Charlise Mutten’s mum returns to stand in partner’s murder trial

Kallista Mutten could face claims that she shot her own daughter Charlise as she continues giving evidence in the murder trial of her former partner.

Justin Stein’s trial continues in the NSW Supreme Court today with Mutten returning for a second day of testimony.

Stein, 33, has pleaded not guilty to murdering nine-year-old Charlise, claiming he witnessed Mutten shoot her own daughter.

Charlise’s body was found by police in a barrel by the Blue Mountains’ Colo River on January 18, 2022 with gunshot wounds to her face and back.

Following a full day of evidence on Monday, Mutten will now face cross-examination by Stein’s lawyer, Carolyn Davenport SC.

The court heard last week that following his arrest, Stein told a corrections officer he was traumatised after seeing Mutten shoot the girl.

“I heard a shot and then I heard her screaming out for me. Then I ran back and she shot her again,” Stein said, according to the officer.

Davenport told the jury during her opening address that it would become apparent Mutten, not Stein, had motive to kill the girl.

At the time of her death, Charlise had been visiting her mother and Stein over the Christmas holidays from Tweed Heads, where she lived full-time with her grandparents.

During the visit, the group spent their time between a Mount Wilson property owned by Stein’s mother, and a caravan at the Riviera Ski Park about a 90-minute drive away.

The trial heard earlier from neighbours of the Mount Wilson property who said they heard conversations regarding Charlise’s parental custody which hinted at plans not to send her back to Queensland.

One neighbour had previously attended a dinner with his wife and mother-in-law where Stein, his mother, Charlise and her mother were also present.

“(Stein) said that if anything happened and the child didn’t go back to Queensland that he would end up in prison again,” the neighbour said.

During her evidence on Monday, Mutten told the trial she saw her daughter for the last time on January 11, when the nine-year-old travelled alone to spend the night with Stein at Mount Wilson while she remained at the caravan park.

She said the following day Stein told her he left Charlise in the care of an auctioneer who was working at the Blue Mountains property where they were staying.

Stein claimed Charlise had been vomiting and was too unwell to travel, and that she was in good hands because the woman was a mother of three and “practically a nurse”, the court was told.

Stein later said he believed the woman was not who she said she was and that Charlise may have taken by former associates from his criminal past.

“I said, ‘we should go to police’,” Mutten told the court through tears.

“He said, ‘no, because if you ring the police they will kill her’.”

On January 13, while phone data tracked Stein allegedly travelling to three boat ramps across Sydney and eventually the exact location where Charlise’s body was found, Mutten believed he was “going to war” to find her daughter, the court heard.

“Justin said he’s gonna go to war and go to places that he might think that she might be and go look for her and get her,” Mutten said.

Later, she said, “Justin had called me and said that he ‘badly hurt’ the man that was in the house (where) he thought Charlise was … and stabbed him”.

When he returned in the early hours of the next day, Mutten says Stein told her, “It’s not them, you can call the police in the morning”.

Mutten called police to report her daughter missing shortly after 8am the next morning.