The mother of Charlise Mutten and the schoolgirl’s alleged murderer drove to Sydney to buy drugs after the nine-year-old was fatally shot in the face and back, a court has been told.
Justin Laurens Stein, 33, has pleaded not guilty to murdering the girl on or around January 12, 2022, at Mount Wilson, in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.
Charlise had spent the night of January 11 alone with Stein at a property in Mount Wilson, while her mother, Kallista Mutten, stayed at a caravan at the Riverview Ski Park about 90 minutes away, the NSW Supreme Court was told.
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Stein allegedly told Mutten that Charlise had been sick and that he left her with a woman who had come to do a valuation on the property, who was also a friend of his mother.
Phone-location data suggests Stein later picked Mutten up from the caravan and they drove together to Surry Hills, where they allegedly purchased methamphetamine.
They continued on to nearby Centennial Park, where Mutten told police the pair had sex.
Mutten asked in a message if the drug dealer could include “weapons”, which the officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Sergeant Bradley Gardiner, said referred to either syringes or a pipe used to take the drug.
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While the pair were in Sydney, Mutten made a number of calls to the landline of the Mount Wilson property, the court heard.
There was no evidence that those phone calls were answered.
After the couple had sex in Centennial Park, Mutten searched “blood coming from penis after sex” and “blood coming out of penis after ejaculation”.
She would accuse Stein of cheating on her and contracting the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhoea, also known as “the clap”, the jury heard.
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Police allege Mutten forwarded intimate messages and images from Stein’s phone and later messaged him saying, “you’re a liar, cheat and now I’ve lost my daughter”.
When the couple arrived back at the Mount Wilson property that evening, Mutten placed calls to Lithgow Hospital and Blue Mountains hospital having made online searches for children’s emergency rooms in the area.
Mutten left the Mount Wilson property in the early hours of January 13 driving Stein’s red Holden Colorado ute, prompting him to leave a string of voicemails threatening to hurt her if she did not return it.
“If you don’t bring it back I’m going to hurt you as well as everyone else,” he said in one of the messages.
“I’ve got me f—— guns and I’m going to kill you.”
Stein called triple zero to report the car stolen, initially telling the operator it was taken by a female who he did not know.
“She would have broken into the house and taken the keys while I slept,” he said.
The operator asked Stein if he was sure he did not know the identity of the person, to which he replied: “It could be my ex-partner, but I’m not sure.”
The trial is estimated to run for six weeks.
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