Chrystul Kizer released from jail after groups raise bail
Teen charged with killing her suspected trafficker
After nearly two years of incarceration in the Kenosha County Jail, child trafficking survivor Chrystul Kizer was released Monday after community activists raised her $400,000 bail.
The case of Kizer, who shot and killed her suspected trafficker after a year of sexual abuse and violence, has drawn international attention from advocates who say she is a victim acting in selfdefense and have campaigned for charges to be dropped.
Her bail was raised by a combination of community groups that included the Chrystul Kizer Defense Committee, Chicago Community Bond Fund, Milwaukee Freedom Fund and Survived & Punished.
When Kizer was 16, she posted an ad on a website later seized by the FBI as a forum for prostitution. Kizer said she posted the advertisement to get money for school supplies and snacks. She didn’t know who would respond since she was new to the site and had to have another girl show her how to use it.
Kenosha resident Randall P. Volar III was the first to contact Kizer.
At the time they met, Volar was already under investigation by the Kenosha Police Department for sexual conduct with underage girls as young as 12.
He was 33.
From Milwaukee to Kenosha, Volar physically and sexually abused Kizer over a period of months.
Police found evidence that he was abusing multiple underage Black girls. in February 2018, he was arrested and charged, and released without bail.
In June 2018, when Kizer was 17, she shot and killed Volar, set his Kenosha house on fire and fled in his BMW. Her bail was originally set at $1 million.
According to the news release, when Kizer’s case ends, a majority of the returned bail money will be used to establish a national bail fund for criminalized survivors of domestic and sexual violence. The fund will be under the direction of Survived & Punished and housed at the National Bail Fund Network.
Additionally, a percentage of the returned money will be donated to Milwaukee Freedom Fund for its ongoing bail fund.
Chrystul Kizer’s Defense Committee is also collecting donations to continue to support her legal defense, living expenses and ongoing costs of treatment and care.
Mia Noel of the Milwaukee Freedom Fund said this collaborative effort shows what is possible for the community.
“The better world (that) protesters are struggling for is one that protects not punishes young, Black survivors like Chrystul,” Noel said in the news release.
Kizer’s case has attracted attention nationally and internationally. As of this week, a fundraiser for Kizer has raised more than $63,000 over the course of 136 days. A change.org petition to #FreeChrystul that has circulated widely on social media has received nearly 1 million signatures.
Hundreds of letters, encouraging words, artwork and books were sent to her jail cell in Kenosha. Even more support posted online, on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, each sharing the same message: #FreeChrystul.
The support on social media also called on supporters to write letters, make phone calls and send emails to Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley, asking him to drop the charges against Kizer, who is now 19.
According to the petition, “Chrystul resisted Volar’s attempts to forcibly engage in sexual activity. During this struggle, Chrystul shot Volar in an act of self-defense. Chrystul has been charged, wrongfully, for surviving violence. She is being criminalized for staying alive.”
Some groups that have signed the letter are the #FreeChrystul Defense Committee, African American Roundtable-Milwaukee, Black Youth Project 100: Milwaukee Chapter, Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, Chicago Community Bond Fund, Freedom Inc., Hmong American Women’s Association and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin.
Those letters have been filed away in Graveley’s office.
“We’ve kept a lot of them,” Graveley said.
“But then there’s been a lot of personalized emails as well,” he said.
No trial date for Kizer has been set. The case is scheduled for a status conference in September. Graveley said a plea offer to reduce charges from firstdegree international homicide to felony murder is on the table.
He said he has responded to some emails and letters, some that have mentioned expertise in the case or some from Kenosha locals who have questions.
“What I have found in interactions with people who have emailed me, that they have very specific things they know about the case, that I assume advocates of Ms. Kizer have put into petitions or a fact sheet,” Graveley said. “They are using the facts that they believe are the most supportive of the position they want to take, which is to dismiss the case.”
The prosecution is only allowed to talk about the facts of the case when it is relevant and in specific hearings, something he said he is finding difficult when talking with those who contact him.
“I’m not allowed to bring up facts that are not brought up in hearings, I’m not allowed to respond (in a) public fashion while the case is pending,” he said.
“My interaction with people, personally, is that they have not known a lot of the facts that I have the benefit of knowing,” he said. “I’ve spent more than 60 hours going through this case.”
In the reduced charge of felony murder, Kizer would be pleading to killing Volar in the course of a robbery. It would not carry the mandatory life sentence that goes with first-degree intentional homicide but still has the potential for decades in prison.
Graveley said no one involved in the case pictures Kizer going to prison for life. Even if convicted of first-degree intentional homicide, a judge could make her eligible for supervised release in the community in the future.
“Even if she’s convicted of a homicide charge that is currently in there, Ms. Kizer at her young age, and with the offenses that Mr. Volar committed against her earlier, she is never a person who will be incarcerated for decades. That’s not going to happen in this case,” Graveley said.