Chrystul Kizer at a hearing in the Kenosha County Courthouse on November 15, 2019.Photo:Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty
Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty
When law enforcementarrived at the crime scene, they found a burned male body with two bullet wounds in his head. The man’s BMW had been stolen from the driveway of his Kenosha, Wis., ranch home.
As law enforcement’s homicide investigation continued, they learned that the dead man – Randall “Randy” Phillip Volar III, 34 – had been in their custody just three months before, charged with child sexual assault among other crimes,The Postreported. Then, inexplicably, law enforcement had let the man go — without posting bail, according to the paper’s reporting.
Chrystul Kizer (L) and Randall Volar (R) in mugshots.Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s office; Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department via AP
Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s office; Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department via AP
During Volar’s brief period of freedom, police learned he had been preying on about a dozen underage Black girls, perThe Post. Law enforcement’s investigative file on Volar at the time he was alive noted that he had “hundreds” of child sex videos with girls as young as 12, perThe Post, which noted that more than 20 “home videos” included Volar, who is White, specifically with underage Black girls.
Still, the Kenosha County District Attorney’s Office did not prosecute him and Volar remained free.
The now-vacant lot where Randal Volar’s home once stood. Chrystal Kizer says she shot her alleged abuser, then set a fire in his home in self-defense.Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty
That victim, Chrystul Kizer, eventually confessed to killing Volar. To date, she does not contest to shooting and killing the man and has said that her idea to set a fire in the home came from an episode ofCriminal Minds, perThe Associated PressandThe Post.
It is the first time the state’s affirmative defense law had been used as a defense in court,The Postreported.
Chrystul Kizer with her legal team at a hearing in the Kenosha County Courthouse on November 15, 2019.Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty
The same district attorney’s office that had delayed Volar’s prosecution, quickly charged the child with the intentional homicide, which in Wisconsin carries a mandatory life sentence, perThe Post.
PEOPLE does not usually name people who identify as victims of sexual assault. However, Kizer came forward with herPostinterview, and as news of her case spread, she has become a known figure in child sex trafficking cases with complicated self-defense arguments.
Family Photo/The Washington Post via Getty
When her case first hit the docket, #MeToo was in its infancy. In years since, landmark cases like R&B singerR. Kelly’s 2021 convictionhas shed light on how young women like Kizer can be targeted and groomed– even when from the outside it would appear they have the choice to stay or to go.
“He was a grown-up, and I wasn’t,” Kizer toldThe Postin a 2019 interview, explaining why she had continued to see Volar as he sold her off to different men and collected her payments. “So I listened.”
Randall Volar in a booking photo taken Feb. 22, 2018, just a few months before his killing.Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department via AP
Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department via AP
In a landmark 2022 opinion, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin ruled that Kizer could potentially be acquitted of all charges because her crimes were a “direct result” of the trafficking crimes committed against her,perThePost.
Chrystul Kizer and defense attorney Gregory Holdahl at the Kenosha, Wisconsin, County Courthouse Thursday June 15, 2023.Mark Hertzberg/ZUMA/SplashNews
Mark Hertzberg/ZUMA/SplashNews
After almost two weeks on the run, Kizer was arrested some 1,000 miles from her Wisconsin home Monday,per her online incarceration records, which note that she was taken into custody at Lafayette Parish Correctional Center in Lafayette, La.
Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Valerie R. Ponseti told PEOPLE in an email Wednesday afternoon that “no local charges” have been filed.
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In her 2019 Post interview, Kizer did not shy away from the complications in her case.
“Both of us,” were victims she said of herself and the alleged abuser she killed. “Because of the stuff that he was doing to me. And, that he should have never died.”
Kizer’s murder trial isreportedlyset for June 10.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go torainn.org.
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.
source: people.com
