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The man accused of murdering schoolgirl Charlize Mouton sent a series of violent voicemails to her mother, threatening to kill her if she didn’t give him back his car.
The nine-year-old was found dead in a barrel with two gunshot wounds, to the head and waist, after an intensive four-day search of the area.
Charlies’ mother, Calista Mutten, left the Mount Wilson property in the early hours of January 13 driving Stein’s Red Holden Colorado, a NSW Supreme Court trial was told today.
The couple was in a relationship at the time, and Mouton traveled alone to a nearby reservation, where she sent text messages to friends that prosecutors said were consistent with her belief that the child was missing.
“Give my car back right away. I’m only saying this once,” Stein said in a voice message played to the court.
“If you don’t give it back, I’m going to hurt you and everyone else.
“I’ve got damn—— guns and I’m going to kill you.”
Sounding increasingly angry and frustrated, Stein threatens to tell the police that Mouton has taken her daughter.
“Have fun – between everything I can put on you, you’re going down,” he says.
Mutten returned to the property in Stein’s car shortly afterwards, the court was told.
Stein’s attorney argued earlier this week that Mutten shot the girl and that he only helped dispose of her body.
Police were led to the girl’s body by using Google location data stored on Stein’s phone, a jury was told today.
Evidence shows that on the same day he verbally threatened Muten, Stein traveled to at least three separate boat ramps in Sydney – in Rose Bay, Drumoyne and Windsor.
CCTV footage from the trip showed Stein towing a boat and what prosecutors say was a barrel containing Charlize’s body in the back tray of his ute.
Phone records and CCTV footage tracked Stein’s movements for nearly eight hours before data showed him returning to the Blue Mountains near the Colo River, stopping at two locations for about five minutes each.
At one location, detectives found traces of sand and abrasions and were able to visually locate the barrel with Charlize’s body down a steep hill toward the river.
Soon after Stein returned from allegedly disposing of Charlize’s body, Mutten called triple zero to report the girl missing.
In a recording of the conversation played to the jury, Mutten tells the operator that the last time she saw her daughter was two nights ago, after she left her alone with Stein.
“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 jurors that Charlize was sick and staying with the property valuer was one of two lies Stein told Mutten about 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 today and is expected to remain on the witness stand until the end of the week.
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