Charles Mutten was nine when she went missing. Her body was found inside of a barrel. A man has been charged with her murder.
Police have charged a man with the murder of Charlise Mutten, whose body was found in a barrel yesterday, five days after she was last seen.
Police think 31-year-old Justin Stein killed himself. They used GPS data and CCTV to find the barrel in the bush near the Colo River last night.
When police found Charlise Mutten’s body in a barrel of water, they thought it was her. The child’s body has not been officially identified.
A crime scene has been set up and is being looked over by experts in forensics.
Charlise had been missing since last Friday, and on Monday, homicide detectives joined the search.
In the account of what happened before Charlise went missing, there were a lot of discrepancies, says the deputy commissioner of NSW Police, David Hudson
There was a lot of attention paid to him because of things like buying a lot of 20-kilos sandbags and gas for his boat.
Deputy Commissioner Hudson said that the accused tried to put a boat in the water at docks in inner Sydney, but it didn’t work because the boat was “out of order.”
During the search for the man after his boat failed to launch in Sydney, police found him about an hour away from where Charlise was last seen alive.
Court documents say that police think the young girl was killed last Thursday, which was last week.
A woman named Kallista Mutten and a man named Stein were on vacation with Charlise’s mother, Kallista Mutten. They were in the Blue Mountains.
The two were staying at a wedding and event venue when she went missing on Thursday afternoon, but they were still there.
After her daughter went missing, Kallista had a medical episode. She is still in the hospital getting treatment for it.
Police haven’t been able to talk to her yet.
“It has been hard to get in touch with her,” Deputy Commissioner Hudson said. “Hopefully, when the doctor’s OK, we can talk to her again.”
On social media this morning, Charlise’s biological father talked about how much he was hurt by the death of his daughter.
“We’ll get the answers for you, baby, and we’ll treat you right,” he said in a letter.
“Charlise, this isn’t the end of you or your story.”
The coroner will look into Charlise’s death at the Sydney morgue. The barrel has been taken there.
Mr Stein was arrested at a unit on Riley Street in Surry Hills, in central Sydney, about 8:30pm yesterday. He refused to be interviewed by police, and he was taken to the Surry Hills Police Station.
In court this morning, his lawyer told the judge that his client had long-term mental health problems.
People in the court heard that he had been taking medication for mental health problems for years and that he was worried about his own safety in prison.
He didn’t ask for bail, which was officially turned down.
He will appear in court again in March.
The police investigation, which has involved about 200 officers, is still going on.
A deputy commissioner said, “We will not leave any stone unturned as we try to find out the truth about this matter.”
People who work for both the State Emergency Service and the Rural Fire Service helped with the search effort.
People still need to figure out what happened between when the girl was reported missing and when her body was found last night, says Karen Webb, the police chief in New South Wales.
