Jurors have heard that a man who stands accused of killing his partner’s kid was afraid he would return to prison if the girl did not come back to Queensland before she vanished.
A neighbor had discovered him earlier, looking for “treasure”. In court today, the neighbor said, “It seemed strange.”
In January 2022, Justin Laurens Stein, 33, was charged with Charlise Mutten’s murder, although he entered a not guilty plea.
The girl was staying with Stein and her mother Kallista Mutten at the Mount Wilson home in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, when she was reported missing.
After Stein’s German shepherd showed interest, a neighbor saw him digging in the bush close to their properties.
At first, the neighbor thought Stein was hiding, lying face down in a culvert, so he asked Stein what he was doing.
The neighbor told the court he had an agreement not to notify anyone, saying, “His answer to me was he was digging for treasure.”
“I thought it was weird but I didn’t think it was dangerous.”
When the police arrived the following month to seek for Charlise, the neighbor eventually did report the incident.
The neighbor had gone to a dinner with his wife and mother-in-law before, and Charlise, her mother, Stein, and his mother had all been there.
He remembered a discussion regarding the daughter’s custody.
Prior to seeing her mother, the youngster had been residing on the Gold Coast.
“Stein said that if anything happened and the child didn’t go back to Queensland that he would end up in prison again,” said the neighbor.
The jury has been informed that Stein was receiving treatment for both addiction and schizophrenia while incarcerated for drug-related offenses.
While Charlise’s mother was incarcerated for reckless driving that resulted in death, he got to know her.
Four days after Charlise was reported missing, her body was discovered in a barrel packed with sand along the Colo River.
Stein says he heard a gunshot while inside a shed on the property and went outside to witness Kallista Mutten, the nine-year-old’s mother, shoot her daughter twice.
It was supposedly months previously that the two had taken firearms from a property.
Senior Constable Graeme Gray is said to have discovered those firearms in February, following Charlise’s death, buried off a fire trail close to the home.
They were beneath a stick-covered mound that rose about 10 centimeters above the surrounding surface, with a sliver of blue tarpaulin protruding from it.
Gray told the court, “This did not look like it belonged.” Buried just a few centimeters beneath the surface, the ammunition and two firearms were wrapped in that blue tarpaulin.
Additionally, there was a tiny bit of silver. “It’s shaped like a C,” Gray stated to the NSW Supreme Court on Wednesday.
In the course of Stein’s trial, a rifle that Gray discovered was introduced into the Parramatta courtroom as evidence.
Fairness Helen Wilson told the jury that before the jurors passed the gun among themselves, it was unloaded and could not cause any harm.
The jury heard testimony on Tuesday regarding pictures of the buried pistols that were previously presented to Stein’s mother at the Katoomba Police Station.
While in jail, Stein called his mother and asked her to come get something he had thrown in the bush.
Annemie Stein informed her son, “I have a feeling they may already have them.”
In the call that was recorded, neither of them made it clear what they were discussing.
Tomorrow is the trial’s second day.
