Charlise Mutten question police can’t answer as detectives reveal how nine-year-old allegedly died

Police have said it’s too early to discuss a possible motive in the alleged killing of nine-year-old Charlise Mutten in NSW last week.

A senior NSW Police investigator revealed on Tuesday Charlise was allegedly shot to death before she was stuffed in a barrel.

Police believe the barrel containing Charlise’s body may have been driven around Sydney before it was allegedly dumped in the Colo River.

“It’s terrible, not only the fact that she was a nine-year-old girl, but also the circumstances of her death are unimaginable,” Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty alleged while addressing the media on Tuesday.

But Mr Doherty declined to speculate what could have possibly motivated someone to carry out the alleged murder.

He said he was mindful that Charlise’s 31-year-old stepdad, Justin Stein, who has been charged with murder and is before the courts, deserved a fair hearing.

“We’ll be providing all that information to the court when we have to,” he said.

“(Stein) has rights at the moment, in relation to his version, and I don’t want to expand on that at the moment.

“Why would someone do this? The circumstances – they’re all part of the ongoing investigation.”

Police have revealed more details about the timeline surrounding the alleged murder, and have released CCTV to the public in the hopes people will share with investigators any observations they may have made.

Investigators will allege in court the murder happened at a property in Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains either on the night of January 11 or early the following morning, Mr Doherty said.

Police will allege the plastic barrel that Charlise was found in came from that property.

The CCTV footage released on Tuesday shows a red Holden Colorado ute pulling a trailer with a covered-up boat at a BP service station in Madison park on January 13, the day before the girl was reported missing.

The ute was also caught on other CCTV cameras driving by Victoria Road in Drummoyne, at 7.19pm the same evening, and at Bayswater Road in the same suburb a minute later.

Mr Doherty said any potential witness observations from the Five Dock boat ramp in Drummoyne between 7.20pm and 9.50pm on January 13 could prove “very important”.

He said it was possible the child’s body was either in the ute or the boat in the pictures that were released.

Mr Doherty also revealed Charlie’s mother had given a formal statement last Friday, after previously needing medical care.

She has not been implicated in the killing.

Charlise’s disappearance sparked a massive five-day search of dense bushland, with more than 100 emergency personnel joining the operation.

Police searched near the Colo River on January 18, about an hour’s drive from where the girl went missing and found a child’s body in a barrel.