A Milwaukee woman has been jailed for 11 years for killing the man that prosecutors said had sex trafficked her as a teenager.
The sentence, issued on Monday, ends a six-year legal battle for Chrystul Kizer, now 24, who had argued she should be immune from prosecution.
Kizer was charged with reckless homicide for shooting Randall Volar, 34, in 2018 when she was 17. She accepted a plea deal earlier this year to avoid a life sentence.
Volar had been filming his sexual abuse of Kizer for more than a year before he was killed.
Kizer said she met Volar when she was 16, and that the man sexually assaulted her while giving her cash and gifts. She said he also made money by selling her to other men for sex.
I am outraged, a plea deal to avoid life imprisonment? What the fuck did I just read?!
This guy trafficked, raped and tortured her, and other underage women. Police did jack shit. And she was supposed to be watching him just walk away? Grotesque.
Any jailtime is ridiculous. She’s been in prison for 8 years. The judge had a chance to try and rebuild her life, but they gave her punishment for getting trapped in a bad situation. What’s the issue, does the judge think she’s going to go out and start shooting other rapists and traffickers?
If this was how my cards were dealt, I would likely make it my life’s mission.
This country certainly goes all in for cruel and unusual punishment.
Well the very act of shooting someone in the head twice, burning their home down, and stealing their car is cruel and unusual punishment.
Despite what everyone in the comments seems to think you’re not legally protected from going John Wick on someone regardless of how much they’ve wronged you or if the system failed you.
They were dead when they got shot in the head, everything else is largely unrelated to the punishment in my opinion its just cathartic. She couldve done far far worse to him than a quick execution, id have probably ripped out his nails and teeth and then killed him with a power washer via the worst enema.
Id have cut off his dick and made him choke to death on it.
Mutilating a corpse is also grounds for worse punishment.
However she chose burning down the house to hide the evidence no matter how much sympathy we have for the victim, it’s hard to get past that she was free, she showed premeditation, she drove a considerable distance to find him, she murdered him, and she attempted to hide evidence.
What if the house fire she set caused other houses to catch on fire and kill the families living there?
There’s an argument for her going to jail for arson if anything.
Thats actually valid, I was simply pointing out that its just not adding to the cruel and unusual punishment element.
You don’t believe the state destroying all of someones possessions after conviction then death doesn’t add to cruel and unusual punishment?
What’s the issue, does the judge think she’s going to go out and start shooting other rapists and traffickers?
The issue is that the patriarchy must uphold rape culture, and that the absence of justice for rape survivors is a feature of that, not a bug, and the courts can’t have that power taken away from them.
Could it be the judge more cares about being the one to impose sentences and doesn’t like others doing it?
Like, it’s easy to see this same decision happening even in a non-patriarchal context - at least for me.
That’s the bottom line, yeah.
This is a good point. Prison is supposed to be rehabilitation. But how can you rehabilitate someone who has run out of targets. Plus if she has been in 8 years as you say. Time served. I am guessing she had a public defender who gave her bad advice.
I don’t think the judge did have that chance if I’m honest.
Despite her understandable motive, the fact is that she murdered the guy.
I think it would be easy to prove that she suffered a mental break at most and get mental help instead of jail.
This is a shitty corrupt judge in a shitty corrupt system.
I’m certain that even the worst lawyer in history would have considered this angle if it were viable.
I dont know how it could be argued anyone was in their right mind after going through what she went through.
This is exactly what jury nullification is for
With or without a jury, the inescapable fact is that she murdered him.
Right, that’s my point – jury nullification is the mechanism by which juries find that a crime was committed by the letter of the law but the defendent is not guilty.
Wouldn’t the judge then be in the line of fire, technically, as well as those that own him?
Who is the f’ing prosecutor?
I don’t understand why she wasn’t tried as a minor
Most 17 year olds charge with murder, or some variation of killing someone, aren’t charged as minors. That’s not taking a position on this specific case, it’s just a fact.
They need to re-evaluate that especially in cases where somebody has been robbed of years of development like this one
her sentence absolutely should have been reduced further as that asshole not just raped but trafficked her, this is only fair for her to delete his ass.
The sentence that ass would have got would never ever bring her any justice.
His sentence might have been shorter then hers. The justice system is a joke.
He was white. How much could one jail sentence be? 10 years?
If they even would have charged him. They took my abuser to dinner instead.
I hear you. My wife was put through the wringer (to put it mildly) so I understand. None of them ever experienced justice. I had an old girlfriend who was abused by her stepdad. No justice. That was all almost 40+ years ago. I hope we’re doing better as a society now, but we still have a long ways to go.
That’s horrible :( I hope we are too
I crunched the numbers a while ago ~ 3 out of 100 people who commit rape will be sentenced in the US. His odds of being adequately punished for his crimes were incredibly low. Most rapists serve less than 10 years as well. On a good day he probably would’ve gotten 3-5 years tops
Most cases of rape are probably in private: no witnesses or evidence. The literal “he said vs she said” situation with no objective support for either side. Of course prosecuting that is difficult.
This ought to have been easier to find evidence, after they knew what was happening and by whom
Can you recalculate for Sex Trafficking?
justice system
There’s your problem - we don’t have a justice system, we have a legal system.
The sentence that ass would have got would never ever bring her any justice.
Yes. If sex-trafficking rapists could get life sentences, that would be great.
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So now we judge the law as to what you deem “fair”? What about what I deem “fair”? What if we differ? If you want to argue this, why even have law?
She came back later, with a gun, and murdered him, then burned his house down and stole his car. We all good with vigilantes now?
I’m with her, but she got a fair sentence.
Maybe humanity just deserves to die, all of it. That’s why I joined the submarine force, so I can be there to flip the toggle when the order comes to end it all. I even look forward to it, sometimes, like when I read shit like this.
This lady needs to be pardoned or it’s the origin story for a villain who has an understandable grudge against the justice system.
If I was on the jury, I’d nullify.
And they have processes in place to make sure you wouldnt be on that jury.
Vocal knowledge of jury nullification is grounds for dismissal.
Prior intent to nullify is basically perjury. Now you are both in jail
See, the system works! /s
I assume I can’t be on any jury, as I have moral opinions that are contrary to the status quo.
Here’s a related headline. Haven’t read it yet:
‘I just wanted peace’: my 35-year fight to bring my abusive father to justice
Carol Higgins was 15 when she first reported her father’s abuse to the police. They told her he wouldn’t be charged. But she refused to let it rest until he finally stood trialSorry, America governors only pardon you when its the pedophile doing the murdering.
My mother was abused by her father. No one helped. Her own siblings, also abused, blamed her when she spoke out about it. She was then abused by my father. When the police came round after physical violence, they laughed at her.
I find myself not really expecting moral behaviour from humans as a group. That women must endure worse punishment for killing their abusers than their abusers would have received is unpleasant.
I’m just a flyby idiot on Lemmy, but I am blown away that she was charged. The one article I read didn’t go into a ton of details on th actual shooting, but she was raped and trafficked and shot her abuser. Did the DA pursue it because she is black?
She traveled from Milwaukee to Kenosha of her own volition with intent to kill, shot him twice, burned his house down, and stole a car.
Going to someone’s place uninvited with intent to kill that person is premeditated murder. Burning down a house is extremely reckless, others could’ve been easily caught up or injured in this rampage. Not to mention that the house fire likely destroyed a lot of potential evidence. Other victims might have more difficulty finding their own justice as a result, or worse if he had any accomplices their collaboration could be harder to prove.
Cool motive. Very understandable motive even. Still murder. Vigilante justice is no justice.
That’s what I was afraid of. Shooting him when she was about to be raped is different to a prosecutor than planning to kill her rapist and then making it happen.
Im just some random dude on the internet, but if i was raped and sex trafficked I personally wouldn’t feel safe until the rapist was dead. Our legal system is fucking garbage.
…I personally wouldn’t feel safe until the rapist was dead.
If humans had a justice system which prioritised protecting people from sex traffickers and rapists, that would be great. Put them in prison for a long time.
Yes, killing someone in self defense is different from going back later with intent to kill them. That’s always been true
Every time I hear about something like this, I find myself thinking that climate change is a good thing. And then I fantasize about a head on gamma ray burst or a lovely coronal mass ejection stripping away the atmosphere.
Life was a mistake.
Humans aren’t so great. But they also seem to be self-limiting, so it all evens out.
As you imply, humans have an overall negative impact on the human world that they create for themselves and each other. I don’t emotionally identify as a human because of that. I just exist, and watch it all happen without blaming myself.
Doing nothing in the face of great evil is half the problem with human beings.
What was it mlk said about moderates?
"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”
Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
Letter from Birmingham Jail, by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., 16 April 1963
But if you’re the only one doing something against that great evil you’re a nutter.
And if what you are doing to fight that evil is against the societal norm - then at best you are a nutter, at worst you are a dangerous threat.
My fantasy is that mutually-assured destruction scenario plays out. Give us some good fireworks before our eyeballs are roasted into particles. Humans suck, and it ain’t gonna get better.
To preface, I am not defending the police or the piece of shit abuser. This was handled extraordinarily horrendously. Police even knew about the guy’s crimes and let him off without a slap on the wrist.
The basis of my thoughts comes from this paragraph in the article:
Police said that Kizer travelled from Milwaukee to Volar’s home in Kenosha in June 2018 armed with a gun. She shot him twice in the head, set his house on fire and took his car.
I don’t know any info beyond what the article gives, but it sounds like at that point she wasn’t being held captive and murdered to get away from her abuser. She actively plotted and had the freedom to travel and kill him. Unless there’s something I’m missing, I don’t think I could consider this as actively being self defense.
No but it was deserved justice for a crime that was going unpunished
Do we really want vigilantism though? Because that’s where this leads.
Maybe the police should do their job for a change.
Not defending the cops here but the guy was arrested. The justice system set him free again.
Fair enough, the courts didn’t do thier job. The courts and the police work for us. If they fail us, we have to take over. That should be the defense.
You literally just described vigilante justice.
Just a thought: what happens when that “we” is people who - say - think the courts and the police are not doing their job in sending home all “these illegal immigrants” or something like that?
The slope isn’t always slippery.
Then we have a nice little civil war again, kill a few million of them, and this time when they surrender for the second time, we do a hard reset of their entire culture - no monuments, no statues, no memorials, no representation or voting for any of them or any who aided or abetted them, or their children, or their children’s children.
Which is true, and also doesn’t address the point. (Also, obligatory ACAB.)
The problem with vigilantism is that the vigilante both decides whether an offense has been committed, and what the punishment should be for that offense. If I’ve been hit repeatedly by people speeding in my neighborhood, and cops aren’t giving the speeders tickets, no one in their right mind is going to say that I should start shooting at people driving in my neighborhood. (Or, I would hope no one in their right mind would say that.)
She knew whether an offense had been committed.
That doesn’t prove it to anyone else, of course, but it doesn’t seem like anyone is (now?) contesting the the offense in question was committed. Just that he got off free and she had no recourse. This is not a one time event, either, it’s a pattern where the law fails to protect people in this situation and then throws the book at them if they take matters into their own hands. If she had not, do you think this dude would still be free? Or would the law have eventually caught up to him, after who knows how many more victims?
You don’t get a license to kill just because the justice system failed you. I’m loving how everyone is screaming about how bad the justice system is with this case yet they think a bunch of pissed off ppl thirsty for revenge is a somehow the more measured and practical solution.
What if after she set the house on fire it burned down the whole block? What if the guy had a victim in the house with him when it happened? Another person pointed out she could’ve destroyed evidence from other victims. Two wrongs don’t make a right
Even if she didn’t harm any other people - the criminal justice system in the US doesn’t allow for the death penalty for cases of rape. (And in point of fact, part of the reason that we don’t do that any more is because it tended to be disproportionately applied against black men accused of assaulting white women.)
I’m not saying it’s more measured or practical, I’m saying it’s inevitable when the system doesn’t serve the people. I’m saying chaos is preferable to tyranny.
Downvoted just f the ACAB. Who said it’s obligatory? Why? That one phrase that reeks of generalization, civilized society has adopted it now? If this is not what it’s supposed to mean, I am open to explanations.
The point is that the system of policing that we have now is corrupt, and doesn’t protect or help victims. We see this quite often with sexual assault, where cops flatly refuse to investigate; rape kits remain untested for decades. The “good” police officers that try to affect change from within the system end up empowering the system, or get thrown out.
When the official justice system fails people, some of them will take matters into their own hands. Frankly it’s surprising there isn’t more political violence targeting police and corrupt judges.
And remember, jury nullification exists.
ahem Yes, surprising. And, yes it does.
In this case? Absolutely yes.
Are you willing to universalize that though? Are you willing to allow all people that believe that they have been treated unjustly to take justice into their own hands?
Absolutely not.
That’s your risk though. You let this person administer their own justice, why shouldn’t someone else?
Where, exactly, is the line? How do you keep that slope from getting covered with oil and grease?
I mean you talk like it isn’t already a vigilante based system.
Everything you are arguing is already happening. Except the vigilantes are state sanctioned.
Cops pick and choose what laws to both follow AND enforce all the time. And the judges protect them.
That’s not how it works.
The dowvotes on this one worry me.
Yeah the police don’t work so your solution is to go be even worse police? At this point, no justice at all might be better rofl.
I’d rather have vigilante justice than no justice at all.
Vigilante justice has as notoriously bad false positive rate.
The theoretical extreme alternative is a society with two classes, criminals doing whatever they want and victims with no recourse.
Once he was dead, setting the house on fire had nothing to do with justice.
And easily could have put innocent people at risk if it had spread to neighboring houses.
Won’t somebody please think of the property?!
Fires can spread. Neighbors could have lost their lives.
Eh, fair point.
Man, it’s almost like house fires can both spread to other houses and also set off gas explosions that then endanger the lives of innocent neighbors.
And first responders could have died trying to search for occupants or while trying to put out the fire.
[citation needed]
You want a citation for the house being burned not being justice? Do you think the house deserved it?
That’s essentially what happened here. She wasn’t at risk any longer and the murder was premeditated. The prosecutor did their job here as they are supposed to, and it was sentenced as it should have been according to the law.
That being said, this is really why we have pardons, and I hope one is granted in this case.
If it was a movie she would be the protagonist at least
Trauma is a hell of a thing to deal with. Feeling unsafe as long as a person’s abuser walks freely, even if they are far away, is VERY common. I’d imagine if it was someone who was repeatedly abused that’d magnify the trauma response.
Not saying she didn’t murder that guy, but knowledge about the psychological effects of sexual abuse does give context to her actions. If she was feeling tortured by this unsafe feeling, like he could come back at anytime to hurt her again, and almost obesessing over it(trauma can do this to anyone) I can see why she did what she did.
It’s not like mental health care and support is widely available to people here in the US. Shit is expensive, and that’s if your insurance covers it…if you even have insurance. Add in trying to find someone who specializes in trauma care and it can get really overwhelming and discouraging. People give up on seeking help and spiral.
A lot of things could’ve prevented this. Things like easy access to mental health support, or I dunno…actually putting rapists in jail where they can’t hurt more people.
Regardless of your opinion on vigilante justice, can we all agree that this is what gubernatorial pardons should actually exist for?
If I was an AG this shit would’ve never gone to trial. Jesus Christ.
And that’s why you’re not.
This is a failure on her attorney to make a good case. There is no way a normal person votes to convict here. There has to be something we’re missing as to why they agreed to a guilty charge.
“Four months before Volar died, police arrested him on charges of sexual assault but released him the same day.”
Yeah maybe we are not told about how corrupt police is.
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She wasn’t in any danger, so it wasn’t self defense. She grabbed a gun, got in a car, drove 40 miles to a completely different city, shot the dude twice, set his house on fire, and stole his car. It’s an open and shut case, so the jury would have to ignore all evidence to say she is not guilty (which some jurors might do because the murder feels justified).
As happy as I am about his death, this is vigilante justice. She committed premeditated murder, acting as the judge, jury, and executioner. I do not want cops to have that freedom and don’t want normal people to have it, either.
This seems like a situation where maybe her mental health should be considered a factor?
It’s not like she killed him for no reason/little reason. Premeditated on her end or not - she was abused and tortured by this man.
And the police let him go.
So yeah I’d argue she was and continues to be done dirty by the system.
Probably, but the system is also slow and we don’t know what would have happened
I wonder if she was coerced to do so under false pretenses. But I also saw others in the comments point out that it looked more like a premediated murder than a self defense one since she apparently went to his house to kill him, so she was not held against her will at the point of the murder.
She was free from him and sought him out. She drove from Milwaukee to Kenosha, shot him twice in the head, set his house on fire, and stole his car. It was premeditated murder.
She probably felt she had to take the deal. Most likely pressured by the cops/her shitty attorney.
This. Court appointed attorney will always push you to take the deal, they’re so overworked, going to court is an absolute last resort. And a private attorney is unaffordable to most people.
She actively plotted and traveled to get revenge and clearly didn’t act in self defense. While it’s easy to be sympathetic to her story, her guilt seems difficult to deny.
This:
Police said that Kizer travelled from Milwaukee to Volar’s home in Kenosha in June 2018 armed with a gun. She shot him twice in the head, set his house on fire and took his car.
Whatever we think about this guy, it still was a murder.
Ehhh it was a nice murder.
Oddly applicable
*chef’s kiss*
This is a classic case of the differences between lawful good, lawful neutral, and neutral good.
Lawful good would feel conflicted but settle on conviction, because it was premeditated and not self defense.
Lawful neutral would convict and feel no conflict at all. The law was broken, nothing else matters.
Neutral good would not convict, because they don’t think the law adequately handles this kind of situation.
The problem is, within the legal system, neutral good is seldom an option – by definition it’s going to be some kind of lawful. And that sucks here.
She accepted a plea deal. No trial no jury.
Trials are expensive and she clearly didn’t have money to spend in her own defense.
Sounds like it was a reasonably high profile case, and some kind of test case. I suspect she could’ve secured a great pro-bono lawyer.
The guy was criminal scumbag that deserved justice, for sure.
But after she was free at him, she came back with clear premeditation then burned the house to hide evidence. If not for the circumstances of her abuse, she’d likely get a much worse charge
i don’t understand how incredulous people are in the comments. is this your first time hearing any news? he was white.
I can’t find the statistic right now, but it’s something like over 2/3 of women in US prisons (and likely elsewhere) are there for killing or otherwise harming the man who was abusing, raping, and or trafficking them.
Meanwhile a large majority of abusers rapists and traffickers walk away from their crimes scot free.
The purpose of a system is what it does.
Ide like to see Kamala start by pardoning this. Never going to happen but what a message it would send
State crime not federal. The Governor of Wisconsin, Tony Evers, would be the one to pardon her.
Ahh boo. But thanks for the correction
It should be legal to kill any person who traffics you.
On the one hand the guy was a scumbag. On the other she was away from him and sought him out to end him. One of the hardest things to accept in life is that your abusers often wont ever face any consequences for what they have done to you. Often you are punished for seeking it out and when someone does something like this it just gives the powers that be incentive to make a example out of you. After all many of them are similarly guilty and fear the same fate.
I think anybody who is sex trafficked for a year should legally get a freebie. Anybody who is willing to abuse or sex traffic another human being should just be at peace with the possibility of being ended by their victims. Good thing I don’t make the laws, I guess?
It’s mostly a matter of a right to a fair trial, these people deserve death but our legal systems are fragile and prone to failure. It’s important to prove guilt before condemning the damned. Even if they deserve it. Glad this guy got what was coming to him though.
Now the only thing to do is make the best of the circumstances. Thankfully she avoided a life sentence.
- Spend your time in prison reading everything you can get your hands on, Edmond Dantes-style.
- Earn your law degree or something else essentially before you leave prison.
- Write an autobiographical book; publish.
- Profit.
Is jail where they give her her medal of honor?
Ill reserve the rest of my opinion but two in the head is cleaner than an abuser of that magnitude earned for themselves, feels like at that point you’re basically just preventing any more victims they would have made. Cops have walked away free men after worse executions for worse reasons.
