For almost three years, Kallista Mutten has stayed silent against an angry public over the horrific death of her daughter.
The 41-year-old says she has been unfairly blamed and abused for the murder of Charlise, committed by her fiance, Justin Stein.
“I’m not this monster that everyone has read in the papers and the news and that I was this unfit mother,” Mutten told 60 Minutes.
“I was in a really dark place because I felt like I had the whole country against me. I didn’t commit any murder or anything like that, but I do take accountability for the things I have done.
“I regret a lot, putting relationships first. I hate myself for it. I really do. It’s taken this for me to wake up and realise that I already had someone that loved me unconditionally, and he took that away from me.”
Charlise Mutten was murdered by Justin Stein in January 2022.
In December 2021, Mutten was in the grip of an ice addiction when nine-year-old Charlise travelled to Sydney from Queensland to spend the Christmas holidays with her mother and Stein.
The young girl had been raised by her grandparents on the Gold Coast since she was four, but despite the distance between them, Mutten says she and Charlise had an incredible bond.
“No matter what happened and what we did, she believed in me, and I miss her so much – she’s just so smart and she was so incredible,” Mutten said.
Mutten admits she made some dreadful decisions but is adamant she would never have left Charlise in Stein’s care if she had any idea of the grave danger her daughter would find herself in.
Kallista Mutten with daughter Charlise: “She believed in me and I miss her so much.”
“I wish I had been there more. I see that now I’ve got to live with that – Charlise deserved more,” she said.
“Not only did I lose my daughter, I lost a family that I had in my life and a partner that I thought I trusted and knew, and it was all completely shattered in one day.”
Stein and Charlise were staying alone for the night at his family’s luxurious property at Mount Wilson, two hours west of Sydney.
Stein cooked Charlise chicken for dinner, and she played with balloons, unaware of the terror about to be inflicted on her.
Phone records show Stein spent hours that night on dating sites and pornography before shooting the schoolgirl twice, the fatal blow to her face.
Justin Stein was found guilty of murdering his partner’s daughter.Credit: Facebook
Toxicology results later showed Stein’s antipsychotic medication in Charlise’s system.
The homicide squad commander, Superintendent Danny Doherty, says only Stein knows why he brutally ended an innocent child’s life.
“To find out why, you’d have to dig into the dark catacombs of his mind and that’s where the answers are, and unless he discloses that, we’ll never find the real reason why this happened,” Doherty said.
Thinking back to that day is still extremely raw for Kallista Mutten.
“He’s a monster – it’s pure evil,” she said.
“Did she suffer, was she scared? Just the thought of what she had gone through – that’s what breaks me.”
Instead of confessing to his crime, Stein tried to lie himself out of trouble.
From tales about leaving her with an auctioneer to being kidnapped by Stein’s criminal associates, the murderer convinced Mutten that Charlise had gone missing. However, he could not outsmart a team of homicide detectives who were suspicious of Stein from the start.
The lead investigator, Detective Sergeant Brad Gardiner, says his team had to work quickly to retrace Stein’s every move to unravel his fanciful stories.
“There is nothing that a nine-year-old could do to an adult who is there to protect her that could justify any outcome for what happened,” Gardiner said.
Police sifted through hours of incriminating CCTV and phone records to corner their killer and find the one piece of evidence they needed.
Stein’s phone co-ordinates led Detective Senior Constable Justin Hayton to the exact location on the banks of the Colo River.
“I had noticed on the edge of the road there were some remnants of sand – it was a bit like a line just going around as if it was overspill from something,” Hayton said.
Halfway down the embankment, a red barrel sat wedged between trees.
Inside, officers found the body of Charlise Mutten.
When Stein was arrested and charged with murder, Gardiner says the killer showed no remorse.
“I just said, ‘you’re under arrest for the murder of Charlise Mutten’. It’s like he was waiting for us to knock on that door,” Gardiner said.
The next break in the case came after a tip-off from a member of the public who had stumbled over something buried on a firetrail, just kilometres from Stein’s family property in Mount Wilson.
In a shallow hole, Hayton discovered two guns; one was the rifle used to shoot Charlise dead.
Stein’s fingerprint was on the scope and Hayton said there was other incriminating evidence.
“The tape on there was similar to the tape used on Charlise. The black plastic bags were similar. And the blue tarp was similar again. So, those three combined, I was pretty certain just knowing that this was tied into Justin Stein.”
In August, Stein was sentenced to life without parole after a jury found him guilty of murdering Charlise.
Stein continued his campaign of lies to the very end, in a final vindictive act even accusing Mutten of shooting her daughter dead.
“As I found out that he was saying I did it, that’s when I knew that he’d done this. And that was another horrible moment – that I’ve let this person in and trusted and believed everything that he told me,” Mutten said.
Charlise Mutten with her mother, Kallista Mutten, on Christmas Day 2021.
Mutten is trying to rebuild her life. She is free of addiction and has even managed to find forgiveness for her child’s murderer.
“I forgive him not for what he’s done, I forgive him but for me. So he has no power over me.”
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Forgiving herself is harder. She still carries the heavy burden of what happened to her daughter but says when it becomes too hard, she remembers a conversation she had with Charlise that fateful summer holiday.
“I do have her in my ears saying, ‘Remember Mum, my opinion only matters and you’re the best mum in the world.’ And no one can ever take that moment away from me and my daughter and what we had.”
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