From private school boy to ‘wicked’ killer

Justin Stein wiped back tears in a desperate attempt to convince a jury he didn’t kill his partner’s nine-year-old daughter, claiming it was her mother who shot her twice and put her body in a barrel.

But a NSW Supreme Court Judge would later declare the tears were fake and the tissue was simply a “prop”.

Once a Sydney private school boy, coming from a wealthy family among the city’s elite, Stein, 33, is now a “wicked killer” who will never see the outside of a prison after being found guilty of the murder of Charlise Mutten.

“TORTURED” UPBRINGING

Stein was among Sydney’s elite students when he attended Cranbrook in the affluent suburb of Bellevue Hill, where tuition fees at the all-boys private school start from $26,000 in kindergarten and range up to $73,000.

He came from a wealthy family, with his parents owning the Wildenstein wedding venue located two hours north of Sydney at Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains.

The venue held lavish weddings, with AFL star Buddy Franklin tying the knot to former Miss Universe Australia Jesinta Campbell in mid-2017.

But over the course of a few days in January 2022, the sprawling estate became the location of a nine-year-old schoolgirl’s horrific murder.

Annemie Stein defended her son from the beginning, telling media in the days after Stein’s arrest he had a “pretty tortured life”.

“PSYCHOPATH” AS A TEEN

Since making headlines for the “callous” murder of Charlise, old school friends of Stein have taken to online forums to speak of their experience with him.

One described him as an “absolute and utter piece of sh*t”.

“He was a compulsive liar, manipulated his friends and family, random people he met,” the former schoolfriend said.

“Ripped people off left right and centre – always in trouble with the police … he started using heroin and his room became a shooting gallery for hyper-privileged private school kids.”

Another described him as a “psychopath” who was a “pathological liar”.

“I met him during his teen years and nothing’s changed,” the former friend said.

“He was a pathological liar, drug addict/seller and thief, who would take advantage of anyone who came near him.”

PRISON ROMANCE

After a life of drug taking, Stein was jailed for supply, a sentence that would lead him to meet Kallista Mutten.

Ms Mutten was jailed in November 2017, serving a sentence for dangerous driving occasioning death after a passenger she was driving with died after Ms Mutten crashed the car while high on methamphetamine.

Stein and Ms Mutten began their relationship behind bars in 2018, sending letters to each other from their respective cells.

Ms Mutten was released in September 2019 and waited for Stein to be released more than a year later.

The pair met in Byron Bay and continued their relationship, moving down to Sydney to live at the Mount Wilson property. They would later become engaged to be married.

ONE LAST HOLIDAY

Charlise was living with her grandparents in Tweed Heads, and was excited to visit her mother and her new fiancee in Sydney over the school holidays.

Little did they know when they put her on a flight to Sydney on December 21, 2021, she would never come home.

Some of the last images of Charlise taken on Christmas Day show the nine-year-old beaming as she showed off her new Beanie Boo toys.

“She was given her Christmas presents to take with her,” her grandfather Clinton Mutten Snr told the jury.

Mr Mutten described his granddaughter as an eager reader who loved animals.

Heartbreakingly, Charlise had asked her grandfather in the weeks leading up to the trip whether he thought Stein would “be a good dad”.

Once in Sydney, Charlise spent her time split between Stein’s family property at Mount Wilson and at the Riviera Ski Gardens caravan park in Lower Portland about 90 minutes away.

“CAN I GO WITH DADDY?”

Ms Mutten last saw her daughter on January 11, after they had been swimming in the pool at the caravan park.

“Charlise had finished swimming in the pool, and she said, ‘Can I go with Daddy, Mum?’” Ms Mutten told the court during her evidence.

The mother said: “Yes, of course”.

Charlise was dressed in black tracksuit pants with a skirt over the top, a pink top with puffy sleeves, pink slides and a black hoodie.

She travelled alone with Stein back to the Mount Wilson property, with Ms Mutten sending multiple messages asking if they arrived safe.

At 8.20pm Stein replied writing they were “safe and sound”.

“I’m just cooking up some chicken and Charsey is watching TV and playing with balloons,” he wrote.

THE FIRST LIE

The following morning, Stein contacted Ms Mutten claiming Charlise woke up “throwing up everywhere”.

Ms Mutten told the court Stein called her, explaining a woman arrived at the house to value the property and would take care of Charlise.

“Am literally about to walk out the door. Charsey is staying put in bed, she’s wrecked and already fallen back to sleep,” his text read at 10.06am.

Mr Stein left the property at 10.13am.

By that time, Charlise was already dead.

Stein travelled to the caravan park to collect Ms Mutten before they drove to Sydney in his red Holden Colorado ute.

She believed he was planning an elopement, but the pair bought drugs, used them in Centennial Park and had sex.

They arrived back at Mount Wilson at 8.44pm to find no lights on in the house.

Ms Mutten made a series of Google searches and phone calls to local hospitals, believing Charlise was sick.

But according to Stein’s claims in court, Charlise spent the day with the couple and he witnessed the nine-year-old get shot by her mother. Ms Mutten denied the claims, with the jury later rejecting his version of events.

A KILLER AND A CHEATER

Overnight on January 12 and in the early hours of January 13, Ms Mutten went through her then-fiance’s phone and found he had been cheating on her, using dating websites.

Ms Mutten took her partner’s ute and went to a nearby park to “pray for her daughter”. She also told friends Charlise was missing.

While gone, Stein left multiple voicemails on Ms Mutten’s phone saying he was going to “f**king kill” her.

“Bring back my car now, I’m saying this only once, if you don’t bring it back I am going to f**king hurt you as well as everyone else, and I’ll tell the police you’re the one who took your daughter so they will bring back my f**king car,” Stein said in one voice message.

He continued: “I’ve got my f**king guns and I’m going to f**king kill you now, and I’m f**king serious, you’ve f**ked me over for the last time … it was you doing this to Charlise to f**k me wasn’t it c**t, I’m going to kill you.”

When she returned to the property, Ms Mutten said Stein changed his story, claiming his “ex-affiliations” may have been responsible for taking Charlise.

He told her they would kill the girl if she went to the police.

“Maybe if I hadn’t been on drugs I might have put the pieces together,” Ms Mutten told the court.

“GOING TO WAR”

On the afternoon of January 13, Stein left the property in his ute and towing a boat, with a blue barrel in the back.

He had told Ms Mutten and his mother he was “going to war” to find Charlise, claiming he would “get to the bottom of it”.

Stein stopped at Bunnings in Marsden Park in Sydney’s north west, where he bought five 20-kilogram bags of sand and paid with a gift voucher.

He claimed the sand was for paving works at the caravan park.

Stein then filled the boat with fuel and stopped to buy a can of Coca-Cola, a slushie and a Snickers bar.

He spent hours driving around wharves in Sydney before travelling to lower Colo Rd near the Colo River and dumping the barrel down an embankment in the early hours of January 14.

Stein admitted to disposing of the girl’s body, but claimed he “panicked” after he was told by Ms Mutten she was on the back of the ute.

In prison calls played to the court Stein told his mother he “didn’t even know” the barrel with Charlise’s body was with him.

“I’m literally at Bunnings and I get a phone call saying ‘you’ve got Charlise with you’ … I was driving around with a f**king kid on the back of my ute,” the jury heard Mr Stein say in a prison phone call.

When Stein returned home alone, he told Ms Mutten she could call the police.

She reported Charlise missing at 8.15am on January 14 – three days after she last saw her.

THE LIES TO POLICE

In the hours after Charlise was reported missing, Stein was interviewed by police twice where he broke down, saying he felt “responsible” for leaving the girl with the woman he believed was a real estate agent.

Asked if he was telling the truth, Stein said he had “no reason to lie” before the officers asked him if he was involved in Charlise’s death.

“No … no … never,” he said.

“That kid really does mean the world to me, you know what I mean. I don’t have much experience but this was my chance … She was going to be my little girl,” he said.

Stein described Charlise as “polite and so smart” before turning on his fiancee.

In his second interview with Detectives, he told the officers Charlise’s disappearance was “f**king killing” him.

He claimed his “gut” told him it had “something to do with Kallista’s family”.

His story changed again, telling police he had lied to try to protect his fiancee and elements of his interview were true but there were “aspects” missing.

Stein said the story about the auctioneer lady wasn’t “his thing” but rather a story he was told to tell by Ms Mutten, who he said was “planning to take” Charlise.

BODY IN THE BARREL

Stein was arrested and charged with Charlise’s murder on January 18. That same day she was due to fly home to her grandparents. It was also the same day Charlise’s body was discovered in a plastic barrel near the Colo River.

The barrel was taken to Lidcombe morgue where an autopsy was conducted.

It was revealed the nine-year-old girl was shot twice, once to the side of the face and once to the lower back.

During Stein’s sentencing hearing, Crown prosecutor Ken McKay SC told the court the young girl turned to escape when she was shot in the hip, knocking her to the ground, before Stein shot the injured youngster in the face at point-blank range.

The autopsy found she had a “toxic level” of schizophrenia medication Quetiapine in her system, but Stein denied giving her the drug.

BURIED GUNS

Wildflower enthusiast Verity Harris told Stein’s Supreme Court trial she had been walking down a fire trail off Mount Wilson Road on January 30, 2022, when she came across a hole she believed was dug by an animal.

“The rest of the place looked like a specially dug area and had been covered over with branches,” she told the court, saying it was “odd”.

It wasn’t until she spoke with her son that she was convinced to tell the police.

Police would later find ammunition and two guns, including a BSA .22 bolt-action rifle and a 30-30 Winchester lever-action rifle.

Stein’s fingerprint was found on the .22 rifle.

In a prison call in March 2022, Stein had asked his mother to “retrieve some stuff” for him in the mountains.

She had already been shown images of the guns by police.

“I think they found them,” Annemie Stein told her son.

“UNSPEAKABLY VICIOUS”

After more than 40 witnesses testified during his murder trial over four weeks, and after more than 33 hours of deliberations, Stein was found guilty of murder on June 19.

In her scathing sentencing remarks delivered this week, Justice Helen Wilson said Stein had perjured himself by lying on the witness stand and had not shown any contrition or remorse, with a bleak prospect of rehabilitation.

Justice Wilson said Stein shed crocodile tears during his testimony when he falsely claimed he witnessed Charlise being murdered by Ms Mutten.

During his testimony, Stein appeared to be crying and dabbed at his eyes with a tissue.

But, Justice Wilson said he did “not shed a single tear”.

“From where I sat, only about a metre from the witness box, I could see very clearly that, despite the offender’s presentation of distress, he was completely dry eyed,” Justice Wilson said.

She said Stein had shot Charlise in the face at a close range, while they faced each other, with the shot to Charlise’s face fired from about 30cm and amounted to an “execution”.

Justice Wilson described Stein’s actions as “unspeakably vicious”, noting the nine-year-old girl called him “daddy” and hoped he would be the father she never had.

But Stein’s motive remained unclear, the judge said.

As well, there were unexplained features of the crime including Charlise’s underwear were missing when her body was discovered.

“When her body was recovered on 18 January 2022, Charlise was dressed in the same clothes her mother had last seen her wearing, with the exception of her underpants, which were missing,” Justice Wilson said.

Stein sat still and emotionless as he was told he would spend the rest of his life in jail.

“This was a shockingly callous crime of very great heinousness; it was gravely reprehensible and extremely wicked,” Justice Wilson said.

“There are no facts which can mitigate its seriousness.”

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