Charlise Mutten’s killer Justin Stein is sentenced to life in jail without parole

A judge has unleashed on Charlise Mutten’s killer, Justin Stein, as she sentenced him to life in jail without parole after he fatally shot the little girl in the face before dumping her body in a barrel.

Justice Helen Wilson delivered the sentence in the NSW Supreme Court in Sydney, where a thin and nervous-looking Stein appeared in person.

Justice Wilson said Stein, 33, was ‘completely without remorse’ and ‘without humanity or morality’.

She said the shooting that took place at Stein’s lavish family home in the Blue Mountains in January 2022 was ‘unspeakably vicious and murderous’.

‘These were deliberate acts, and the second shot was an execution shot. He undertook these actions intending to kill her,’ she said.

‘He sought to blame Charlise’s mother for his own indecent conduct.

‘Charlise was not just a child; she was a very young child at nine years and five months of age.

‘Charlise had come to refer to the offender as “Daddy”. This crime represents an egregious breach of that trust.’

Justin Stein shot Charlise Mutten in the face after drugging her and then dumped her body in a barrel in the bush

Charlise was murdered after she was drugged with Stein’s schizophrenia medication.

‘She would have been in a state of pronounced drowsiness; she had even less capacity to defend herself and flee from danger,’ Justice Wilson said.

Justice Wilson described Stein’s supposedly tearful account of Charlise’s death during the trial as ‘false’ and said the tissue he used was dry.

‘From where I sat I could see very clearly, he was completely dry-eyed and did not shed a single tear,’ Justice Wilson said in disgust.

The sentence came after crown prosecutors had called for a mandatory life term without parole for the murder of the Tweed Heads primary school student who was on holiday with Stein and her mother at the time of her death.

Justice Wilson warned the court on Monday that her sentencing would contain ‘distressing’ elements.

‘He shot Charlise twice with a stolen gun,’ Justice Wilson said.

‘One injury to left side of lower back or pelvic area, the other to the right side of her face. Charlise had been wearing black track pants and skirt, as projectile entered those garments.

‘The wound is consistent with Charlise turning away from the offender. Charlise was alive and would have survived this injury.

‘The [second] projectile hit just below Charlise’s right cheekbone.. caused extensive facial fractures. The bullet penetrated into the inside of the skull where the brain sits.

‘I’m satisfied the stolen weapon was the gun used to murder Charlise.

‘The muzzle of the gun was held very close to Charlise’s face. The offender was in front of Charlise.’

Justin Stein tried to blame Kallista Mutten (above with Charlise, at Christmas 2021) for murdering her own daughter while in a drug-induced state

Charlise’s mother Kallista Mutten broke down in tears during a recent hearing and told her former fiancé:  ‘I hate myself for trusting you’.

Ms Mutten read a victim’s impact statement via audio video link. 

Her voice shaking, Ms Mutten told Stein: ‘[Charlise] just longed for you to be her dad. I just hate myself for being so wrong about you.

‘I am forced to live with fact I trusted someone and because of my trust I put my daughter in harm’s way.’ 

Stein blinked rapidly and then closed his eyes for several seconds, his leg shaking restlessly as he listened to statements by Ms Mutten and her father.

‘I won’t get to see her grow up, have her first boyfriend and get married,’ Charlise’s mother said.

‘More than anything I miss being Charlise’s mum and having her say I love you. 

‘Charlise was my biggest fan and would always say I was the best mummy in the world.’

Ms Mutten said that since Charlise’s murder, she had been harassed in public, abused by people on public transport and followed by media to the extent she couldn’t go outdoors. 

Only Charlise’s grandfather Clinton Mutten (above), who along with his wife Deborah was the nine-year-old’s legal guardian, turned up for Justin Stein’s sentencing

Justin Stein shopping for sand at Bunnings to weigh down the barrel he has put Charlise’s body in

Detectives found Charlie’s body in this barrel (above, in situ, with the little girl’s remains inside), dumped by Stein on the banks of the Colo River

She said that the last time she saw Charlise, she had told her she was pregnant, and Charlise was excited about becoming an older sister 

Ms Mutten added: ‘My life is never going to be the same.’

She said Charlise ‘loved being a nerd and reading books’.

A week after the shooting, detectives found Charlise’s 33.5kg body wrapped in a tarpaulin, bound with tape and placed head first inside a industrial barrel on the banks of the Colo River.

During a five-week trial in May-June, Stein tried to blame Charlise’s mother, then a severe intravenous methamphetamine addict, for murdering her own daughter.

The court heard that Kallista was injecting a massive ’17 points a day’ of ice, and had undergone psychotic episodes when she lay on the ground, babbling and incoherent. 

But in traumatic testimony at the trial, she said she had not been with Stein or Charlise on the night when the murder took place and believed his story that her daughter was being minded by another woman.

On June 19, after deliberating for for 35 hours over eight days, a jury found Justin Stein guilty of Charlise’s murder. 

Stein had already admitted to disposing of the corpse, after police produced CCTV of him driving the tarp-draped barrel around Sydney, collecting sand from Bunnings to weigh it down, and then off to the river bank 100km north-west of Sydney.

Stein had claimed that after Ms Mutten shot her daughter, she secretly placed Charlise’s body in the barrel and secured it on the back of his ute without his knowledge.

But the jury didn’t believe him.

Stein driving oyut of the Lane Cove tunnel with the barrel in the back covered by a blue tarp

Charlise Mutten at school in 2021, the last year of her short life, and the barrel she was placed in when Stein disposed of her body in January 2022

 Ms Mutten denied having any involvement in her daughter’s death and broke down in tears when she faced the accusation in court.

Stein appeared as the defence’s only witness in the trial, spending two days going over his version of events. 

Crown prosecutor Ken McKay SC said Stein gave Charlise his schizophrenia drug Quetiapine ‘by design or … accidentally’.

Stein denied giving Charlise the medication, and said he had gone along with a plan by Charlie’s mother to cover up the murder, including lying to police about leaving the girl in the care of an imaginary woman who was valuing items at the Mount Wilson estate.

Detective Sergeant Bradley Gardiner told the trial that, according to phone records, Stein sent a text to Kallista Mutten at 8.20pm on January 11, stating: ‘Hey bub, sorry, left my phone in the car, been searching inside for it’, that he was ‘cooking up some chicken’ and ‘Charsey’ was watching TV and playing with balloons.

At 10.06am on January 12, Stein sent another message to his partner, which read: ‘Am literally about to walk out the door. Charsey is staying put in bed. 

‘She’s wrecked and already fallen back to sleep’, then left Mount Wilson at 10.13am. By that point, however, Charlise was already dead.