Charlise Mutten's mother has been revealed to be expecting a baby with the nine-year-old's alleged killer.
The shocking revelation comes after the schoolgirl's stepfather Justin Stein, 31, was charged with her murder and denied bail on Wednesday.
Her mother Kallista Mutten, 31, left her in his care last Tuesday, and court documents show detectives allege Stein killed her in the following 15 hours.
Detectives haven't had the opportunity to ask Ms Mutten key questions about the alleged events after the reportedly pregnant mother suffered a 'medical episode' and collapsed one day into the search for her daughter.
Social media posts have revealed she and Stein shared a whirlwind romance, announcing they were in a relationship about a year after Ms Mutten, a former ice addict who has served jail time, walked free from prison in 2019.
Stein drove approximately 200km towing a boat loaded with a plastic barrel carrying the remains of the nine-year-old over a circuitous five-hour trek, police allege.
The mother of nine-year-old Charlise Mutten (pictured) has been revealed to be expecting a baby with the schoolgirl's alleged killer
Charlise's mother Kallista Mutten, 31, (pictured) left her in Stein's care last Tuesday, and court documents show detectives allege Stein killed her in the following 15 hours
Police allege Charlise Mutten, 9, who arrived to holiday at the Wildwood mountain estate was murdered and her body encased in a barrel which was towed for hours in a boat before being dumped on a lonely riverbank in dense bushland
The barrel allegedly lay under a blue tarpaulin in the boat towed by Stein's red Holden ute from the Blue Mountains to Bunnings at Marsden Park, a nearby BP petrol station, and then on to two Sydney boat ramps.
Attempts to dispose of the schoolgirl's remains in the water are said by police to have been thwarted by Stein's inability to launch the motor boat taken from his family's luxury Blue Mountains property.
In the end, after failing to start the boat and take the barrel now also weighted down with sand to sink into deeper water, Stein allegedly took off for the Colo River.
On the afternoon of Thursday, January 13, on a river bank around 80km northwest of Sydney, police say the 31-year-old pulled up his ute in bushland.
Stein then allegedly tried to drag the heavy barrel to the river's edge and roll it in, but the weight of the sand prevented him doing so and finally he was forced to abandon it in the scrub.
Police allege Justin Stein, 31, towed a boat behind his ute which had Charlise Mutten's body inside a barrel on board as he tried to dispose of the remains
Stein's red Holden ute (above, after it was seized by police) allegedly towed a boat with the barrel of Charlise's remains from Mount Wilson to Marsden Park and two Sydney boat ramps
Charlise's remains lay in the barrel on the riverbank for five days as emergency workers searched fruitlessly for the missing girl around Mount Wilson, 65km further west.
That was until the afternoon of Tuesday, January 18 when police, acting on GPS data, located the barrel in the bush and made the gruesome discovery of Charlise's decomposing remains.
This is how the tragedy unfolded from the moment police allege Justin Stein murdered his new fiancee's daughter who had come to holiday with them at the Stein family's grand country estate, Wildenstein.
Nine-year-old Charlise Mutten's remains were placed inside a barrel and put in a boat which was towed 200km on a circuitous trek before she was dumped in scrub on the Colo River
Charlise Mutten, 9, who lives fulltime with her grandparents, Deborah and Clint Mutten in the Queensland border town of Coolangatta, arrived at Wildenstein during the Christmas-New Year school holidays.
Owned by the wealthy antique dealer Stein family for two decades, Wildenstein was operated as a wedding venue by Justin's older brother James and his husband Keegan Buzza.
Justin Stein had stayed in a shack on the five-hectare property in past years and Charlise came to spend a vacation there with her biological mother.
Police seized a boat from the Wildenstein property (above) where Charlise was staying with her mother and Justin Stein on holiday before she was allegedly murdered
Justin Stein allegedly called Kallista Mutten (above) as he bought bags of sand, boat fuel and then unsuccessfully tried to launch the vessel with the barrel from two different boat ramps
Police (above) at the Colo River where Justin Stein allegedly dumped Charlise's body in a barrel five days before the nine-year-old's decomposed remains were found
Kallista Mutten had relinquished guardianship of Charlise after developing a methamphetamine addiction, failed attempts to undergo rehabilitation and a two year prison stretch for killing a female friend she drove into a river while high on ice.
Police allege that between 7pm on Tuesday, January 11 and 10am on Wednesday January 12 - when Kallista Mutten is said to have been absent from Wildenstein - Justin Stein murdered Charlise.
But it would take two days for police and the community to be aware that anything was amiss with the little girl, whose remains were placed into a plastic barrel.
On Thursday, January 13, Justin Stein left the Wildenstein property at Mount Wilson in his Holden Colorado, police say, towing a boat carrying the barrel with Charlise's body inside.
A blue tarpaulin is believed to have been draped over the barrel in the boat.
According to GPS data detectives later obtained from Stein's mobile phone and his ute, he allegedly made the approximately one hour 20 minute journey to Marsden Park Bunnings.
Justin Stein (above in custody) was arrested a week for Charlise's alleged murder after police found inconsistencies in accounts of his whereabouts leading up to the girl's disappearance
Police say Justin Stein went to Marsden Park Bunnings (above) and bought five 20kg bags of sand which he allegedly later placed in the barrel with Charlise's body to weight it down
Next stop was BP Marsden Park where he allegedly bought boat fuel in an effort to launch the vessel carrying Charlies's body in the barrel secreted under a blue tarpaulin
Charlise Mutten, 9, was holidaying away from Queensland at the luxury Stein family estate at Mount Wilson when she vanished and became the subject of a futile search to find her alive
At Bunnings, Stein bought five 20kg bags of sand and made a phone call to Kallista Mutten, police allege.
He then allegedly made a three minute drive to the BP service station at Marsden Park, where he filled up the boat with marine fuel and called Kallista Mutten again.
At some point, Stein must have emptied the bags of sand into the barrel to weight it down.
From the BP, it is at 40 minute drive to Five Dock boat ramp on the Parramatta River in inner western Sydney, where he is said to have failed to launch the motor boat, because it was 'inoperable'.
Stein again allegedly called
