Chrystul Kizer: US trafficking victim leaves jail after two years as activists raise $400,000 bail

Ms Kizer left jail on Monday but still faces charges for killing her abuser. A trial date is still to be set

Kizer at a court hearing on 15 November (The Washington Post)

After almost two years in jail, Chrystul Kizer, the 19-year-old charged with murdering her alleged sex trafficker, has been freed from jail in Wisconsin.

Community activists raised enough funds to cover her $400,000 bail allowing her on Monday to leave Kenosha County Jail, where she had been awaiting trial.

In a case that drew worldwide attention, Ms Kizer claims she shot and killed her suspected trafficker in self defence, after a year of abuse.

Her bail was raised by community groups including the Chicago Community Bond Fund, the Chrystul Kizer Defence Committee, the Milwaukee Freedom Fund, and Survived & Punished.

Ms Kizer met Randall Volar when she was 16 and he was 33. She had posted an ad on a website that was investigated by the FBI for as a forum for prostitution

Mr Volar was the first person that contacted her, and for a year he allegedly sexually abused her while also giving her cash and gifts.

Police had evidence that he was abusing multiple underage black girls, some of it on video. He was arrested and charged, but released on bail.

In June 2018, Ms Kizer maintains that Mr Volar was trying to pin her to the floor at his home in Kenosha, when she shot him twice in the head. She then set the house on fire and fled the scene in his BMW.

She was charged with arson and first-degree intentional homicide, which in Wisconsin carries a mandatory life sentence. Her bail was originally set at $1m.

Prosecutors maintain that Mr Volar’s death was premeditated and that Ms Kizer had planned to steal his car. She had brought the gun to the house, and had downloaded a police scanner app in the moments before she shot him.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that a plea deal to reduce charges from first-degree international homicide to felony murder is on the table. If convicted it is unlikely she would serve the decades in jail usual for such a conviction, and her young age, and the abuse she suffered, would be taken into account.

Ms Kizer’s mother led the committee working to raise bail, which was dropped down to $400,000 earlier this year.

The killing of George Floyd, and subsequent calls for criminal justice reform, drew attention to the case. The publicity attracted donations and approximately 950,000 signatures on a petition asking for charges to be dropped, The Washington Post reports.

At the same time, the Chicago Community Bond Fund was inundated with donations to release protesters arrested during related demonstrations. The fund contributed a sizeable portion of the money needed for bail.

Ms Kizer left jail on Monday with two large bags full of letters and artwork from supporters.

A news release from the activist groups involved in securing the bail money says that after the case the returned funds will be used to establish a national bail fund for criminalised survivors of domestic and sexual violence.

The fund will be overseen by Survived & Punished and house at the National Bail Fund Network,

No trial date has been set, but the case is scheduled for a status conference in September.