A Milwaukee woman has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for killing the man who prosecutors say sexually trafficked her when she was a teenager.
The verdict announced on Monday ended a six-year legal battle for Chrystul Kizer, now 24, who had called for immunity from prosecution.
Kizer was charged with involuntary manslaughter for shooting 34-year-old Randall Volar in 2018 when she was 17. Earlier this year, she accepted a plea deal to avoid a life sentence.
Volar had filmed his sexual abuse of Kizer for over a year before he was killed.
Kizer said she met Volar when she was 16 and the man sexually abused her while giving her cash and gifts. She said he also made money by selling her to other men for sex.
A Washington Post investigation found that authorities had evidence, including videos, suggesting that Volar had abused about a dozen black girls, including Kizer, all of whom appeared to be underage girls.
Four months before Volar’s death, he was arrested by police for sexual assault, but released the same day.
According to police, Kizer traveled armed from Milwaukee to Volar’s home in Kenosha in June 2018. She shot him twice in the head, set fire to his house and took his car.
Prosecutors said the murder was premeditated and part of a plan to steal Kizer’s car. Kizer’s lawyers argued she acted in self-defense.
Kizer’s case was a test of the leniency afforded to victims of sex trafficking. Some states have enacted laws that protect victims from certain charges, including prostitution or theft, when those acts were the result of trafficking.
Kizer had examined whether an affirmative defense could be used for victims of human trafficking in homicide cases. In 2022, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that this was possible.
The ruling allowed Kizer to present evidence proving she was abused at the time of the crime. The case attracted widespread attention and Kizer received support from activists in the #MeToo movement.
To avoid the risk of a possible life sentence in the trial, she ultimately decided to take a plea deal.
“I can try to move on,” Kizer told the Washington Post in an interview from prison this year.
She has already served more than a year and a half of her sentence. After her final release, she faces five years of extended probation.
