Charlise Mutten's mother has spoken out about having drug-fueled sex with the man who killed her daughter days after he committed the despicable act.
Nine-year-old Charlise was brutally murdered by her mother Kallista Mutten's then-fiancé Justin Stein at his family's luxury home in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, in January 2022.
Stein was sentenced to life in prison without parole in August after being found guilty of shooting the girl in the head and throwing her into a barrel.
In her first television interview, Mutten said Stein took her on a trip to Sydney to buy drugs after killing her daughter.
Stein lied to her mother and said that she had taken Charlise to stay with a family friend near the Stein home to care for her while she was sick.
The couple bought and used the drugs before having sex in a park, while Mrs Mutten was unaware her fiancé was planning to dispose of her daughter's body.
“It makes me sick just thinking about what he did,” she told 60 Minutes.
'I don't get into it because it makes me feel physically sick.
'At the time, of course, I believed she was in good hands and with a family friend.'
The mother of murdered schoolgirl Charlise Mutten, Kallista Mutten (pictured), has broken her silence after her fiancé was found guilty of the nine-year-old girl's murder.
Saying she is “not the monster” she has been portrayed as, Ms Mutten said she understands why many Australians judged her as a mother for her drug use.
“I didn’t commit any murders or anything like that, but I take responsibility for the things I did,” she said.
'I wish I had been by her side more, I see that now and I have to live with it.
'Charlise deserved better.'
Mutten revealed the last time he saw his daughter was shortly after playing in the pool while on holiday at the Hawkesbury River.
Her mother allowed Charlise to leave with the man she trusted enough to call 'daddy' to return to her family home.
She said she “thought nothing” about the decision at the time, which she now deeply regrets.
“That was the last time I saw her, I wish I had said no,” Mutten said as he fought back tears.
That night, Stein spent hours on dating sites and watching pornography while Charlise was at home with him before making the shocking decision to kill her.
Ms Mutten's partner Justin Stein (both pictured) brutally shot the young woman in the face while at her family's luxury Blue Mountains property in January 2022
Stein told her mother that Charlise (both pictured) was sick and living with a family friend while he planned to dispose of her body
Police discovered she had been drugged with Stein's schizophrenia medication before fleeing the property and was shot in the hip and face.
Stein then dropped the weapons and the girl's body before returning to Ms. Mutten to tell her she was with a family friend.
Alarm bells rang after the couple returned to their friend's house to rescue Charlise, but found no trace of her.
Mutten called hospitals before the police to report her missing, triggering a massive search effort, while Stein gave her an ominous warning.
“I thought maybe she took Charlie to a hospital because she wasn’t well, so I was on the phone calling different hospitals,” she said.
'He said, 'She's not going to be there.' You won't find her.'
Mutten said he feels “physically sick” as he recalls the drug-fueled sex he had with Stein, unaware that the monster had killed his daughter.
Stein was trying to delay his mother's contact with police to buy time to dump her body in a barrel he bought from Bunnings shortly after killing her.
Stein was pictured buying a barrel and sand from a Bunnings to stuff the girl's body into in the following days, while others held out hope of finding her alive.
To buy more time, he told Mrs. Mutten that Charlise had been kidnapped by a drug dealer of his and that he was going on a mission to rescue her.
He added that if the mother contacted the police, the criminals would “shoot her” because they were “dangerous people”.
“It was all a lie, it was all a lie, it was all a lie, but I kept hope that she was OK,” Mutten said.
Instead of rescuing the girl, Stein was captured on CCTV footage driving his car around Sydney with the barrel under a tarpaulin tied to the tray.
Police believe he was looking for somewhere to dump the girl and stopped at a slipway in Drummoyne for several hours to, by his own admission, smoke marijuana.
Investigators pieced together their 12-hour journey to and from Sydney before noticing the barrel missing from the car upon arriving back in the Blue Mountains.
Investigators found the barrel and Charlise's body in subsequent searches in the Blue Mountains and arrested him for the young woman's murder that same day.
Searches along the route revealed the barrel and the heartbreaking discovery of Charlise's body inside it.
Stein was arrested at his family's home that same day.
“I just screamed and said 'no, no,'” Mutten said.
“They never told me how many times she was shot. They never told me where she was shot.
'Just thinking about what she would have gone through, that's what breaks me.'
Stein attempted to pin the murder on her fiancé during an interview with police and again while testifying in court.
He had previously admitted to disposing of the corpse, but claimed that Mrs. Mutten shot his daughter, secretly placed Charlise's body in the barrel and secured it to the back of her car without his knowledge.
However, after deliberating for 35 hours over eight days, a jury found Justin Stein guilty of Charlise's murder.
“As soon as I found out he was saying I did it, that’s when I knew he did it,” Mutten said.
Despite trying to pin the death on his fiancee, Stein was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in August.
“That was another horrible moment where I let this person in and I trusted and believed everything they told me.”
Judge Wilson said Stein likely shot the girl in the back once as she tried to run away, before approaching her and firing another shot directly into her head.
“This was a shockingly cruel crime,” Wilson said.
'The attacker approached Charlise and fired the second shot at close range.
“He shot Charlise twice with a stolen gun,” Judge Wilson said.
'It wasn't possible to survive and it wasn't supposed to be that way.'
Mutten has since given up drugs and said that although he has achieved justice through the courts, there is nothing “that can make things better for me and my family”.
'I forgive him, not for him, but for myself. So he has no power over me,” she said.
She added that she would like her daughter to be remembered as “an incredible little bundle of joy… who did not serve to take her life.”
