38 Having sent the weighted barrel down the embankment the offender left the area by turning his vehicle around at 2:45am and driving back along Lower Colo Road. Closed circuit surveillance footage captured the vehicle en route, including at a petrol station at Bilpin at 3:27am.[1] The tray of the utility was empty. No doubt because he could not, given the incontrovertible proof of it, the offender did not dispute at trial that he had dumped the barrel at Lower Colo; instead, he falsely claimed that he did so at Ms Mutten's instigation, again seeking to blame her for his own indecent conduct.
39 The offender arrived at Mount Wilson at 4:26am. Having failed to bring Charlise home with him, as he had told Ms Mutten he would, he thereafter told her that she could report Charlise as missing. By lying to Ms Mutten about what had happened to Charlise, and undertaking the purported journey to find her, all the while telling Ms Mutten that if she telephoned police, Charlise would be killed, the offender had bought himself the time he needed to dispose of Charlise's body.
40 Ms Mutten made a report to Emergency Services at 8:12am on 14 January 2022. The offender did not stay at Mount Wilson to support his fiancée in what was an extremely distressing time for her, instead driving to the outskirts of western Sydney intending to obtain his prescribed opiate replacement injection.
41 As might be expected with a report of a young child missing, a substantial police and rescue operation immediately commenced to search for Charlise. With almost equal speed the offender's many lies about what may have become of her were exposed. Despite the numerous false claims he made when interviewed by detectives at Penrith Police Station on 14 January 2022, his displays of purported distress at Charlise's fate, and his attempts to divert the attention of the police to Charlise's mother, the offender quickly became the subject of the suspicions of investigators. Once the barrel was found on 18 January 2022, at the very location to which he had been tracked, his arrest for Charlise's murder, that same day, was inevitable.
42 The offender has been in custody since his arrest on 18 January 2022.
- ↑ Ex. D, Map S.
