“No,” Mutten replied.
When Davenport proposed that she had “done that out behind the shed”, Mutten replied, “No.”
Charlise Mutten was allegedly murdered by her mother’s fiance, Justin Stein.
“You shot her once in the back and once in the head,” the barrister said.
“I didn’t even know she was shot with a gun,” Mutten replied. “I don’t even know where she was shot, so now I know.”
Davenport suggested Stein had seen Mutten “deliver the shot”.
Mutten broke down in tears and told the court she needed a moment, before a brief adjournment.
Defence claims murder occurred behind chicken shed
When court resumed, Mutten was asked whether her daughter had fed the chickens at the Mount Wilson property.
“On a few occasions, yes,” she replied.
Davenport said: “What I would suggest is that you followed Charlise down to the area behind the shed and that’s where you shot her.”
“No,” Mutten replied.
Justin Stein allegedly drove his red ute across Sydney with the body of Charlise Mutten in a barrel in the tray.Credit: NSW Police
She denied suggestions that Stein had come out “at the time that you [Mutten] shot her a second time in the face”, that she asked Stein to “get a tarpaulin”, or had placed her daughter’s body in a plastic container on the back of Stein’s red Holden Colorado ute.
Mutten quizzed about ‘witchcraft’
Davenport also asked Mutten about a “whole lot of witchcraft-type stuff” she had in the shed, which she denied.
Asked about a pendulum she used “to find out if you should do something”, Mutten said it was “spiritual, I wouldn’t say witchcraft”.
She was asked by Davenport whether she believed in the “occult, that you could get messages”.
“I believe in a higher power, yes,” Mutten replied.
In response to the suggestion she can receive messages that tell her “what to do”, she said, “yes and no”.
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“Did the messages tell you to kill your daughter?” Davenport asked.
“No,” Mutten replied.
In her evidence on Monday, Mutten said her daughter had asked to “go with Daddy”, being Stein, to the Mount Wilson property on January 11 while she stayed behind at Stein’s caravan.
Prosecutors allege Stein killed Charlise between 7.16pm on January 11 and 10.06am on January 12.
Mutten said Stein told her on the morning of January 12 that Charlise was sick, and he had left her in the care of a female auctioneer at the home. Mutten said she and Stein spent the day together, injecting ice and having sex, and returned to the home that night to find it in darkness.
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Mutten said she and Stein had argued after she found evidence of him cheating. On January 13, she said Stein told her his ex-criminal associates may have kidnapped Charlise, and would kill her if Mutten went to the police.
She said Stein left that afternoon to search for Charlise, but returned alone in the early hours of January 14. Mutten reported her daughter missing hours later.
The defence claims Stein told various stories to protect Mutten.
Mutten on Tuesday denied she had made up the stories about the auctioneer or associates.
“In my heart, I really did believe that Justin had gone to look for her,” she said. “I believed his side of the story.”
The trial continues before Justice Helen Wilson.
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