Court hears shocking way Charlise Mutten’s body was found on the day she was due to fly home to her grandparents
Charlise Mutten, 9, was due to fly home to her grandparents in Tweed Heads after spending almost a month with her mother in Sydney during the school holidays.
She was scheduled to board a return flight on January 18, 2022.
But on that day, the nine-year-old’s body was found in a barrel dumped on an embankment.
The barrel also contained 99kg of sand and Charlise’s Nike slides, a NSW Supreme Court jury was told this week.
Justin Stein is accused of killing Charlise, the daughter of his former partner Kallista Mutten, at a property owned by his parents before dumping her remains, hidden in a plastic barrel, near the Colo River area.
The 33-year-old has pleaded not guilty to murder but admitted disposing of the schoolgirl’s body.
The body of Charlise Mutten, 9 (pictured) was found in a barrel dumped in an area near the Colo River in NSW on January 18, 2022.
Charlise visited 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, at the Riviera Ski Gardens caravan park in Lower Portland, about 1 ,5 years ago. hours away.
The trial on Friday ended its second week, with the jury having now heard from a number of witnesses, including many experts who examined both the barrel and Charlise’s body when it was discovered.
The jury had also had the opportunity this week to hold the alleged murder weapon: a BSA .22 caliber bolt-action rifle, which was wrapped in plastic along with its magazine, ammunition and scope.
The barrel
The jury heard the barrel containing Charlise’s body was found on January 18, 2022, after police attended the location after going through Mr Stein’s phone.
Experts told the court that Charlise’s body was tied with bloodstained straps in a sand-filled barrel, along with a garbage bag filled with blood-stained soil and the girl’s pink Nike slippers.
Former NSW Police crime scene officer Mitchell James told the jury that Charlise’s body was found lying head down in the barrel in the fetal position, ‘bound’ in a number of bloodstained wrappings and rubbish bags.
A black plastic bag containing vegetation and soil was also found in the barrel, which also showed obvious bloodstains, Mr James told the court.
“The body was found in a decomposed state… a plain gunshot wound was in her right cheek… this struck and dislodged a tooth,” Mr James said.
Mr James told the court she also had a gunshot wound to her lower left back near the hip area, which perforated the pelvis.
Charlise also wore a black jacket, a red shirt, black boys’ sweatpants, a size 10 black Target skirt “with penetrating damage to the back,” and a single black earring in her left earlobe.
Charlise was reportedly shot dead at the Riviera Ski Gardens trailer park in Lower Portland, over an hour’s drive from Justin Stein’s family property (pictured)
‘Still alive’ when he was shot in the face
Forensic pathologist Dr Marna Du Plessis told the jury she carried out a post-mortem examination on Charlise’s body after it was discovered in the barrel.
The doctor described “powder tattoo” marks around the gunshot wound, which entered just below the girl’s right cheekbone, leading her to conclude that the “end of the muzzle was about a ruler’s length” away from Charlise’s face.
Dr. Du Plessis told the jury that Charlise had also been shot in the lower left buttock, a shot she is believed to have survived.
“The gunshot wound to the back is not fatal in itself,” said Dr. Du Plessis.
She also told the jury that Charlise was still alive when she was shot in the face, with the bullet “entering her brain.”
“She was still alive when the shot entered her body,” Dr Du Plessis told the jury.
Forensic pathologist Dr Marna Du Plessis told the jury that Charlise (pictured) was alive when she was allegedly shot in the face
The jury was told Charlise’s body was in an ‘advanced’ state of decomposition when the exam was administered.
NSW Police forensic pharmacologist Dr Judith Perl told the court Mr Stein’s schizophrenia drug Quetiapine was found in Charlise’s system.
“However, I consider it possible that the Quetiapine was ingested within six hours of death due to its presence in the deceased’s stomach,” she said.
Lead fragments were found in Charlise’s brain and her left hip, the jury was told.
“Mom, no”
Stein’s lawyers claim that it was Mrs. Mutten who shot and killed her daughter on the evening of January 12, 2022.
Phone conversations recorded while Stein was in jail were played for the jury Tuesday, where he warned his mother that he couldn’t tell her “everything over the phone.”
In the first telephone conversation, which took place on the morning of February 5, 2022, he said that Annemie Stein police had contacted him asking about the location of the murder weapon and where Charlise had been killed.
“They don’t even know anything,” he claimed in the recording.
Lawyers for Mr Stein suggest it was his former partner Kallista Mutten (pictured) who allegedly shot the schoolgirl
Annemie tells her son, “No, but she wasn’t murdered at Mount Wilson,” to which Mr. Stein responds, “I know.”
The mother continues, “But they said they did.”
“Alleged doesn’t mean anything, it just means I’m going to dismiss the murder charge,” Mr. Stein replies.
From February 10, 2022, another appeal was played to the jury, in which Mr Stein says 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.
Alleged apology from Bunnings
“But why did you travel with the barrel?” his mother asks in the recording.
He replies: ‘Well I didn’t even know, Kallista put it on the back of the ute’.
Mr Stein claims he thought the barrel was in his car so he could do some work at another property.
In a third phone call on February 12, 2022, he repeated the claims about Ms Mutten, telling Annemie he “hadn’t even thought about it” when his former partner 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.
Mr. Stein tells his mother that he “freaked out.”
His mother asks again if Charlise was murdered on the grounds of Mount Wilson and Mr Stein tells him she was murdered on nearby crown land.
“Behind the shed by the firebreak…I guess she ran towards me to 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. .
Mr Stein told his mother he did not know the barrel was in the back of the car and claimed Kallista Stein (pictured) may have placed the barrel there.
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.
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.
The trial will resume on Monday.