Charlise Mutten’s step-father is a convicted serious drug offender who is serving parole in the community after he was caught with an exorbitant amount of drugs six years ago.
Justin Laurens Stein, 31, and his fiancée Kallista Mutten, Charlise’s mother, are assisting police as the search for the missing nine-year-old enters its fifth day.
Charlise was last seen at a sprawling wedding estate owned by Stein’s wealthy family, Wildenstein, in Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains, last Thursday.
Daily Mail Australia can reveal Stein was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison in 2017 for possessing a marketable quantity of a border controlled drug the previous year.
He was locked up about the same time Charlise’s mother received a three year sentence with a non-parole period of two years for dangerous driving occasioning death while high on methamphetamines.
Charlise Mutten’s stepdad is a convicted serious drug offender who is serving parole in the community after he was caught with an exorbitant amount of drugs in 2016
Pictured: Charlise as a toddler with her mother Kallista. The youngster normally lives with her grandmother in Queensland
Stein posted a photo of a pair of hands tattooed hands with the words ‘Magic’ on the right fist and ‘Man’ on the left, inked with tattooed dollar notes and skull-and-bones symbols
Charlise was last seen at a sprawling wedding estate owned by Stein’s wealthy family, Wildenstein, in Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains, last Thursday. The property is now the centre of a far reaching search
He first became eligible for parole on December 7, 2019 after serving a minimum sentence of three years and nine months.
It is unclear when exactly he was released from prison, but by December 2020 he and Ms Mutten were engaged.
His ex-girlfriend confirmed Stein had not long got out of jail and was out of work, living in a unit in Leichhardt owned by his mother.
Stein’s full sentence will not expire until September this year.
Ms Mutten, meanwhile, is a former ice addict who served two years in jail for killing her 53-year-old friend Karen ‘Kaz’ Bunch after driving off road and into the Tweed River while high on methamphetamine.
She was convicted of dangerous driving occasioning death and driving with an illicit substance in her system and was sentenced to two years jail at Lismore Court on November 24, 2017.
Charlise Mutten (pictured) went missing from the Blue Mountains on Thursday afternoon. Family members have been unable to confirm to police her last known outfit
A convoy of cars were seen entering the property on Tuesday
Police crews and volunteers are seen moving equipment throughout the search
Ms Mutten is a former ice addict who served two years in jail for killing her 53-year-old friend Karen ‘Kaz’ Bunch after driving off road and into the Tweed River while high on methamphetamine
The court heard despite checking into a rehabilitation clinic after the crash, Ms Mutten relapsed into ice use and was also expelled from a clinic at Logan in Queensland after she threatened a fellow resident with violence.
She claims to have since gotten clean again.
The couple were at the Wildenstein wedding estate on Thursday when Charlise vanished.
Stein’s family owns the sprawling venue, although it’s not clear who else was at the property at the time Charlise disappeared.
Stein, a former steel and timber worker from a wealthy family, is understood to split his time between his inner west home and the Mt Wilson venue, which was initially bought by his father James in 1989.
More than 100 police, firefighters and SES volunteers are involved in the search for the nine-year-old
Closest neighbour John Haitzler (Pictured) who lives at the neighbouring property with his wife Carole, said he’d applied for an AVO against Stein
Pictured: RFS volunteers on day five of the search for missing nine-year-old, Charlise Mutten
Police have seized a red ute (pictured) as part of their investigation, which will be forensically examined
Kallista Mutten’s fiancé Justin Stein (pictured) went to Penrith on Friday to speak with NSW police
Charlise Mutten, 9, was staying with her mother Kallista Mutten when she disappeared on Thursday at a sprawling private wedding venue owned by the family of her fiancé, Justin Stein
He has a registered business, Magix Steel and Timber, and refers to himself as ‘Magix Man’ or ‘Magic Man’ online.
He posted a photo of a pair of hands tattooed hands with the words ‘Magic’ on the right fist and ‘Man’ on the left, inked with tattooed dollar notes and skull-and-bones symbols.
Stein and Charlise’s mother didn’t report her missing until Friday morning, at which point Stein drove his red ute to Penrith police station to speak with authorities.
That ute is now a focus the police investigation as detectives scour CCTV footage to trace the movements of the car.
Daily Mail Australia is not suggesting Mr Stein had anything to do with Charlise’s disappearance, only that his vehicle’s movements are being examined on the day as police cover off every angle.
Police officers and detectives have been stationed at the Mount Wilson estate since Friday (pictured: an officer on Tuesday morning)
Search teams have been tirelessly looking for the schoolgirl since she was reported missing on Friday morning. Pictured: Emergency workers on Tuesday morning
Charlise Mutten (pictured) went missing on Thursday afternoon. Investigators have been scouring the scene, with the search now entering its fifth day
A small group of emergency services workers, whose numbers have been depleted by a Covid outbreak among volunteers, were warned on day five of the search on Tuesday that the nine-year-old would be by now ‘lethargic’ and ‘stationary’.
‘It’s day five. She’s not going to be mobile,’ a police officer told the Rural Fire Service and SES searchers.
The officer warned them that Charlise would need water from a ‘bottle, puddle or dam’.
He couldn’t provide them with a description of what clothes she might be wearing as ‘we don’t have clothing unfortunately. We don’t know what she is wearing’.
The stepfather and mother of Charlise Mutten have told police they can’t remember what she was wearing when last seen on the verandah of the wedding venue property Wildenstein last Thursday afternoon.
Picture: The sprawling five-hectare Mount Wilson property where Charlise Mutten went missing
Her distressed mum Kallista Mutten (pictured, left and right, with Charlise) was consoled by emergency workers on Saturday
NSW Police divers spent hours searching a pond on the Wildenstein property at Mt Wilson on Saturday
While Charlise was initially said to be wearing a pink top, black knee-length skirt and pink Nike thongs when she was last seen, neither Ms Mutten or her fiance have been able to definitively say how she was dressed.
NSW RFS Commander Peter Bennett told Daily Mail Australia parts of the search area were ‘inhospitable’, made significantly worse by wet weather which hampered investigators on Monday.
‘It’s pretty thick scrub,’ he said. ‘Walking in line through that is exhausting.’
Police are appealing for anyone with information about her whereabouts to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Charlise Mutten was last seen on Thursday afternoon. She was reported missing on Friday
Police, volunteers and RFS crews have been at the scene for five days searching for little Charlise
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