Justin Stein verdict: Guilty of the murder of schoolgirl Charlise Mutten

A jury has found Justin Stein guilty of murdering nine-year-old Charlise Mutten after a marathon of eight days of deliberations.

Closing submissions before retirement earlier this month, the jury was told that a core issue in the murder case was not how the schoolgirl died, but who pulled the trigger.

Charlise Mutten was shot and killed while on vacation with her mother Kallista Mutten (above), who was then engaged to the suspect, Justin Stein

The jury deliberated for about five hours over two days last week, had a long weekend for the King’s birthday and returned on Tuesday this week to consider their verdict for four more days.

Although Stein admitted at trial to dumping Charlise’s body, he claimed that after Mrs. Mutten shot her daughter, she secretly placed Charlise’s body in the barrel and placed it on the back of his body without his knowledge secured.

Mrs Mutten denied any involvement in her daughter’s death and burst into tears when confronted with the accusation in court.

Many of the facts of the case were not in dispute, including that Charlise died from gunshot wounds she suffered on or near a Mount Wilson property owned by Stein’s mother, the jury heard.

“What matters is not how Charlise died, but who pulled the trigger,” Judge Wilson said in her closing address.

The judge had told jurors that if they found there was a reasonable possibility that Mrs. Mutten had shot her own daughter, they should find Stein not guilty.

Charlise Mutten, 9, died in January 2022 from a gunshot wound to the face fired at close range, after which her body was dumped in a barrel on a riverbank.

Charlise’s body was placed in a sand-weighted barrel and placed under a tarpaulin on the back of Justin Stein’s ute, driven to the Colo River and dumped.

“The Crown has no evidence that anyone saw the suspect shoot Charlise,” she said.

Stein appeared as the only defense witness in the trial and spent two days going over his version of events.

At the time of her death, Charlise was visiting her mother and Stein from Queensland, where she lived with her grandparents.

Charlise stayed at Stein’s mother’s house in Sydney, then with Mrs Mutten and Stein – who were engaged at the time, with the little girl calling the accused ‘daddy’.

They split their time between Wildenstein and a cabin at the Riviera Ski Gardens in Lower Portland.

Charlise spent the night of January 11 alone with Stein at Mount Wilson, while her mother remained in the cabin, and that’s when prosecutors alleged he killed her.

Crown prosecutor Ken McKay SC said the jury could find that Stein drugged and shot Charlise dead.

The schoolgirl, who lived with her grandparents in Coolangatta, had flown south to spend time with her mother and her ‘stepfather’, Justin Stein, when the tragedy occurred.

An autopsy revealed that Charlise had traces of Quetiapine, the prescription antipsychotic drug sold as Seroquel, in her system that Stein was taking for his schizophrenia.

The jury heard that an adult dose would have a profound calming effect on a child, but it was difficult to tell how much Charlise had received.

Mr McKay said one possible motive was that Stein killed Charlise when she fell ill after he gave her the drug.

Stein denied giving Charlise the medication and said he agreed to a plan to cover up the murder, including lying to police about leaving the girl in the care of an imaginary woman who was appraising items at the Mount Wilson estate.

Stein testified that when he became aware that Charlise’s body was in a barrel on the back of his pants, he panicked and eventually threw it away.

Charlise was found in a fetal position, upside down in the barrel weighted with sand, the girl’s body wrapped in bags and a tarp and bound with tape.