Mother of suspected schoolgirl killer questions son's story

The mother of accused killer Charlise Mutten has questioned her son's account of the nine-year-old's disappearance while police were still searching for the schoolgirl.

Justin Stein, 33, pleaded not guilty to the murder of nine-year-old Charlise in January 2022 while on trial in the NSW Supreme Court.

Charlise's body was found dumped in a barrel on the banks of the Colo River, northwest of Sydney, four days after her mother Kallista Mutten reported her missing.

Stein initially told police that the last time he saw Charlise was when he left her in the care of a woman he believed to be a real estate appraiser who had arrived at the property Mount Wilson, in the Blue Mountains, where they resided.

He said he believed the woman was arranged to come there by her mother, Annemie Stein, who owned the property.

But appearing as a witness at the trial on Monday, Ms Stein said she did not remember telling her son that an appraiser – whom she had hired earlier – would return to the property during the week Charlise went missing .

She said she arrived at the Mount Wilson property on Jan. 14 and found it filled with police, who told her it had been declared a crime scene.

Ms. Stein told one of the agents about her son's allegations that Charlise had been left with the property appraiser in a conversation recorded on a body-worn camera.

“I said (to Justin), 'Did you get his name?'” she told the officer, according to a transcript of the recording.

“He said her name was Lauren or something.”

The officer responded that he assumed Stein would have all the details from the evaluator because you “wouldn't let a nine-year-old go off with a stranger.”

“That’s what doesn’t add up,” Ms. Stein replied.

Stein later admitted he lied about leaving Charlise with the woman, but said it was Ms Mutten who made up the story and told him to tell the police.

Ms Mutten told the court earlier in the week that Stein had given her the same account of what happened to her daughter.

His lawyer, Carolyn Davenport SC, suggested he saw Ms Mutten shoot her daughter and lied to police to protect her.

Ms Mutten denied the allegations when she took the witness stand.

Ms Stein told the court she spoke to her son on the evening of January 12 and he told her he was at Mount Wilson with Ms Mutten and Charlise.

She said she heard a voice she believed to belong to Charlise in the background of the call, even though she previously told police she did not hear the girl.

“I suggest you did not hear voices in the background during your call with Justin,” Crown prosecutor Ken McKay SC said.

“I definitely heard a voice,” Ms. Stein replied, denying that she added the detail to her testimony to help her son.

She told the court her son called her on the morning of January 13, when he told her his car was missing and he needed the license plate number so he could call the police.

“He was very, very, very distressed and hyperventilating,” Ms Stein said.

“I’ve never heard him so upset.

“He said, 'Mom, the car is gone, Kallista is gone and Charlise is gone.'

The court previously heard that Ms Mutten left the property in Stein's vehicle after the pair argued and he reported the vehicle stolen to police.

Ms Stein, who spent Christmas and the weekend before Charlise's disappearance with the nine-year-old, described the schoolgirl as very intelligent and good-natured.

“Very polite…polite and a little cheeky,” she said.

The trial continues.