Murdered child ‘longed for a dad’

The mother of a child murdered by her ex-partner in a point-blank shooting before being dumped in a barrel in NSW’s rugged Blue Mountains has told a court she will “never know the truth” about her daughter’s death.

Justin Stein, 33, was found guilty by a jury of murdering nine-year-old schoolgirl Charlise Mutten in 2022 following a mammoth weeks-long trial in the NSW Supreme Court earlier this year.

The body of Charlise, daughter of Stein’s ex-fiance Kallista Mutten, was located by police near the Colo River, northwest of Sydney, with close-range gunshot wounds to her face and lower back.

The jury, after two weeks of deliberation, rejected Mr Stein’s version of events in which he admitted to dumping the schoolgirl’s body, but claimed it was Ms Mutten who shot her daughter.

Fighting back tears, the young girl’s mother told the court on Friday morning that Charlise “longed for a dad and she trusted in my judgement and I hate myself for being so wrong” about Mr Stein.

“My trust and security has been taken and I have to live with the fact I trusted someone with my daughter and because of my trust in someone I put my daughter in harm’s way,” Ms mutten said.

Appearing via AVL, Ms Mutten described her daughter as a “kind, smart, and good child” who was a veracious reader and whose former school had named an annual award in her honour.

Breaking down, she described the pair’s nightly phone calls and how her daughter was her “biggest fan”, and the enthusiasm the young girl had when she was told she was going to be a sister.

“She was going to come live with me, and now I can’t even speak to her. She was the only person I told I was pregnant and she was so stoked that she was going to be a sister,” Ms Mutten said.

Ms Mutten went on to add: “Charlise had plans of teaching her sibling to read and she would have been a good older sister. The chance of being a sister was also taken from her.

“I lost everything, not only my daughter but my family and the future I thought was complete. All of this was taken from me in one day. My life will never be the same. It’s overwhelming”.

Ms Mutten said all she wanted was “to know why, but I don’t think I’ll ever get that and I will never know”, and that she was blindsided by Mr Stein’s accusations she was the child’s killer.

“This made me look like I was covering for you but I trusted in you and our relationship. I am not able to meet new people because of all the allegations made against me,” she said, directing her comments to Mr Stein.

“To stand in court and be told I murdered my daughter is one of the most horrific experiences I’ve ever had to deal with, I couldn’t breathe … You took away Charlise and my future as a mother.”

In their submissions, Crown Prosecutor Ken McKay SC argued Mr Stein should be handed down a “mandatory life sentence”, meaning he would not be granted parole and stay behind bars.

Conversely, Mr Stein’s lawyer Caroyln Davenport SC told the court he should receive a standard non-parole period of 25 years, arguing the killing was “not a worst-case scenario”.

More to come.