KENOSHA, Wis. (TCN) — A 24-year-old woman will spend over a decade behind bars for fatally shooting a 34-year-old man who reportedly molested and sex trafficked her when she was a teen.
Court documents show that on Aug. 19, Chrystul Kizer received a sentence of 11 years of initial confinement followed by five years of extended supervision in connection with the death of Randall Volar. She pleaded guilty to second-degree reckless homicide in May.
According to The Associated Press, prosecutors argued that in 2018, Kizer, who was 17 at the time, fatally shot Volar at his home before setting his house on fire and stealing his vehicle. She initially faced charges of first-degree intentional homicide, arson, car theft, and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Kizer reportedly met Volar on a sex trafficking website, and he had molested and sex trafficked her. The Associated Press reports that Kizer informed authorities she shot Volar when he had attempted to touch her.
Records show Kizer’s bail was initially set a $1 million in June 2018 and later decreased to $400,000 in February 2020. Multiple community groups, including the Chrystul Kizer Defense Committee, Chicago Community Bond Fund, Milwaukee Freedom Fund, and Survived & Punished posted Kizer’s bail, and over 1.5 million people signed an online petition to have the defendant’s charges dropped, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
Kizer argued she was legally permitted to kill Volar because he was sex trafficking her. According to The Associated Press, in 2022, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court ruled that a 2008 state law that pardons trafficking victims of criminal liability against their traffickers includes first-degree homicide. However, the court said they needed evidence proving the fatal shooting was directly correlated to being trafficked.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, investigators learned Volar was allegedly abusing multiple underage Black girls prior to his death. Authorities arrested him in February 2018, and he was charged and released without bail.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that Kenosha County Judge David Wilk, who sentenced Kizer, said, “The court is well aware of your circumstances surrounding your relationship with Mr. Volar. You are not permitted to be the instrument of his reckoning. To hold otherwise is to endorse a descent into lawlessness and chaos.”