Wisconsin woman sentenced to prison for killing man who sex trafficked her when she was a minor

KENOSHA, Wisconsin – A 24-year-old woman who shot and killed a 34-year-old man who had allegedly sexually assaulted and trafficked her as a teenager faces a sentence of more than ten years in prison.

On August 19, Chrystul Kizer was sentenced to eleven years in prison, with an additional five years of supervision. Prior to this, she had entered a guilty plea to second-degree reckless homicide in relation to Randall Volar’s passing.

According to an Associated Press report, in 2018, Kizer, who was 17 years old at the time, shot Volar at his residence before stealing his car and setting the house on fire. At first, she was charged with a number of offenses, such as car theft, arson, first-degree intentional homicide, and felon possession of a firearm.

Kizer was abused by Volar, whom she met on a website for sex trafficking. She told the police that Volar tried to attack her, so she shot him.

Kizer’s bail was subsequently lowered to $400,000. Originally, it was set at $1 million. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, more than 1.5 million people signed an online petition urging the charges against her to be dropped, and community organizations and private citizens raised money to post her bail.

Kizer claimed that since Volar was trafficking in her, she had a legal right to kill him. The Milwaukee Journal Sentiel also reported that the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided in 2022 that first-degree homicide is covered by a state statute that absolves victims of human trafficking of criminal responsibility against their traffickers. But the court ruled that there had to be proof directly connecting the deadly shooting to the trafficking.
Before his death, Volar was allegedly abusing several Black minors, according to what investigators found out. In 2018, he was taken into custody but was later freed on no bond.

The Kenosha County Judge who sentenced Kizer, David Wilk stated that, “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.”