#Chrystul Kizer, accused of killing her suspected sex trafficker, freed on bail

A Milwaukee woman facing life in prison for murdering her alleged sex trafficker was released from jail as she awaits trial, an advocacy group said.

Chrystul Kizer, 19, was freed from a jail in Kenosha County Monday after nearly two years behind bars in the shooting death of Randall P. Volar III, whom she has confessed to fatally shooting in June 2018 in more than five hours of interviews with the Washington Post late last year.

Kizer, then 17, maintains she acted in self-defense when she shot Volar, 33, twice in the head and set his Kenosha house on fire after he drugged her and pinned her to the ground to rape her, she has told the newspaper.

Kizer’s bail was raised by several advocacy groups, including the Chrystul Kizer Defense Fund, the Milwaukee Freedom Fund and the Chicago Community Bond Fund, which announced her release.

“Far too often, survivors of violence — especially Black women and girls — are punished for defending themselves,” the advocacy group said in a statement. “Chrystul’s case highlights the urgent need for the criminal legal system to stop prosecuting survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.”

Kizer’s bail, which was initially set at $1 million, was reduced to $400,000 in February — still an “unimaginable sum,” according to her legal supporters.

Once her case is settled, Kizer’s bond money will be used to set up a national bail fund for survivors of domestic and sexual violence who are facing criminal charges, advocates said.

“We are elated to know Chrystul will no longer be locked in a cage simply for wanting to live,” the statement continued. “No one should be incarcerated for surviving violence against them.”

No trial date has been set for Kizer, although a status conference is set for September, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Gravely, who said he has spent 60 hours analyzing the case, said a possible plea deal to reduce the first-degree intentional homicide charge — which carries a mandatory life sentence in Wisconsin — to felony murder is being considered.

Under that scenario, Kizer would ultimately plead guilty to killing Volar in the course of a robbery, a conviction that still has the potential for decades in prison, the newspaper reports.

Gravely has said in court that Volar was guilty of sexually assaulting Kizer, who was 16 at the time, as well as other girls. But the prosecutor claims evidence shows Kizer planned Volar’s death and that her motive was to steal his BMW, the Kenosha News reports.

Volar had been already under investigation by Kenosha police for sexual conduct with underage girls as young as 12 when he met Kizer. Police found evidence he was abusing several underage black girls and was charged and charged without bail in February 2018, according to the Journal Sentinel.