Chrystul Kizer was arrested at age 17 for the murder of Randall Phillip Volar III. During her arrest, she claimed Volar was her sex trafficker. On June 5, 2018, she allegedly shot him twice while he was sitting in a chair, set his house on fire, then stole his car. Kizer was arrested and incarcerated at

Kenosha County Kenosha County is located in the southeastern corner of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The population was 169,151 as of the 2020 census, making it the eighth most populous county in Wisconsin. The county shares the same name as the city of Kenosh ...

Detention Facility to await trial. Kenosha County prosecutors charged her with first degree intentional homicide using a dangerous weapon, and four other felonies. They contend the killing was premeditated. If convicted, she would face a mandatory life sentence in prison. Kizer's lawyers claim that she was a child trafficking victim acting in self-defense against her sex trafficker. Her case received renewed notoriety in December 2019 after ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' interviewed her, and after the

George Floyd protests The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of internati ...

. Community activists posted her $400,000 bond, and she was released in June 2020. A trial date is not set. Renewed interest in her case followed the

Kyle Rittenhouse Kyle Howard Rittenhouse (born January 3, 2003) is an American known for shooting three men, two fatally, during the civil unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August 2020 when he was 17 years old. At his trial in November 2021, a jury found Rittenh ...

case (which also took place in Kenosha) where the defense claimed self-defense and the jury delivered a not guilty verdict.

Background and incident

Kenosha, Wisconsin resident Chrystul Kizer met Randall "Randy" Volar III, a 34-year-old white man, on

Backpage was a classified advertising website founded in 2004 by the alternative newspaper chain New Times Inc./New Times Media (later known as Village Voice Media or VVM) as a rival to Craigslist. Similar to Craigslist, Backpage let users post ads t ...

when she was 16. She posted to the site after a referral from a girl she knew, and stated that she needed the money for food and school notebooks. He was the first person to contact her when she joined the site. She lived with him and alleged that he sexually abused her regularly and sometimes filmed the abuse for over a year. Kizer alleged that he began trafficking her using Backpage and took the money she was paid. Volar was previously arrested in 2017 after a 15-year-old girl reported him to police for giving her drugs and threatening to kill her. He was charged with child enticement, using a computer to facilitate a child sex crime, and second-degree sexual assault of a child. Volar was released the same day and had to pay no bail, and was told he would receive a court summons. ''The Washington Post'' reported that court records demonstrated that police had evidence that Volar was abusing multiple underage African-American girls and there was video evidence of the abuse. Records also showed that the prosecutor's office received the evidence 12 days before Volar was killed and three months after his arrest. Prosecutors allege that Kizer killed Volar on June 5, 2018, by shooting him in the head. Charging documents say Kizer admitted to taking an Uber from Milwaukee to Volar's residence, shooting him because "she had gotten upset and she was tired of imtouching her", and then starting a fire at the residence before departing in Volar's BMW. A neighbor called

9-1-1 , usually written 911, is an emergency telephone number for the United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Palau, Argentina, Philippines, Jordan, as well as the North American Numbering Plan (NANP), one of eight N11 codes. Like other emergency nu ...

to report the fire at Volar's house. Police found and identified his burned body, and a later autopsy showed he had been shot in the head. Volar's car was found abandoned in

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...

. Police used a receipt found in the car, surveillance video, and

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to track the stolen car to Kizer by matching an arrest photo to her selfies and live video. Prosecutors allege Kizer also stole a laptop and cash from Volar. Kizer initially denied knowing Volar or traveling to Kenosha, but later affirmed those facts.

Aftermath

Kizer was incarcerated at the

Detention Facility and bail was set at $1 million. Kenosha County charged her with first-degree intentional homicide, which carries a mandatory life sentence in prison according to Wisconsin law. Lead prosecutor and District Attorney Michael Graveley alleged that the killing was premeditated. The prosecution agreed that Volar was an abuser, but further stated that Kizer planned to steal Volar's car as indicated by being armed with the gun, and that she downloaded a police scanner app the day of the shooting. In her first press interview to ''

'' in December 2019, Kizer disputed her initial police statement and said she had killed Volar in self-defense because he had her pinned down and was attempting to sexually assault her. Her lawyers planned to argue an

affirmative defense An affirmative defense to a civil lawsuit or criminal charge is a fact or set of facts other than those alleged by the plaintiff or prosecutor which, if proven by the defendant, defeats or mitigates the legal consequences of the defendant's o ...

, a Wisconsin state law that allows one to be acquitted of all charges if a crime was committed as a direct result of being

trafficked ''Trafficked'' is a 2017 American thriller drama film directed by Will Wallace and starring Ashley Judd, Sean Patrick Flanery and Anne Archer. Plot In California, Sara is eighteen and has to leave her foster home; she is offered training to be a ...

. There are no known cases where the affirmative defense has been used in an offense involving a violent crime. In December 2019, Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge David Wilk ruled that "Chrystul did not have access to the affirmative defense law for trafficking victims."

Media attention and activism

Kizer's case received national attention after Jessica Contrera of ''The Washington Post'' covered the story in December 2019. Alyssa Milano and

Tarana Burke Tarana Burke (born September 12, 1973) is an American activist from The Bronx, New York, who started the MeToo movement. In 2006, Burke began using MeToo to help other women with similar experiences to stand up for themselves. Over a decade late ...

were among those who circulated information about the case on social media. Critics of Kizer's arrest argued that the criminal justice system frequently punishes trafficking victims such as Kizer. Sex crimes expert Rachel Monaco-Wilcox stated that children of color are seen as willing participants in trafficking cases. Supporters wrote letters to Kizer. Cyntoia Brown-Long wrote an op-ed that outlined the similarities between their cases. A petition with approximately 950,000 signatures circulated that requested Kizer's release and the case's dismissal in December 2019. DA Graveley posted a Facebook response that stated that he would not be swayed by the petition. Kizer's mother, Devore Taylor, formed the Chrystul Kizer Defense Committee to organize around the case and to raise bail money. The case received renewed attention again after the

, and organizations such as Chicago Community Bond Fund received an influx of donations.

Ongoing case

A trial date has not been set. In February 2020, Judge Wilk lowered the bond amount to $400,000. At a June 2020 hearing, Kizer's public defenders stated that she had contracted

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

while incarcerated and argued that she should be released to receive medical attention. The motion was denied. Kizer was released on June 22, 2020, after she posted bond raised by the Chicago Community Bond Fund, the Milwaukee Freedom Fund,

Survived and Punished Survived and Punished (stylized as Survived & Punished or S&P) is an American national volunteer-run organization that campaigns for the abolition of custodial sentences for victims of abuse who defended themselves from their attacker. The organi ...

, and the Chrystul Kizer Defense Committee. On June 2, 2021, the

Wisconsin Court of Appeals The Wisconsin Court of Appeals is an intermediate appellate court that reviews contested decisions of the Wisconsin circuit courts. The Court of Appeals was created in August 1978 to alleviate the Wisconsin Supreme Court's rising number of appe ...

released a published decision, finding that the trial court had erred when denying her the ability to raise, as an affirmative defense, WIS. STAT. § 939.46(1m), related to victims of human trafficking and child sex trafficking. This decision was upheld by the Wisconsin state Supreme Court in July 2022.

References

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