Alleged killer’s claim on meth, sex in park
Written by admin on June 4, 2024
Alleged murderer Justin Stein has denied claims he injected meth and had sex in a popular Sydney park in the hours before he alleges Charlise Mutten was shot and killed by her mother, a jury has heard.
Mr Stein broke down in court on Monday while giving evidence in defence of his murder charge at his NSW Supreme Court trial.
The 33-year-old is accused of murdering the daughter of his former fiancee, Kallista Mutten, at a property owned by his parents before dumping her body, which was concealed in a plastic barrel, near the Colo River.
He has pleaded not guilty to murder but admits to disposing of the nine-year-old’s body.
Charlise had travelled to Sydney from Tweed Heads on December 21, 2021, where she was due to spend the school holidays and spent her time split between Mr Stein’s family property at Mount Wilson, where she was allegedly killed, and at the Riviera Ski Gardens caravan park in Lower Portland about 90 minutes away.
Mr Stein became emotional on Monday after he took to the witness stand and told the jury he saw Ms Mutten shoot her daughter on the night of January 12. Ms Mutten denies the claims.
But prosecutors allege Mr Stein was the “last person” to see Charlise and had the opportunity to kill her between 7.16pm on January 11 and 10.06am on January 12.
In her evidence, Ms Mutten claimed Mr Stein had left Charlise at home in the care of an “auctioneer lady” on January 12, who had come to the property to value items before collecting her from Lower Portland.
But Mr Stein on Monday said he put Charlise in the back seat of the car and took the schoolgirl with him as they picked up Ms Mutten and drove to Sydney.
Ms Mutten told the court both she and Mr Stein had injected ice and had sex in Sydney’s Centennial Park before accusing Mr Stein of cheating on her and contracting a sexually transmitted infection.
But Mr Stein refuted the allegations, telling the court he walked his dog at the park while Ms Mutten “shot up” in the toilet.
Asked if they had sex at Centennial Park, Mr Stein said: “No I didn’t, I was walking the dog while she (Kallista) was shooting up in the toilet”.
He told the jury Charlise was in the back of the car watching Mr Stein walk his dog.
“When we arrived at Centennial Park she (Kallista) wanted to have sex in the toilets but I turned it down because I told her I’d been bleeding,” Mr Stein said.
In Mr Stein’s version of events, he then drove Ms Mutten and Charlise back to Mount Wilson for the night.
He told the jury he went down to the shed when they arrived and was working on his car when he heard a gunshot and “Charlise scream my name”.
“I got to the back of the shed, that’s when I heard Charlise scream ‘Mummy, no’,” Mr Stein said as he tried to hold back tears.
“That’s when I heard … bang … a second gunshot … I saw Kallista and that’s when I saw Charlise on the ground.”
He claims he saw Ms Mutten holding a .22 calibre rifle in her hands and asked her: “what the f**k have you done”.
“She looked at me and screamed at me: ‘You did this’,” Mr Stein said, dabbing his eyes with tissues.
The 33-year-old told the jury she continued to scream “you made me do this”, to which he responded: “what have I done? I have done everything for you”.
He told the court he didn’t see Ms Mutten until the following day when he told her she was a “piece of s**t” and a “putrid dog” for what she did.
“I’ll never forget this part … she sat there and smiled,” he said.
He told the jury Ms Mutten said she was going to call the police and tell them he had gone looking for Charlise, and the “made-up story” about the auctioneer.
Under intense cross-examination by Crown prosecutor Ken McKay SC, Mr Stein said he knew the lies Ms Mutten told him to tell would “catch up” with him.
“I knew it would catch up with me, especially with regards of dumping that barrel,” he said.
“I knew I would eventually be arrested.”
He was questioned about why he didn’t tell police in either of his two interviews the story he claims is the truth, but only told a Correctives Services officer when he was charged.
Mr Stein said his “whole world” had just come falling apart.
“I’ve literally been charged with murder for something I didn’t do, I lost everything within a matter of minutes, so I cam forward and told the truth of what happened,” he said.
The trial continues.
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