The mother of Charlise Mutten’s accused killer questioned her son’s story about the nine-year-old’s disappearance as police were still searching for the schoolgirl.
Justin Stein, 33, has pleaded not guilty to murdering nine-year-old Charlise in January 2022 as he stands trial in the NSW Supreme Court.
Charlise’s body was found dumped in a barrel by the Colo River, north-west of Sydney, four days after she was reported missing by her mother Kallista Mutten.
Stein initially told police the last time he saw Charlise was when he left her in the care of a woman he believed to be a property valuer who arrived at the Mount Wilson property, in the Blue Mountains, where they were staying.
He said he believed the woman had been organised to come there by his mother, Annemie Stein, who owned the property.
But appearing as a witness in the trial on Monday, Ms Stein said she had no recollection of telling her son a valuer – who she had earlier engaged – would be coming back to the property during the week Charlise disappeared.
She said she arrived at the Mount Wilson property on January 14 to find it crawling with police, who told her it had been declared a crime scene.
Ms Stein told one of the officers of her son’s claims about leaving Charlise with the property valuer in a conversation recorded on a body-worn camera.
“I said (to Justin), ‘Did you get her name?’,” she told the officer, according to a transcript of the recording.
“He said her name was Lauren or something like that.”
The officer replied that he assumed Stein would have the valuer’s full details because you “wouldn’t let a nine-year-old go off with a stranger”.
“That’s what doesn’t add up,” Ms Stein replied.
Stein later admitted he lied about leaving Charlise with the woman, but he said Mutten had been the one who came up with the story and told him to tell police.
Mutten told the court earlier in the week that Stein had given her the same account of what happened to her daughter.
His lawyer, Carolyn Davenport SC, suggested he had witnessed Mutten shoot her daughter and he had lied to police to protect her.
Mutten denied those allegations during her stint in the witness box.
Ms Stein told the court she spoke to her son on the evening of January 12 and he told her he was at Mount Wilson with Mutten and Charlise.
She said she heard a voice she believed to belong to Charlise in the background of the call despite previously telling police she had not heard the girl.
“I suggest you did not hear a voice in the background during your call with Justin,” crown prosecutor Ken McKay SC said.
“I definitely heard a voice,” Ms Stein replied, denying that she had added that detail to her evidence to help her son.
She told the court her son called her on the morning of January 13, when he said his car had gone and he needed the licence plate number so he could call the police.
“He was very, very, very distressed and hyperventilating,” Ms Stein said.
“I’ve never heard him so distressed.
“He said, ‘mum, the car’s gone, Kallista is gone and Charlise is gone’.”
The court previously heard Mutten left the property in Stein’s vehicle after the pair argued and he reported the vehicle stolen to police.
Ms Stein, who spent Christmas and the weekend before Charlise disappeared with the nine-year-old, described the schoolgirl as very intelligent and good-natured.
“Very polite … polite and a bit cheeky,” she said.
