The Charlise Mutten murder trial of accused killer Justin Stein has been sent home for the long weekend after they failed to reach a verdict on Friday.
The jury first retired on Thursday to decide if Stein murdered schoolgirl Charlise Mutten, 9, by shooting her in the face but have yet to reach a verdict.
But at 1pm on Friday, Justice Helen Wilson sent the jury home after they requested access to a transcript of evidence given by the accused’s mother, Annemie Stein.
Jurors, who have now been deliberating for about five hours, have previously asked for transcripts of the testimony of both Mr Stein and Charlise’s mother, Kallista Mutten.
Justice Wilson wished the panel members a good weekend and said she would see them back in court next Tuesday.
In closing submissions on Thursday, the jury was told the issue in the case is not how the schoolgirl died, but who pulled the trigger.
Justin Stein claimed Charlise’s mother Kallista Mutten shot and killed her own daughter around 9pm on January 12, 2022.
The prosecution insisted Stein was the last person to see Charlise and had the opportunity to kill her between 7.16pm on January 11 and 10.06am on January 12
Charlise’s body was found near the Colo River, northwest of Sydney, on January 18, 2022 with gunshot wounds to her lower back and a fatal shot to her face.
Stein, 33, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Charlise, claiming he heard Ms Mutten shoot her daughter, who cried out his name and then ‘Mummy, no’ before falling to the ground at the Stein family property, Wildenstein, in the NSW Blue Mountains.
Justice Helen Wilson concluded her instructions and summation of the evidence in the NSW Supreme Court trial around lunchtime on Thursday.
Stein admitted dumping Charlise’s body, but he said Ms Mutten shot her daughter and placed her body in a barrel on the back of his ute without his knowledge.
Ms Mutten denied having any involvement in her daughter’s death and broke down in tears when faced with the accusation in court.
Many of the facts of the case were not in dispute, including that Charlise died from gunshot wounds she sustained at or near a Mount Wilson estate owned by Stein’s mother, the jury heard.
‘The issue is not how Charlise died, it’s who pulled the trigger,’ Justice Wilson said.
The judge told jurors that if they found there was a reasonable possibility that Ms Mutten shot her own daughter, they must find Stein not guilty.
‘The Crown has no evidence of someone who saw the shooting of Charlise by the accused,’ she said.
Stein appeared as the defence’s only witness in the trial, spending two days going over his version of events at the start of the week.
At the time of her death, Charlise had been visiting her mother and Stein from Queensland, where she lived with her grandparents.
Charlise stayed at Stein’s mother’s Sydney house, then with Ms Mutten and Stein – who were engaged at the time, with the little girl calling the accused ‘Daddy’.
They divided their time between Wildenstein and a cabin at the Riviera Ski Gardens at Lower Portland, the trial was told.
Charlise spent the night of January 11 alone with Stein at Mount Wilson, while her mother remained at the cabin, which is when prosecutors argued he killed her.
Crown prosecutor Ken McKay SC said it was open for the jury to find Stein had drugged and fatally shot Charlise.
A post mortem found Charlise had traces in her body of quetiapine, the ingredient in anti-psychotic prescription drug Seroquel, which Stein took for his schizophrenia.
The jury heard an adult dose of the drug would have a profound sedative effect on a child, but that it was difficult to tell how much Charlise had been given.
Mr McKay said a possible motive was that Stein killed Charlise when she became sick after he gave her the drug.
Stein denied giving Charlise the medication, instead claiming that she was shot by Ms Mutten on the evening of January 12.
He said he had gone along with a plan to cover up the murder, including lying to police about leaving the girl in the care of an imaginary woman who was valuing items at the Mount Wilson estate.
Stein claimed he was unaware Charlise’s body was in a barrel on the back of his ute until the next day and that he panicked and ultimately disposed of her remains when he found out.