The reasons why Justin Stein murdered 9yo Charlise Mutten remain unclear according to NSW Supreme Court Justice Helen Wilson, but that didn’t stop her from sentencing him to life in prison without parole yesterday for the “shockingly callous crime of very great heinousness”. A jury found the 33yo guilty in June for shooting the young girl in early January 2022 at his family’s NSW Blue Mountains property before dumping her body in a plastic barrel. Stein’s always denied the execution-style murder and tried to blame Charlise’s mother/his fiance Kallista for her death. She broke down at the start of the sentencing hearing on Friday, saying she has to live with the fact that she put her daughter “in harm’s way” by leaving Charlise in Stein’s care. 

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