The mother of murdered schoolgirl Charlise Mutten has made a candid admission of what she thinks of the man who took her life away and regrets of not being there when the little girl needed her the most.
Kallista Mutten was 12 weeks pregnant when her then-fiance Justin Stein, 33, shot dead nine-year-old Charlise execution-style in the body before stuffing her body in a barrel at his family’s Blue Mountains estate and dumping it near the Colo River in January 2022.
As Stein was sentenced to spend the remainder of his life behind bars, on Monday, Ms Mutten revealed that she has forgiven him.
‘As hard as it is, I do forgive Justin, not for him but for me, so he has no hooks on me and will never have control of me,’ she told the Daily Telegraph.
Ms Mutten gave birth to a baby boy six months after Charlise’s death.
Her ‘beautiful’ boy, who turned two last month remains in the care of relatives while Ms Mutten receives treatment for drug addiction and comes to terms with the loss of Charlise.
‘I might not of been there for my daughter as I should’ve been, and regret it a lot, but I have to live with that,’ she said.
‘I won’t let (the boy) down too, he deserves me to fight for him, and he deserves my love.’
Kallista Mutten (pictured with Charlise, at Christmas 2021) said she is fighting her drug addiction for the sake of her two-year-old son
Ms Mutten often relies on her happy memories with Charlise (pictured) and recalled it was ‘out of this world how smart she was’
Ms Mutten has already completed a long stint at a rehabilitation centre and is continuing outpatient treatment.
She has many happy memories of her smart daughter who read 150 books in one year.
She also recalled how Charlise told her that she was best mum in the world’ after being within earshot of people talking badly about Ms Mutten and her then-partner.
During Stein’s sentencing hearing last week, Ms Mutten’s said she ‘trusted someone with my daughter and because of my trust in someone, I put my daughter in harm’s way’.
Further reflecting on her relationship, she has forgiven Stein for her daughter’s horrific death.
‘As hard as it is, I do forgive Justin, not for him but for me, so he has no hooks on me and will never have control of me,’ Ms Mutten said.
‘People say I was in the relationship for money … I was in it for love and belonging … I thought it would be a fairytale.’
Ms Mutten’s revelation comes after Justice Helen Wilson unleashed on Stein as she sentenced him to life in jail.
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 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 (pictured) shot Charlise Mutten in the face after drugging her and then dumped her body in a barrel in the bush
Justin Stein is being sentenced for doer murdering nine-year-old Charlise Mutten (above in December 2021, at her last Christmas) and then dumping her body in a barrel
Charlise was murdered after she was drugged with Stein’s schizophrenia medication.
An adult dose of the drug would have a profound sedating effect on a child, the court heard.
‘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.
Charlise had been visiting her mother and Stein for Christmas from the Gold Coast, where she lived with her grandparents.
She spent the night of January 11 alone with Stein at a property in the Blue Mountains, while her mother stayed at a caravan about a 90-minute drive away.
The same day Charlise’s body was found, investigators charged Stein with her murder after using location data from his phone to pinpoint where the barrel was dropped.
Justice Wilson said Stein likely shot the girl once in the back while she was trying to flee, before approaching her and firing another shot directly into her head.
‘This was a shockingly callous crime,’ Ms Wilson said.
‘The offender approached Charlise and discharged the second shot at close range.
‘He shot Charlise twice with a stolen gun,’ Justice Wilson said.
‘It was not survivable and was not intended to be.’
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
Stein’s lawyer, Carolyn Davenport SC, said it would be ‘very cruel and unusual punishment’ to send a man of Stein’s age to prison for the rest of his life.
‘There was no motive that we know of,’ she said.
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.
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, 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.
Ms Mutten denied having any involvement in her daughter’s death and broke down in tears when she faced the accusation in court.
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
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 Charlise’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.
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