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The tearful mother of Charlies Mutten said she had not seen her daughter for two days when she called police to report her missing days before the young girl’s body was found.
At the time of Charlize’s death, Mutten and Stein were in a relationship after meeting while they were both in prison.
Muten called police at 8:12 a.m. Jan. 14 to report her daughter missing, a recording of which was played to the jury Wednesday.
“I’m sorry, I have to report that my daughter is missing – she’s nine,” a sobbing Muten told the operator.
In a sometimes muddled account of what happened, she said she last saw her daughter two nights ago and left the girl with Stein.
Charlize was visiting the couple during the holiday break, with the group spending time between a property in Mount Wilson and a caravan at Riverview Ski Park, about 90 minutes away.
“She was here and I wasn’t here, my partner was here … in the morning she was kind of sick so she was kind of lethargic and I was two and a half hours away,” Mutten said in the call.
She told the operator that Stein had left Charlize, who he claimed was ill, with a woman who had come to appraise the 12-acre Mount Wilson property owned by his mother.
“He asked if he could take care of her while he went and got me … he didn’t want her in the car because she was throwing up,” Mutten said.
“When we got back, they were gone.”
Crown prosecutor Ken McKay SC earlier told the jury that Charlize being sick and staying with the assessor was one of two explanations Stein gave to Mutten for what happened to her daughter.
He later speculates that the nine-year-old may have been taken by people from his criminal past.
The officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Sergeant Bradley Gardiner, began giving evidence on Wednesday and is expected to remain on the stand until the end of the week.
He confirmed that during the investigation into Charlize’s death, police learned that Mutten was pregnant with Stein’s child.
Charlize traveled from the Gold Coast to Sydney as an unaccompanied minor in December 2021 with plans to spend Christmas and New Year with her mother and Stein.
On the evening of Jan. 12, Charlize drove back to Mount Wilson with Stein alone while Mutten stayed in the caravan, prosecutors said.
CCTV footage captured the 33-year-old at a petrol station the next day towing a boat in his Holden Colorado ute, which is also said to be transporting a barrel containing Charlize’s body.
The barrel was found near the Colo River, northwest of Sydney, on January 18.
She was shot once in the head and once in the waist.
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