Chrystul Kizer: Milwaukee woman sentenced to 11 years in prison for murdering man

CNN
—

A Milwaukee woman who claimed she was immune from prosecution because the man she shot sexually trafficked her was sentenced to 11 years in prison Monday, according to Kenosha District Court documents.

Chrystul Kizer – who pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the case earlier this year – will also serve five years of probation, Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley told CNN in an email Monday. “The 11 years is minus … 570 days because she has already served time in pretrial detention,” Graveley said.

Kizer shot and killed 34-year-old Randall Volar in his Kenosha, Wisconsin, home in 2018 when she was 17, Kenosha District Court prosecutors said.

Kizer shot Volar in the head, burned down his house and stole his BMW, the Associated Press reported. She was initially charged with several counts, including first-degree intentional homicide, arson, auto theft and illegal possession of a firearm.

Kizer, who is black, claimed she had been trafficked by Volar, who is white, since she was 16.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that a state law exempts victims of human trafficking from criminal liability for crimes committed as a direct result of trafficking, including first-degree intentional homicide.

The court ruled that Kizer's lawyers should have the opportunity to present evidence at trial that the crimes she was accused of “were a direct result of the violence she experienced,” according to a statement from the Chicago Community Bond Fund.

The ruling allowed Kizer to argue that she was justified in the killing, but it also said Kizer would first have to present evidence to a trial judge that her decision to kill Volar was related to human trafficking before she could claim immunity, the AP reported.

Kizer insists Volar's death was self-defense, the bail fund said, but in May of this year she pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, court records show.

Kizer, then 17, put a gun in her school bag in June 2018 and traveled from Milwaukee to Volar's home in Kenosha after telling her boyfriend she was going to shoot him because she was tired of him touching her, the AP reported, citing court documents.

CNN has contacted Kizer's lawyers for comment.