it contained 99kg of sand.

When his mother asked him why he was driving around Sydney for hours, Mr Stein said he “freaked out”.

He told Annemie that the police had approached him asking where the murder weapon was and where Charlise had been murdered.

“They don’t even know anything,” the jury heard him say, before claiming Ms Mutten “will be charged for everything”.

He insists that “it’s the truth” and tells his mother that the police have “nothing” and can’t “pin” him for the murder, but he “saw it” happen.

Mr Stein then says that his mother Charlise was not murdered on the property, but on Crown land nearby.

“Behind the shed by the firebreak… I guess she ran towards me, towards the shed, because the last thing she screamed was my name and then you heard ‘mommy no’ and then the second shot,” Mr Stein said. .

In the recording he tells his mother about Mrs Mutten: ‘I don’t want any contact, I want to cut her damn head off’.

Prosecutors allege Charlise traveled from the caravan park to Mount Wilson alone with Mr Stein on the evening of January 11, 2022, while Ms Mutten stayed behind.

Mr McKay claims Mr Stein was the ‘last person’ to see Charlise and had the opportunity to meet her between 7.16pm on January 11 and 10.06am on January 12.

Stein accused Mrs. Mutten (photo) of shooting her daughter

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, Mr Stein denied murdering Charlise in an interview with a Corrective Services officer, but said “her mother shot her twice,” the jury heard.

“Her mother was on the ice all week, I heard a shot and then I heard her screaming for me, then I ran back and she shot her again,” he told the prison officer, the jury heard.

A toxicology report revealed that Charlise had tested positive for Mr. Stein’s schizophrenia medication.

The trial continues before Judge Helen Wilson.