Chrystul Kizer sentenced to 11 years in prison for killing man she said sexually trafficked her as teen

Chrystul Kizer was sentenced to 11 years in state prison after pleading guilty to second-degree reckless homicide in the killing of a man she said trafficked her as a teenager.

Court records show that Kizer, 24, was sentenced Monday to 11 years of confinement followed by five years of supervised release. She must submit a DNA sample to authorities and attend a restitution hearing at a later date.

In May, Kizer entered a guilty plea for reckless homicide. The decision to plead to a lesser charge ensured she would not have to go to trial, avoiding the risk of a potential life sentence.

A voicemail for one of the public defenders representing Kizer was not immediately returned on Monday.

Kizer was 17-years-old when she was accused of killing Randall Volar III in 2018 before setting his body on fire. She was initially charged with first-degree intentional homicide, but Kizer argued she was legally allowed to kill him because he was sexually trafficking her.

Kizer was 16 when she met Volar and alleges that she had been sexually abused by him multiple times. The prosecutor’s office had previously confirmed it was working on a case against Volar at the time of his death.

But prosecutors also said Kizer didn’t give any indication at the time of the killing she was trafficked by Volar.

She said in a 2019 interview with the Washington Post that on June 4, 2018, she went to Volar’s home with a gun in her purse that she said her boyfriend gave her for protection.

While there, Kizer alleged that Volar gave her a drug and the two decided to watch a movie. The two began to fight after Volar allegedly began touching her and she refused to have sex with her.

She alleged in her interview with the Washington Post that he had pinned her before she shot him twice. Kizer then set Volar’s body on fire and fled the home in his car.

“I just thought that I didn’t want to do that stuff anymore because I was trying to change,” she said.

Kenosha District Attorney Michael D. Graveley accused Kizer of premeditated murder, alleging that she planned to steal Volar’s BMW, according to NBC News affiliate WTMJ.

She had a legal victory in 2022 when the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld a ruling that she could argue she acted in self-defense, under a state law that allows victims of trafficking to have “an affirmative defense for any offense committed as a direct result” of being trafficked.

Kizer was released from prison in February on a $400,000 bond when she fled the state, violating the conditions of her bail. She was eventually caught two weeks later in Louisiana and was returned to Wisconsin.

Graveley told reporters after her sentencing that he was happy in the sense that the case was finally closed without the unpredictability of a trial, according to WTMJ.