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The man accused of murdering schoolgirl Charlize Mutten has blamed inconsistencies in his versions of events on his confusion over details, including when the nine-year-old was killed.
Justin Stein pleaded not guilty to Charlize’s murder in January 2022, claiming that the girl’s mother, Calista Mutten, was the one who shot her.
Charlize’s body was found washed up in the Colo River, northwest of Sydney, four days after she was reported missing, with gunshot wounds to the head and waist.
Stein admitted he dumped the girl’s body and lied to police in initial interviews, but he claimed Mutten placed Charlize’s body in the trunk of his ute without his knowledge.
However, jailhouse phone calls between Stein and his mother Anemie contained different versions of what he told the court while appearing as the defense’s only scheduled witness.
“There are quite a few mistakes in these phone calls,” Stein admitted.
Inconsistencies include the time of night he said Charlize was shot and when he realized her body was in a barrel on his duck’s back.
In phone records released in court, Stein told his mother that Charlize was shot in the “small hours” of Thursday morning, January 13, although he testified in court that she was shot shortly after 9:00 p.m. the previous day. .
Today, prosecutor Ken McKay SC suggested that Stein had changed his version of events after reading a police memo with evidence that contradicted his timeline.
“There’s an error there … about when it actually happened,” Stein said.
“There’s a bit of confusion.”
The day after he claimed Mutten shot her daughter, Stein was caught on camera buying sandbags from Bunnings, which he said were for a patio he planned to renovate.
Stein told the court he did not know Charlize’s body was on the back of his ute until the barrel later came loose and he pulled to refasten it.
He said he threw up when he made the gruesome discovery.
However, in another conversation with his mother, Stein said Mouton told him Charlize was in the barrel while he was still at Bunnings.
“She goes, ‘she’s on the back of the ute,’ and I freaking panicked,” Stein told her mother.
Under cross-examination, he told the court: “I’m not sure why I said that last part.”
“Just more confusion?” McKay said.
Charlize was visiting her mother and Stein, who were in a relationship at the time, for Christmas.
During the visit, the group split their time between a Mount Wilson property owned by Stein’s mother and a caravan at Riviera Ski Park, about a 90-minute drive away.
Prosecutors say Charlize spent the night alone with Stein at the Mount Wilson property on Jan. 11 and he killed her that night or the next day.
During his evidence yesterday, Stein agreed to spend that night at the property with Charlize, but said the girl was alive the next day and had traveled with him to collect Mouton from the caravan before all three went to Sydney.
According to Stein’s account, the trio returned to Mount Wilson on the evening of January 12 and he was working in a shed on the property just after 9:00 p.m. when he heard a gunshot.
“I went outside the shed … then I heard Charlize yelling ‘mom no’ and then bang, a second shot,” Stein said.
Mutten denied any involvement in her daughter’s death and broke down in tears when confronted with the accusation by Stein’s attorney during her own testimony.
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