Search intensifies for missing Charlise
THE stepdad of missing Gold Coast schoolgirl Charlise Mutten is currently on supervised parole after a jail stint for serious drug offences, it can be revealed.
Just days after he was released on parole in November 2020, Justin Stein, 31, posted photographs on Facebook of him and Charlise’s mother, Kallista Mutten, kissing when they got engaged.
The photographs of the loved-up couple remained online as hundreds of police officers, Rural Fire Service and State Emergency Service volunteers yesterday showed no signs of giving up despite the rain as the search for Charlise, nine, in the Mt Wilson area of the Blue Mountains ended its fifth day.
Investigators called in survival experts to assess the situation confronting the young girl if she is in fact lost in the rugged terrain after conflicting details from Mr Stein and Ms Mutten about the time Charlise went missing.
Sources said those experts had suggested that with the mild weather ensuring overnight temperatures did not drop too low, and with recent rain providing access to fresh water in the Blue Mountains, there is a chance a child her age could survive well in excess of a week in the bush.
Tweed Heads schoolgirl Charlise, who lives with her grandmother in Coolangatta, was said to have last been seen on Thursday wearing a pink top with a round neck collar, a black knee-length skirt and pink Nike thongs.
She was reported missing on Friday morning.
At the time of their engagement, former ice addict Ms Mutten, 37, had just completed her parole after serving two years three months behind bars for dangerous driving causing the death of a friend after using ice.
Ms Mutten posted a photograph of the “cute” church where she hoped to get married and gushed that her fiancee was “absolutely gorgeous” and “Mmmm yup”.
As the search continues, homicide detectives are investigating multiple lines of enquiry – including combing through CCTV footage in an effort to piece together the movements of anyone who may have accessed, or taken Charlise from, the upmarket Wildenstein wedding venue where she was staying with her mum and stepdad.
There is no suggestion that her mother or Mr Stein had any involvement in Charlise’s disappearance.
Mr Stein, who lives in Leichhardt, was jailed in 2017 for six years six months in Sydney District Court for possessing a marketable quantity of a border controlled drug the previous year. He was handed a minimum sentence of three years nine months and was due for parole in December 2019.
He was released on parole in November, the same month the couple announced their engagement.
He has a previous conviction for possessing a prohibited drug for which he was fined $1000 in Downing Centre Local Court in 2015. He was fined $300 at the same time for stopping in a bus zone.
His millionaire parents, James and Annemie Stein, own Wildenstein which remains a crime scene.