A Wisconsin woman who fatally shot a man who was her alleged sex-trafficker after a year in bondage was sentenced Monday to 11 years in prison and five years of extended supervision.
Chrystul Kizer was 16 when she met Randall Volar after posting an ad on the website Backpage, hoping to acquire money for school supplies and snacks, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Volar, 33 at the time, was already being investigated by police in Kenosha, Wisc., for sexually abusing girls as young as 12 — and soon added Kizer to the list.
Volar spent the next several months physically and sexually assaulting Kizer before being arrested in February 2018 for child sexual assault. He was released on bail despite video evidence of him committing sexual assaults on a number of underage Black girls, officials said at the time.
In June of that year, after Volar, then 34, tried to touch Kizer, the 17-year-old fatally shot him, burned down his house and escaped in his BMW. She was charged with first-degree intentional homicide, arson, car theft, being a felon in possession of a firearm, and other charges.
Her lawyers argued a 2008 state law exempts sex-trafficking victims of criminal liability for “any offense committed as a direct result” of being trafficked; prosecutors said homicide went beyond the intent and scope of the law.
In 2022, the state Supreme Court ruled Kizer could use the law in her defense. She pleaded guilty in May 2024 to second-degree reckless homicide, avoiding a trial and a possible life sentence.
The case stands in stark contrast to that of Kyle Rittenhouse, who was also 17 when he rushed to Kenosha during protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in August 2020, toting an AR-15 style rifle, intending to protect businesses and help render first aid, he said at the time. In the name of self-defense, he shot three men, two of them fatally, and was acquitted on all charges in 2021.
With News Wire Services
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