Chrystul Kizer jailed for 11 years for killing her abuser

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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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?
- Someone who understands she was free from the person who was trafficking her and she sought them out and killed them. Yeah it's glorious justice on the big screen but in the actual legal system this is vigilante justice.
  In my state under the Castle Act or whatever it's called, someone can break into your house, threaten you and your family's life but until you prove your ability to flee was prevented physically you cannot fire a weapon for protection regardless of intent to scare, injure or kill.
  That is the framework used by our legal system to prosecute cases of self defense. You as a citizen cannot take the law into your own hands like the defendant did. No matter how justified it may seem.
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.

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
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 trial
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/aug/20/carol-higgins-father-abuse-how-we-survive
Sorry, America governors only pardon you when its the pedophile doing the murdering.

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?
- 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.
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.

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.
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.
- 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.
If a woman is the abuser does the man get to murder her?
- Men do murder their female partners at a much higher rate already.
  Research shows around 10% of college aged males self-report as having sexually assaulted women. This has been replicated in multiple countries: https://jimhopper.com/topics/sexual-assault-and-the-brain/repeat-rape-by-college-men/
  Men, on average, serve two to six years for killing their female partners: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2019/jan/12/intimate-partner-violence-gender-gap-cyntoia-brown
   
  So, yes, men get to murder women. They get to rape women. They self-report having done so as if it's not that big a deal. They get to enjoy shorter sentences than 11 years, on average. I hope this answers your question.

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.
- Once he was dead, setting the house on fire had nothing to do with justice.
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.
- Do we know she wasn’t at risk any longer? I don’t see that in the article. Or what about this guys other victims. Are they also no longer at risk? Again, don’t see mention of that in this article
If it was a movie she would be the protagonist at least
- There's a whole season of Dexter with basically this premise
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.
- What could have prevented this is not shooting someone. Can we go around shooting all the people who wronged us in life?

Dude would have gotten like two years for his SA but defend yourself from SA and its over a decade.

For all the lip service America pays to pedos being bad, its shown VERY consistently its real opinions on the matter.

We literally have child marriage in some states.
Please, tell people. We deserve to be shamed and judged for the gold plated shithole we are.
Also, we are extremely weird, backwards, and prudish about healthy adult expressions of sexuality due to our puritcanical roots, so we don't even have any good to go with the bad. We're a garbage place with a garbage culture all the way down.
- Trust me, I never shut up about how Republicans in like 12 states are either currently fighting or within the past couple years have fought minimum marriage age laws.
- I love that you said "gold plated" because I've always said America's gilded age never ended.
- We literally have child marriage in some states.
  If you define "child marriage" as there being any scenario where someone under 18 might be married, then it's most states. Only 13 states actually ban child marriage under that definition.
  The rest generally require you to be 18, but have exceptions with approval by the parents and/or a court (depending on the state). Four states have no hard minimum at all, one has a hard minimum of 15, most have a hard minimum of 16.

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.
I don’t see the governor of the red state of Wisconsin pardoning a black girl convicted of murdering a white man. Maybe i’m too cynical but I don’t see that happening.

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.
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.
- 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.
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
There has to be something we’re missing as to why they agreed to a guilty charge.
You and all the commenters in this thread not doing a single moment of research before commenting is what is missing.
- Thank you fuzzy. You comment was as worthless as the moment you spent typing it.

Alright kids.

There's this wonderful thing called "Jury Nullification"

That means if 1 juror refuses to convict then there is no conviction.

It is your privilege, right, and I daresay even duty to use this helpful tool when you deem it necessary. If you're called for Jury Duty on a case. Let's say non violent drug case. I don't believe nonviolent drug offenses should be against the law at all except in the case of something really bad like Fentanyl. So if I was called I would refuse to convict if the defendant was there for let's say Mary Jane.

But don't ever say those words. Don't allude to it. Don't discuss it with your fellow jurors. Don't Google it after you've been called. It's your secret. But it's a secret everyone should know if you get my meaning.

Now go forth and make the world a better place.

She took a plea deal. No jury.
One juror refusing to convict is a hung jury and a mistrial, which prosecutors will then retry.
Jury nullification would require a unanimous vote to acquit.
I just posted this somewhere else but it belongs here...
It's a jury's job to find a defendant guilty or not guilty of a given charge.
When a jury starts considering whether they feel a charge is fair, they're pretty much just making up the law. At that point you don't need a court and a jury you could just have a bunch of people deciding the defendants fate based on the vibe.
When you say they "don't want jurors to know", they simply want jurors who understand their role in finding a defendant guilty or not guilty. Thinking that nullification is a possible outcome is tantamount to a refusal to fulfil the role of a juror.
- Whether a jury feels a charge is fair is the whole reason trial by a jury of peers exists.
  It's a feature of the system, not a bug.
- Tell that to those abolitionists who were not convicted of harboring fugitive slaves because of jury nullification.
  Sometimes laws aren’t just. And as citizens we have a right to stand up to unjust laws.

i don't understand how incredulous people are in the comments. is this your first time hearing any news? he was white.

Imagine if the races were reversed how much hysteria there would be nationally. If an older black man seduced and sold a white teenage girl into sex slavery.
I fucking hate our culture
- You're being down voted but you're so right. Had little jessica murdered a person of color for trafficing her i doubt shed face any jail time. Honestly i wouldnt be suprised if little ole jessica were to shot a completely random person of color and still not face jail time.
- The solution is making "black lives matter" more before they are taken, so that people of color would have bigger economic and social power.
  That's how these things work, humans are ultimately apes, this doesn't happen very consciously.

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.

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/jon-ossoff-led-senate-report-finds-thousands-of-cases-alleging-sexual-abuse-of-women-behind-bars-spanning-two-thirds-of-u-s-prisons/
They get abused again in prison.

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.

If he was convicted of raping her what would he get 7 months slap on the wrist? … we need change in this legal system cause its backwards designed that way.

He trafficked her, meaning there are men walking around free who paid to r*pe her.
America is disgusting.

This woman needs a trophy and a monument not imprisonment. This will only encourage sex trafficking.

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.
- What about people with abusive parents? Can they kill them too? Can they go to college and come back after graduation to kill their parents who they haven’t seen for years? You don’t think other people are abused too?
When our justice system doesn't work vigilantism becomes ethical
On the other she was away from him and sought him out to end him.
I'd need a lot more info before I judged her for that. Had law enforcement been notified and done anything to stop him from victimizing others? If not then she did the right thing. If the "justice system" doesn't do it's job you can't blame people for circumventing it.

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.

its always like "man gets upset, kills somebody, 2 years"

"woman abused for years, kills him, 10 years"

Biden could pardon her

Only if she was prosecuted for a federal crime. IANAL, and I have no idea if this was federal or state, but the president doesn't have pardon power over the state, only the federal government.
- Can the a state governor pardon her?
Oooo, good idea.
False
- It was just a shot in the dark, I have no idea about the laws preventing or allowing such a thing. I thought he could tie it in to boost support, but apparently it's a non-issue

I hope someone shook her hand and thanked her for her service before they put her away.

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.

Is jail where they give her her medal of honor?

Let killer cops go free, jail the victims of the failed justice system.

The cruelty seems to be the point.

Good kill. Still murder. She is not a threat to society though...so...11years hardly-enforced house arrest might be more fitting.

Fuck that, give her a medal and a therapist and send her on her way. Killing this guy was not a crime it was community service.
eh, I'd call it some gene pool chlorination.
- Wait like... Him being removed from the pool or her?

Sounds to me like she has a new abuser.

The only punishment she should have ever received is mandatory therapy. This is a fucking traumatized woman, and you are adding to the trauma.

Time for some Shawshank redemption shit

I feel like, if this was Texas... there would be no punishment for her. She was severely wronged and he was clearly a danger to society. He had multiple victims. The police had evidence and released him. If he had been in jail, if he had been in custody and not roaming around free, he'd still be alive if that was oh, so fucking important.

I'm going to say it louder for the people in the back. They found proof of multiple victims. They knew he did it, he was let go. The "legal" system failed not only Chrystul, but the surrounding community.

Texas!? She is a poc... She would probably be on death row!
The “legal” system failed not only Chrystul, but the surrounding community.
Excellent grounds to start a lawsuit. Not a murder, though.

That poor girl, this world is so disgustingly unfair.

Now with that said, it is not your place to obtain whatever you may think is "justice". We have no need or want for vigilantism, all that creates is more opportunities for mistakes to happen and innocents hurt.

Was it vigilantism? Did you read up on the case? Do you ever stop to think, why is it so easy for these fuckers to sex traffic girls? How they typically manage to get away with it for so long, against so many different women? You know, it's ALMOST like the system is set up to make it easier for them to commit the crime than it is for the girls to find a safe way out. Weird, huh?
Now with that said, it is not your place to obtain whatever you may think is “justice”. We have no need or want for vigilantism, all that creates is more opportunities for mistakes to happen and innocents hurt.
Yes it is your place. If the law doesn't account for that and unjustly puts you behind bars, the problem is with the law.
- This case is an easy one. The problem is folks seeking justice for slights that aren't so heinous and the whole drawing the line thing.
  I'm totally on board with her killing the dude, if I was on the jury I'd have ignored the charge from the judge 100%. There should be a "what you did is illegal and you are guilty, but no jail for you" kinda deal.
That's not vigilantism. That's escape. We're locking this woman up for escaping her situation.
- Did you read the article? It sounds like she had escaped. Maybe her persecutor had psychological control over her but not physical, that makes it vigilantism.
- She'd already escaped. She was free of him. Then she got a gun, hunted him down, and shot him.
  This is why she couldn't claim self defense or a battered woman defense - she'd already escaped.
- Another uninformed and angry commenter getting upvoted by this awesome community.

This is fucking infuriating.

Best outcome she could have is she could get early parole, or serve some years of her sentence while the rest is suspended. There have been cases before of victims killing their captors/traffickers and received long term prison sentence, but were later paroled or their sentence had been reduced or commuted to something more lenient.

No its absolutely not. The best and only just outcome would have been acquittal via nullification by the jury.
- She took a plea deal to avoid life sentence. Only hope is parole or a pardon.

Absolutely outrageous.

I bet if this poor girl were white she would have walked

Disappointing. Gdi.

Fucking disgraceful.

Lemmy now supports not only the death penalty but death penalty without a trial.

Wanting someone who killed in desparation in well-known and very extenuous circumstances a lighter punishment in no way condones the crime.
Many think the justice system should prioritize rehabilitation, not retribution.
Instead of fixing people, retribution just breaks them even further, making it more likely they'll commit a crime in the future, oftentimes because they're forced to by circumstances they find themselves in when (if) they're finally set free.
If somebody goes to the zoo, jumps in the lion pit, and throws rocks at a lion, I imagine a lot of people wouldn't "wish the death penalty on him for his sheer offence" when he's pulled out of the enclosure. However, I also imagine many people would feel unsympathetic if said person happened to die at the lion's jaws, nor wish for the lion to be punished.

Media Bias Fact Check | bot support

Milwaukee, part of another flyover state. WOW. Really I see my self having absolutely no reason to ever step foot in that state.

Uh .. Milwaukee is not a state.
- We can agree on that.
Milwaukee is awesome. So's Madison.

Why do sex traffickers still receive human rights? Honestly. Once convicted they should be free use tissue. If the victim didn't wanna get revenge, they turn to medical slaves for testing. Something like that.

If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. Traffickers are uniquely evil and should get a unique legal treatment. I feel revulsion at a lot more acts and attitudes than I used to, but I've never felt bad at all for a trafficker. Even if there was a movie level backstory explaining them, until down otherwise, I feel is personally completely impossible for me to feel bad about anything that's happened to them, and I would feel absolute glee if I heard they so much as got a paper cut. No other people group do I so thoroughly enjoy every little thing that they don't enjoy. The sadder and more upset they get, the happier I am. But it only applies to them.

As a stupid kid I would have applied that to a lot of people. All of whom I feel terrible about it now. Except this one. I still love their suffering, and I don't see that ever stopping.

And I do understand the problems changing their status would bring up legally, but I still wish I could own a torture farm just for them. Make a Saw multiverse.

Same reason why the death penalty is bad - the system isn't perfect, and people get wrongfully convicted. Hell, a majority that the Innocence Project has gotten exonerated were convicted of sex crimes.
- Practically, and in an actual setting, no doubt. I'm not sure that's a business we wanna get into in practice.
  This is just an overgrown middle schooler way of saying how lowly I think they rank in particular.

FOR FUCKS SAKE CHILDREN. 100% OF THE TIME YOU TRAVEL TO ANOTHER TOWN WITH A GUN, SHOOT SOMEONE TWICE IN THE HEAD KILLING THEM, THEN BURN THEIR HOUSE DOWN AND FLEE YOU WILL 100% FACE JAILTIME. 11 YEARS TO COMMIT PREMEDITATED MURDER IS A VERY FUCKIN FAVORABLE DEAL AND SHE WOULD BE RETARDED NOT TO ACCEPT. Fuck me the amount of people in here saying lies that she killed him to escape or that she deserves a fuckin pardon is absolutely retarded. Yeah dude she killed 100% deserved it but so does her receiving 11 years as the consequence.

Well, not 100%, Rittenhouse didn't face a day of jail time. Though I guess he killed two people instead of burning a house down.
- Well, not 100%, Rittenhouse didn’t face a day of jail time. Though I guess he killed two people instead of burning a house down.
  He was able to show an imminent need of self defense. I don't agree with the outcome of his case, but they aren't the same thing.
What if you shoot someone seven times in a courtroom?
https://youtu.be/YnaOvWeiBQw?si=9J-GcFdVhPMKT3hp
- I mean I guess lol usually people use examples from the country in question or atleast examples from more recent cases than 50 years ago. I also did not expect that the example would also show that the act of vigilante justice from Germany 50 yeas ago still was convicted and sentenced to 6 years and patrolled in 3. It's a little shorter than the 10 or 11 years from the posted article but unless she kills again in prison, she'll be out before serving 10. I personally know a shitbag who was convicted of dwi manslaughter for killing another driver between 5-12 years ago about and he was sentenced to 6 and released without fuckin parole after only 3 years for good behavior.
  Everything that happened to this woman is fuckin horrible and as long as the person she killed was undoubtedly the person responsible, then noone is arguing he didn't deserve to die. However the other people here saying this is bullshit and that if she was white she'd be Scott free is absolutely marginalizing the hell this woman went thru and the sacrifice she KNEW she would face as the cost of taking justice in her own hands. It is so fucking commendable and respectable to do what she did but the 10 years was inevitable and is par for the course for this type of conviction in the US justice dept.

She'll probably have an easy time inside. She's gonna be a Rockstar in there.

shouldn't EVER have been an issue, even the prosecution knew she was trafficked. if it was a jury trial, fuck them.
- Plea deal means it never made it in front of a jury.
- Tbh, prosecutors are just as evil as the criminals.