The mother of murdered nine-year-old Charlise Mutten has said she hates herself for putting relationships first when her daughter already loved her unconditionally.
Kallista Mutten has spoken publicly for the first time since her then-fiance, Justin Stein, shot and killed Charlise in the Blue Mountains and dumped her body in a barrel in January 2022.
In an emotional interview with Nine’s 60 Minutes on Sunday night, Mutten described Stein – whom she had begun a relationship with while they were both in prison for serious drug-related crimes – as a “monster” and “pure evil”.
Mutten said her daughter had “always longed for a dad”.
“I am forced to live with the fact that I trusted someone with my daughter and that because of my trust in someone I put my daughter in harm’s way,” she said.
Stein, 33, was found guilty of Charlise’s murder in June and was sentenced in the New South Wales supreme court in August to the maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
Police located Charlise’s body on 18 January 2022 near the Colo River north-west of Sydney. She had gunshot wounds to her face and lower back.
Mutten told Nine she had been in a “dark place” after her daughter’s murder because she felt the whole country was against her.
“I wish I had been there more. I see that now I’ve got to live with that – Charlise deserved more,” she said.
Mutten said while she hadn’t committed murder she did “take accountability for the things I have done”.
“I regret a lot, putting relationships first. I hate myself for it. I really do,” she said. “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.”
Mutten described Charlise as “just the most amazing little girl” and said they had a deep connection even though she had been in prison and her daughter lived with her grandparents on the Gold Coast.
In December 2021, Charlise went to stay with her mother and Stein, who were both in the grips of drug addiction.
Charlise had an apparently happy Christmas with her mother before she was murdered.
The young girl spent the night of 11 January 2022 alone with Stein at a property in the Blue Mountains owned by his parents, while Mutten stayed at the caravan park they had been holidaying at, about a 90-minute drive away.
Justice Helen Wilson, who sentenced Stein, said he 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, on or around 12 January.
Toxicology results revealed Charlise had traces in her body of the anti-psychotic drug Seroquel for which Stein had a prescription to treat schizophrenia.
Wilson said it was a “shockingly callous crime”.
