Alleged killer’s mother to take stand

The mother of alleged killer Justin Stein has been called by prosecutors to give evidence against her son, who is accused of killing schoolgirl Charlise Mutten and dumping her body in a barrel.

Justin Stein, 33, is facing trial after pleading not guilty to murder, but has admitted to disposing of the schoolgirl’s body.

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.

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.

But he claims he saw Ms Mutten shoot her daughter at the family property on the night of January 12, after the couple spent the day together injecting ice and having sex at Sydney’s Centennial Park.

Ms Mutten has denied shooting her daughter.

The jury heard Annemie Stein will be the next witness in the trial, and walked into court wearing patterned pants and a long black coat before sitting in the witness box.

Earlier in the trial, the jury was played phone calls recorded while Mr Stein was in prison in the months following the alleged murder.

He is heard warning his mother in the calls that he couldn’t tell her “everything over the phone”.

In the first phone call on the morning of February 5, 2022, Mr Stein told Annemie police had approached him asking for where the alleged murder weapon was and where Charlise was killed.

“They don’t even know anything,” he claimed in the recording, which was played to the jury.

“Alleged doesn’t mean s**t, all it means is that I’m going to beat the murder charge.”

In another call, Mr Stein claims Ms Mutten is “going to get charged for everything”, telling his mother the police have “nothing” and can’t “pin” him for the murder but he “saw it” happen.

Annemie questions: “But then why were you travelling with the barrel?”

Mr Stein responds: “Well, I didn’t even know, Kallista put it on the back of the ute”.

“I’m literally at Bunnings and I get a phone call saying ‘you’ve got Charlise with you’, and I went ‘what’,” the jury heard Mr Stein say in the call.

“Yeah … I was driving around with a f**king kid on the back of my ute.”

He claims he drove around for hours with the barrel on the back of his ute because he “f**king panicked”.

His mother asks again if Charlise was killed at the Mount Wilson property and Mr Stein tells him she was killed on nearby crown land.

“Behind the shed on the fire break … I’m guessing she ran down to me to the shed because the last thing she screamed was my name and then you heard ‘Mummy no’ and then the second gunshot,” Mr Stein said.

In her evidence this week, Ms Mutten told the jury Mr Stein told her Charlise woke up vomiting in the early hours of January 12 and left her in the care of a female auctioneer before leaving to spend the day together.

The pair spent the day injecting ice and having sex, before the jury heard they arrived back at the Mount Wilson property about 8.44pm to find no-one home.

The jury heard Mr Stein claimed he left about 4pm on January 13 to search for Charlise but prosecutors allege he dumped the barrel with Charlise’s body.

The barrel with Charlise’s body was found on January 18, 2022, after police went to the location as a result of going through Mr Stein’s phone.

The trial continues.