Charlise, sick but alive, in the care of an "auction lady"; a woman the offender told Ms Mutten had children of her own, was almost as good as a nurse, and had offered to care for Charlise, even to the extent of an overnight stay.
26 On returning to Mount Wilson at around 8:44pm that evening,[1] it was impossible for the offender to maintain the pretence that Charlise was at the property in the care of someone else, and his elaborate lies to conceal his crime began to alter and develop. Initially searching the property in a show of looking for Charlise, he next suggested to Ms Mutten that the auction lady may have taken Charlise to her own home. He staged a telephone call to his mother, ostensibly to obtain the contact details for the auctioneer. Mrs Stein, not a party to the deception, told the offender that the auctioneer she had engaged to look at some furniture that she wished to sell had not been due to attend the property until some later stage. Ms Mutten, now very anxious about her daughter, began to telephone local hospitals to inquire if Charlise had been admitted as a patient.[2]
27 Overnight on 12 to 13 January 2022, there were arguments between the offender and Ms Mutten about the state of their relationship and, at one point, Ms Mutten took the offender's car and drove off.
28 On Ms Mutten's return early on 13 January 2022, and consistent with the threatening nature of voice messages the offender later left for her,[3] the offender approached her, clearly enraged because she had taken his car. Frightened of his aggressive demeanour, Ms Mutten again drove off in the utility.
29 Extraordinarily, given what he had done, and having regard to the presence of the body of a murdered child likely somewhere on or near the property, the offender called the police to report the theft of his car, giving the officer he spoke to a comprehensive description of Ms Mutten as the supposed thief, but lying about any knowledge of or relationship with her. He also made a number of calls to Ms Mutten, leaving the voicemails to which I have referred on her telephone service, in which he threatened to hurt and kill her and others. The
