He was sexually abusing underage girls. Then, constabulary said, i of them killed him.

Now Chrystul Kizer, who was 16 when she met Randy Volar, is accused of murdering her alleged sex trafficker. She faces life in prison.

Chrystul Kizer, at a court hearing Nov. xv , is accused of killing her alleged sexual practice trafficker. Photo by Sarah 50. Voisin/The Washington Postal service

KENOSHA, Wis. — Metallic cuffs strained against her ankles every bit she shuffled down the courthouse hallway. She passed her mother, who had grown used to seeing her teen girl in a jail uniform. She passed the activists, who saw her as a victim of child sex activity trafficking.

She entered the courtroom, where she was facing life in prison on charges of murdering her alleged sex trafficker.

"The courtroom calls 18CF643," said the gauge at this Nov hearing. "State of Wisconsin versus Chrystul Kizer."

Chrystul looked upward at him, so down at her hands. She sat between the public defenders assigned to her when she couldn't afford her own lawyer. Beside them was the district attorney, the atomic number 82 prosecutor for Kenosha County, a lakefront community of about 169,000 people betwixt Milwaukee and Chicago.

Both sides agreed to certain facts virtually what had brought them here:

When Chrystul was sixteen, she met a 33-year-old man named Randy Volar.

Volar sexually abused Chrystul multiple times.

He filmed it.

She wasn't the merely one — and in Feb 2018, police arrested Volar on charges including child sexual assault. But then, they released him without bail.

Volar, a white homo, remained free for three months, even after police force discovered evidence that he was abusing about a dozen underage black girls.

He remained complimentary until Chrystul, and then 17, went to his house i dark in June and allegedly shot him in the head, twice. She lit his torso on fire, police force said, and fled in his car.

A few days afterwards, she confessed. District Attorney Michael Graveley, whose office knew about the prove against Volar merely waited to prosecute him, charged Chrystul with arson and first-degree intentional homicide, an offense that carries a mandatory life sentence in Wisconsin.

Graveley says he believes Chrystul'southward crime was premeditated. The testify, he argues, shows she planned to murder Volar so she could steal his BMW.

Chrystul, now 19, maintains she was defending herself. Speaking publicly from jail for the outset time, she said that when she told Volar she didn't want to have sexual activity that dark, he pinned her to the floor.

"I didn't intentionally endeavour to exercise this," she said.

Randall Phillip Volar Three, who went by Randy, at his male parent'due south wedding in 2012. (Family photo)

Chrystul Kizer, seen in 2016, the same yr she met Volar. (Family unit photograph)

Randall Phillip Volar Three, who went by Randy, at his begetter's wedding in 2012. (Family photo) Chrystul Kizer, seen in 2016, the same twelvemonth she met Volar. (Family photo)

Her case comes at a fourth dimension when law and prosecutors across the country are reevaluating how victims of sex trafficking should be treated. This yr, Tennessee released Cyntoia Brown, whose story went viral in the midst of the #MeToo movement. She went to prison at historic period 16 and served 15 years for killing a human being who purchased her for sex.

Brown's story, along with the downfall of financier Jeffrey Epstein and singer R. Kelly, reveal what most kid sex activity trafficking actually looks like in America: vulnerable kids, not kidnapped and held captive, not chained and smuggled across borders, simply groomed by someone they trust and manipulated into assertive they are the ones to blame for the abuse.

Nether federal police, all children who are bought or sold for sex are trafficking victims, regardless of the circumstances. Thirty states and the Commune have stopped charging minors with prostitution.

Most states likewise accept a law that gives sex-trafficking victims an "affirmative defense." If they can prove at trial they committed a crime because they were being trafficked, they can be acquitted of sure charges against them.

Wisconsin is one of those states — and Chrystul wanted to use that police force to defend her deportment. Despite prosecutors' certainty that her crime was premeditated, her lawyer argues she still has a complete defense to the charges.

But the affirmative defence force constabulary has never been used in a homicide or any other tearing crime. Non in Wisconsin and, as far as advocates know, not anywhere else.

At this hearing, the judge was going to decide whether information technology could be.

With handcuffs on her wrists, Chrystul pulled at the rosary around her neck. Behind her, the courtroom was filled with her supporters and with members of Volar'due south family.

"Your honor," her lawyer began, and Chrystul listened closely every bit the men debated what she deserved.


'House is burning!'

Volar'south house once stood on this now-vacant lot in Kenosha, Wis. It was torn downwards after it was damaged in the fire on June 5, 2018. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

Just after v a.k. on the morning of June 5, 2018, a woman looked out the window of her Kenosha habitation and spotted flames on the roof of the tiny tan ranch business firm on the corner. She punched 911 into her phone.

"Burn!" she told the dispatcher. "House is burning!"

"Do you know if anyone is in the house?" the dispatcher asked.

"Fire! House is called-for!" (0:57)

Within two minutes, Kenosha police arrived to find the answer. Inside, a badly charred body lay slumped on the footing. There were two gunshot wounds in the head.

Dispatchers said that earlier that year, the house was involved in a call about a runaway child. Officers didn't notwithstanding know the details of that instance, but it did give them a name for the homeowner: Randall Phillip Volar 3, who went by Randy.

Police force combed the firm for evidence. Alcohol bottles on the floor. A pizza box in the fridge. Multiple hotel room keys. Credit menu records showed that the night before, he paid for an Uber from Milwaukee to his dwelling house. The Uber driver told police force he had given a ride to a short black girl named "Chrystal."

Neighbors reported that in that location was usually a BMW in Volar's driveway. The car was found abandoned in Milwaukee. A receipt within led police to a Family Dollar store, where security footage revealed that four teens had driven the BMW. One of them said he had a sister named Chrystul Kizer.

Police institute her Facebook page, filled with photos of a slender girl who wore long, colorful wigs. On the night of the fire, she posted a selfie at 3:10 a.1000. Backside her were defunction detectives recognized from Volar'south firm. The caption: "My Mug Shot."

Three days later, Chrystul live-streamed on Facebook. She talked almost giving her brother a BMW. She showed off a gun. She told her 20-year-quondam boyfriend, Delane Nelson, "I don't want to shoot anybody else."

The next morning time, police force drove a battering ram into Nelson's front end door. They found Chrystul inside, a shower cap on her head. Zip ties were placed effectually her wrists as she was escorted into a squad car.

In June 2018, the police force arrested Chrystul at this Milwaukee house, where she and her beau, Delane Nelson, lived with his family. (Sarah Fifty. Voisin/The Washington Mail)

Her bond was set at $1 meg.

Equally they investigated Chrystul, detectives were gathering information nigh Volar. He lived lonely in the cramped 360-square-foot, one-bedroom house. He graduated from high school in 2001 and described himself as self-employed. He was 5 foot 8 inches tall and about 200 pounds. His autopsy showed he had been built-in with missing fingers and toes, and a correct leg shorter than the left. His parents divorced in 2009, and three years later on, Volar wore a adapt and a red rose boutonniere to exist the best homo for his father, Randall P. Volar Jr., when he remarried at a golf resort.

But most of what detectives needed to know was already sitting in a police file. The "runaway" written report mentioned by dispatchers was actually something much more serious: a sexual activity crimes investigation that had been underway for months.

It began with some other 911 call, this ane just earlier 1 a.m. on Feb. 12, 2018. According to police force reports obtained by The Washington Postal service, a 15-year-one-time girl calling from Volar'south house told dispatchers that a man had given her drugs, and now he was going to kill her. So, she hung up.

Officers found her wandering the streets, wearing only a bra nether an unzipped jacket. Her pupils were dilated. She said she had taken LSD.

The girl eventually told police she met Volar the yr before when he responded to an ad on Backpage.com. The site was 1 of the country'due south largest prostitution marketplaces until it was close downwardly for interest in homo trafficking last year. The girl said Volar paid her $250 for sex the commencement time they met — when she was 14 — and so $100 each time later that.

She told police force he knew how old she was, because when she suggested he find women his own age, he elaborated on why he preferred the bodies of immature girls like her.

In December 2017, the daughter ran abroad from home and moved in with Volar. He gave her money, took her shopping and even took her out to dinner with his mother, she said.

The girl showed signs of what sex activity crimes experts phone call "trauma bonding." Volar was nice to her, she said, and she didn't want to get him in trouble. She chosen him her "friend."

She said Volar was sexually abusing other underage girls, too — and filming it. She'd seen the videos.

Volar lived in Kenosha, a lakefront Wisconsin city betwixt Milwaukee and Chicago. (Sarah 50. Voisin/The Washington Post)

Volar'due south banking concern records showed a design of booking hotel rooms in Milwaukee, where Chrystul lived. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Postal service)

Volar lived in Kenosha, a lakefront Wisconsin city between Milwaukee and Chicago. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Volar's bank records showed a blueprint of booking hotel rooms in Milwaukee, where Chrystul lived. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Mail)

"Sometimes he goes to Milwaukee to detect young girls," the police report said. She told detectives the first names of at least three of them, including one named "Chrystal."

On Feb. 22, constabulary searched Volar's house. They confiscated laptops, hard drives and memory cards, along with women'due south pajamas, bikini bottoms and underwear.

Volar was arrested. The charges: kid enticement, using a computer to facilitate a child sexual practice crime and 2d-degree sexual set on of a child, a felony punishable past up to forty years in state prison.

Miriam Falk, a veteran sex crimes prosecutor in Wisconsin, said those charges typically pb to a substantial cash bail, up of $100,000 if the person involved is wealthy. Add in video evidence and the case would be a "dream" for prosecutors. "That would be a very difficult example to defend," Falk said.

Merely on the same solar day law arrested Volar, they released him. Records bespeak he paid no bail but was told he would be summoned to court.

The court summons never came.

Volar spent $xx,000 to hire a criminal defense attorney, just three months passed earlier police sent the case to the district attorney'south role. The file showed what was constitute in Volar'south house: "hundreds" of kid pornography videos, featuring girls who appear to be as young as 12, and more than 20 "domicile videos" of Volar with underage black girls.

The office of District Chaser Michael Graveley, right, received evidence that Volar was abusing underage girls 12 days earlier Volar'due south death. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

All the same, Volar was not taken into custody. No sexual practice crimes case was entered into the Wisconsin court arrangement.

Twelve days afterwards, Volar was dead.

Kenosha law declined to comment for this story. Graveley, the district chaser, said his function assigned a sexual activity crimes prosecutor to the instance who was working to make up one's mind the identities and ages of the victims involved.

"In many and nigh of the cases, we didn't know the age," he said. "So nosotros literally did not know whether we had misdemeanors or felony."

Although police force hadn't tracked downwards all the other girls in Volar's videos, they did describe most of them in their reports as "mid teens" or "early teens." Investigators wrote that ane appeared to be xiii or 14. Some other, they idea might exist equally immature every bit 12.

Rachel Monaco-Wilcox, who runs a legal clinic for man-trafficking victims in Wisconsin, said constabulary and prosecutors who are unfamiliar with these issues regularly neglect to recognize that under federal law, there is no such thing every bit a "child prostitute." Children, especially children of color, are notwithstanding seen every bit willing participants in the sale of sex, and research shows black girls are routinely perceived as older and more sexually mature than their white peers.

"[Investigators] think, 'My xiv-year-old daughter would never practice that, then there's no excuse,' " Monaco-Wilcox said. " 'They knew what they were doing. They put themselves out there.' "

In the instance confronting Volar, the pb investigator described the 15-year-one-time who ran from his firm equally "prostituting herself out" in his report.

When police force searched Volar's domicile, they found multiple hotel key cards, including one from the Ambassador Hotel in Milwaukee. (Sarah Fifty. Voisin/The Washington Mail service)

After Volar was killed, homicide detectives rapidly learned more than almost his activities. On the day of his expiry, police received a call from TCF Bank, where about of Volar'southward money — $800,000 in assets — was housed. Prosecutors would later say that Volar'due south funds came from legal trading in cryptocurrency. The bank, constabulary reports show, suspected something else was going on.

A banking company official called the police force to flag that betwixt November 2017 and May 2018, Volar had near $1.v million in transfers — in a pattern of activity the bank associated with human trafficking.

Confused, the detective who took the call asked whether someone from his department had called the bank to request this information.

"No," the bank official said. He was just making a "cold phone call," according to the police study. He had no thought Volar was expressionless.

Days subsequently, the detective opened Volar's file. The videos taken from his home had been edited into notwithstanding images, showing his victims' faces.

The detective started flipping through the pictures, searching for 1 face up in particular. And then, he institute it.

There was Chrystul Kizer, her artillery wrapped around her body, smiling at the camera.


'He was a grown-up'

Chrystul as babe with her mother, Devore Taylor. (Family photo/The Washington Post)

Chrystul is the oldest of four siblings. She is pictured here with her younger blood brother. (Family unit photo/The Washington Post)

Chrystul equally baby with her female parent, Devore Taylor. (Family photo/The Washington Post) Chrystul is the oldest of four siblings. She is pictured here with her younger brother. (Family photograph/The Washington Post)

16 months afterward, Chrystul was looking into another camera, this time from inside the Kenosha County jail. A telephone was pressed to her ear.

"Hey," she said, and so began each call to a reporter through the jail's video visit system. In more than than five hours of calls, Chrystul shared her story of what happened with Randy Volar, which began not in Wisconsin, but in Gary, Ind., where she was born.

Her mom, Devore Taylor, was sixteen when she had Chrystul. Taylor took jobs at fast-food joints to support her girl, a burgeoning artist. Chrystul was delighted past watching cartoons and even more entertained by drawing worlds of her own.

For inferior loftier, she earned a spot in Gary's performing arts academy. She chose orchestra as her specialty. Taylor couldn't afford a violin — by so, she had three more than children and a boyfriend to support — so she put $100 down and paid a little at a time. While Taylor took classes at nighttime, Chrystul started practicing at all hours, trying to acquire Beethoven and "Silent Night."

Even now, Chrystul describes herself past talking about her music. "I'm a violinist," she said. "Some instruments, similar the guitar, my hand is too little for the board. So I similar instruments that I tin play."

But while she learned the violin, Chrystul's childhood started to unravel as her mom'due south boyfriend turned more and more violent. Taylor never thought he would hurt her kids. Chrystul remembered differently. "We would get in trouble and he would have it too far, and do extra," she said.

Chrystul learned to guide her brother and two sisters into their bedroom, close the door and expect for her mom to say she could call the law.

"They would only have him and tell him to exit," Chrystul recalled. "But he would always come back."

At the end of 2015, Taylor and the kids left nigh all of their belongings in Indiana and moved to Milwaukee. They stayed at a Conservancy Army shelter for months before they found an apartment.

While Taylor was working at Denny's, her son started stealing cars. Chrystul started skipping school and hanging with Delane Nelson, who was iii years older than her.

Soon, Chrystul and Nelson were physically fighting. Once, a witness saw Nelson holding Chrystul in a headlock and striking her "with a stick more than 10 times while dragging her through the parking lot." Nelson — who did not answer to requests for comment — pleaded guilty to a charge of bombardment. Chrystul stayed with him.

Chrystul and her family spent months at the Salvation Army Emergency Club when they moved to Milwaukee. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

In the fall of 2016, she met someone who told her she deserved better: Randy Volar.

Chrystul first said she met Volar at a bus stop. Later, she confessed she met him later he responded to an advertizement she had posted on Backpage.com. She needed coin for snacks and schoolhouse notebooks, she said, and a girl she knew showed her how to use the site. Volar was the starting time to respond.

She was sixteen, only she told him she was 19.

"At first, I was nervous," she said. "And so I told him okay."

Earlier long, she was seeing Volar every other week. She said he was always complimenting her brown eyes, her colorful wigs, her 104-pound torso. He took her on dates and let her order steak. He bought her a heart-shaped locket, got her a phone and let her drive his cars. She didn't need to post on Backpage.com over again; he took her shopping and gave her cash she could share with her sisters, sometimes $500 at a time. She fabricated excuses to Nelson and her mom about where the gifts were coming from.

She knew what Volar expected in return. But she didn't think it was wrong.

"He was the only friend that I actually had," she said.

Chrystul Kizer, 19, gave more than than five hours of interviews to The Washington Post in 2019. (Amber Ferguson/The Washington Post)

She is sure Volar knew her real age because in the summertime of 2017, he invited her to his house to celebrate her 17th altogether.

"He had bought me cupcakes," Chrystul recalled. "And he had gave me this new drug I had never heard nigh called acrid. Information technology made me feel weird."

A few weeks after, Chrystul was arrested. Milwaukee constabulary said she was driving a auto that her blood brother had reportedly stolen when they tried to pull her over. According to constabulary, she sped abroad, then ran. She was charged with fleeing an officer. In Wisconsin, 17-year-olds are charged every bit adults.

After 55 days in jail, her bond was reduced to $400. Volar paid it.

Chrystul said he made clear what specific sex acts he wanted in return.

"I told him that I never wanted to practice that," Chrystul said. "He said that I had to owe him that."

She began to try to cut Volar out of her life. To her mother'southward dismay, she had moved in with Nelson. Chrystul said she told Volar she wanted to get serious with Nelson, so she couldn't see him anymore.

"He had started to talk trigger-happy and stuff," she said. "I was going to stop talking to him, and he said if I did that he was going to kill me."

She never confided in anyone. She didn't call the police.

"They didn't help my mom," she explained.

Chrystul said she didn't know about the other girls, Volar's abort or the videos confiscated by police force. She said she didn't know Volar filmed her.

Volar, 34, was arrested in February 2018 for charges including kid sexual assault. (Kenosha County Sheriff)

Chrystul, 17, was arrested in June 2018 on charges including outset-caste intentional homicide. (Kenosha County Sheriff)

Volar, 34, was arrested in February 2018 for charges including child sexual attack. (Kenosha County Sheriff) Chrystul, 17, was arrested in June 2018 on charges including first-degree intentional homicide. (Kenosha County Sheriff)

Somewhen, those videos and the sex crimes file on Volar would be shared with Chrystul'south lawyer, who came to believe Volar's interest in sex trafficking went across but buying sex. Volar used cryptocurrency and anonymous browsers to access the dark spider web — tools popular with distributors of child pornography.

In the videos Volar made, Chrystul's lawyer told the judge, he describes himself as an "escort trainer." He instructs ane daughter, the lawyer said, on "what she could do to go along torso parts of hers in working order to exist a better prostitute." In another video, Volar tells a daughter, "Do y'all want to post to Kenosha/Racine and see if anybody calls you and I'll give you lot a ride."

But later on multiple interviews with The Post did Chrystul describe, quietly, what that meant. Volar, she said, sold her through Backpage.com to other people. She said he would post ads, then drive her to hotels in Milwaukee, where men his age or older would spend xxx minutes with her. She gave Volar the money she earned. Sometimes, she said, Volar would adapt for her to meet more than one man in a day.

"He told me to get the money commencement and and then to text him once I was finished," she said.

In one case talkative and smiling during interviews, Chrystul grew more and more upset as she spoke. To virtually questions, she answered: "I don't know." She did not know the hotel names or how much the men paid. She did not know when information technology started or how many times it happened. She said she did not know how it made her feel.

But she did know why she kept doing it.

"Because he was a grown-upwards, and I wasn't," she said. "So I listened."

In May 2018, Chrystul's beau started to grow suspicious. Nelson told Chrystul, and subsequently the police, that he thought someone might exist post-obit her. He bought her a .380 pistol and taught her to shoot it in his lawn. He told her to carry information technology everywhere.

On June four, she appeared in Milwaukee court to plead guilty to the fleeing charge she had picked upwardly nearly a year before. She said Nelson went with her, and by the afternoon, they were fighting. Worried he would hit her once again, Chrystul said she texted Volar to inquire whether she could come over.

At 8:42 p.thou., an Uber picked her up. The pistol, she said, was in her handbag.

"I had went into the firm. … He had ordered some pizza. We were smoking, and he asked me if I wanted to potable whatever liquor. Then he had gave me this drug. I don't know what it's chosen. And subsequently that, we started to watch movies. … And then, the drug, it fabricated me feel weird or whatever."

She said Volar came to sit down next to her. "He started to touch my leg and then similar I had jumped and tell him that I didn't desire to practise that."

"I just thought that I didn't want to do that stuff anymore because I was trying to alter," she said.

Volar, Chrystul recalled, told her what she owed him.

"I tried to get upwardly, to go away from him only I had tripped, and I barbarous on the floor, and he had got on top of me," she said. "And he was trying to like, rip my pants off, my jeans that I had on. … I was, like, wiggling. Cause once me and [Nelson] had fought, he had tried to pin me down, but I'll wiggle to go loose."

She doesn't remember going to go the pistol. She does remember the sound information technology made.

"Like a pop. A high pop," she said. "I started to panic."

Law tape hangs in front end of Volar'south burned house in Kenosha on June 5, 2018. His torso was found within. (Bill Siel/Kenosha News)

This was a dissimilar story than what she initially told detectives. On the solar day she was arrested, Chrystul said she didn't know Volar. Then she said she saw some other adult female shoot him. Months later on, she would tell law that Nelson had been the one to kill him.

But somewhen, during her first interview with detectives, she confessed. She told them she was tired of Volar touching her.

"Kizer said that she watches the show Criminal Minds, and she decided to make a fire," an account of the interview states. "Kizer said she poured scarlet liquor everywhere … grabbed tissue or toilet paper and started the burn down."

Chrystul said she doesn't think the burn down. She said Volar was planning to requite her a laptop and a new auto for her 18th birthday, and that's why she took them. She said she lied to detectives at first because she was scared.

Simply she knows a jury will examine those actions when they enquire the central question about what happened betwixt Chrystul and Volar: Who was the real victim?

To Chrystul, the answer is articulate.

"Both of us," she said. "Because of the stuff that he was doing to me. And, that he should have never died."


'The capacity to consent'

Cyntoia Brown at 18, 2 years after she was charged with murder. (Simon & Schuster)

Brown was released in 2019 and published a memoir, "Free Cyntoia: My Search for Redemption in the American Prison Arrangement." (Marking Humphrey/AP)

Cyntoia Dark-brown at 18, ii years subsequently she was charged with murder. (Simon & Schuster) Brown was released in 2019 and published a memoir, "Complimentary Cyntoia: My Search for Redemption in the American Prison Organisation." (Mark Humphrey/AP)

While Chrystul was sitting in jail this fall, someone with a story much similar hers was walking free.

Cyntoia Brown was xvi years sometime when the human being she believed to be her boyfriend started selling her for sex. First, just to his friends. Then, she told herself, she was just "pretending to be a prostitute." Before long, she spent each day hoping that if she could just bring in enough money, he'd let her terminate. She never called information technology "sex trafficking."

"I thought it was okay for me to be with adult men," Brown, now 31, said in an interview. "I didn't think I was beingness taken advantage of. … It never crossed my mind that I didn't have the capacity to consent."

On a summer night in 2004, a 43-yr-old picked upward Brown at a Sonic Drive-In and took her to his Nashville domicile. A .40-caliber handgun was in her purse. Prosecutors argued that she wanted to rob him. Brown said she feared for her life when she shot him in the back of the caput. She stole two guns and cash from his home and fled in his truck.

She was sentenced to life in prison. But 13 years subsequently, in the midst of 2017'due south #MeToo movement, Brown'due south story went viral. Rihanna, Kim Kardashian and thousands of others spread the word about the campaign to #FreeCyntoiaBrown.

Past then, there was a growing motion against sex trafficking. Advocates armed with research on brain development, racial bias and the impacts of trauma were working to brainwash constabulary officers, judges and prosecutors, including Preston Shipp, one of the attorneys who argued that Dark-brown should spend her life in prison house. Shipp was so moved by what he learned, he testified on Brownish'south behalf at her clemency hearing. Iv months ago, she was released.

Just other child-trafficking victims involved in violent crimes are still backside bars. Some have been there for decades. For many, the abuse they experienced was never brought upward in court, or it was dismissed every bit irrelevant, making it impossible to know the number of cases that exist across the country.

They were sex activity trafficked as teenagers. They were involved in a murder. Some have spent decades in prison. Some are walking free.

Barbara Hernandez, sixteen

Michigan (1990)

Tried as an adult, found guilty of murder


Sentence: Life without the possibility of parole

Current status: 45, still imprisoned

Hernandez has been in prison for nearly 3 decades for her involvement in a robbery that led to the death of 28-twelvemonth-old James Cotaling. Hernandez was being trafficked, and it was her declared sexual activity trafficker who killed Cotaling while she was in another room. But prosecutors argued she bought the pocketknife and led Cotaling to the attack. At a resentencing hearing this twelvemonth, a gauge ruled against Hernandez. If she does not win her appeals, she volition remain behind bars for the remainder of her life.

Alexis Martin, 15

Ohio (2013)

Tried equally an adult, pleaded guilty to murder


Sentence: Life with the possibility of parole after 21 years

Electric current status: 21, still imprisoned, seeking clemency

Alexis Martin didn't pull the trigger. She was in another room when her alleged sex trafficker, 36-yr-erstwhile Angelo Kerney, was killed during an attempted robbery. Judges acknowledged her status equally a victim of homo trafficking, simply prosecutors say evidence shows Martin participated in the robbery plan. In 2018, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the juvenile court mishandled Martin'due south case, only it upheld her conviction. She is seeking clemency from the governor of Ohio.

Mark Berrios, fourteen

Florida (1994)

Tried as an developed, found guilty of murder


Sentence: Life without the possibility of parole

Current status: forty, still imprisoned

Berrios had run away from a juvenile detention program when he met Olen Lee Hepler, 47. 2 weeks later, Berrios shot him. He took his machine and ATM bill of fare. Police had been investigating Hepler for his molestation of young boys, merely hadn't nonetheless taken him into custody. Prosecutors argued that Berrios was trying to rob Hepler and imprisoned him for life. He was resentenced in 2013 to xxx years in prison. He is scheduled to exist released in 2024.

Michelle Benjamin, xvi

Louisiana (1994)

Tried as an adult, found guilty of murder


Sentence: Life without the possibility of parole

Electric current status: 42, released in May 2019

Benjamin and a friend were approached on the streets of New Orleans by Martin Hecker, 25. Considering she had been raped when she was xi years erstwhile, Benjamin carried a gun to protect herself. She said Hecker followed her and tried to get her to go to a hotel for sex activity, and when he lunged for her, she shot him. Prosecutors argued that the teens killed Hecker to steal his wallet. Later beingness resentenced in 2016, Benjamin was freed this year, 25 years after going to prison.

Sara Kruzan, 16

California (1994)

Tried as an adult, found guilty of murder


Sentence: Life without the possibility of parole

Current condition: 41, released in 2013

Kruzan testified that George Gilbert Howard forced her into commercial sex at age thirteen. Three years later, she shot and killed him. She stole money from his wallet and the keys to his Jaguar. She served 19 years in prison house earlier being resentenced and released in 2013. Today, she is the namesake to "Sara'south Police," a neb in Congress that would allow federal judges to reduce sentences for child sex-trafficking victims who commit crimes confronting their abusers.

Cyntoia Brown-Long, xvi

Tennessee (2004)

Tried as an developed, found guilty of murder


Judgement: Life in prison with possibility of parole after 51 years

Current condition: 31, granted charity in 2019

Dark-brown had been forced into commercial sexual activity past a human being she believed to exist her young man. 1 dark, her buyer was 43-year-old Johnny Allen. Prosecutors argued she intended to rob him, but Brown said she feared for her life when she shot and killed Allen. In 2017, her story went viral cheers to attending from celebrities including Kim Kardashian and LeBron James. Earlier this year, Brown was freed afterwards fifteen years in prison. She published a memoir almost her experiences called "Free Cyntoia."

Patrice Smith, 16

New York (1998)

Tried every bit an adult, found guilty of murder


Sentence: Life with the possibility of parole after 25 years

Current status: 37, nonetheless imprisoned, seeking charity

Smith has spent 21 years in prison for strangling Robert Robinson Jr., a 71-year-quondam minister. Prosecutors argued that Smith and her friend went to Robinson's house with a plan to steal money and his Cadillac. Smith told the court that Robinson had been paying her for sexual practice since she was 15 and that once he had raped her. She said that on the dark of the murder, she was acting in cocky-defense force because he had threatened to impale her. Two decades later, she is seeking clemency from the governor of New York.

At least 35 states have passed affirmative defense force laws, which allow victims to try to prove in court that their crime occurred because of the abuse they experienced. Most of those laws merely utilise to prostitution charges; some can be used for other crimes traffickers often forcefulness their victims to commit, such as truancy, theft and drug possession.

But in a few states, including Wisconsin, the affirmative defense constabulary is broad. Information technology doesn't specify which crimes the defense can be used for.

"A victim of a violation of [trafficking] has an affirmative defense force," the Wisconsin law states, "for whatsoever offense committed as a direct result of the violation of [trafficking] without regard to whether anyone was prosecuted or convicted for the violation of [trafficking]."

In the years since the police force was enacted in 2008, information technology has been used past lawyers seeking plea deals for clients charged with prostitution. Just neither side in Chrystul's case could find an instance in which the police force was used as a defense in court.

With no other cases to serve as precedent, and no further clarification written in the law, the judge in Chrystul's case would be the start to make up one's mind which crimes the affirmative defense force can utilize to — and whether that includes fierce crimes.

Siding with Chrystul could open a door for other trafficking victims prosecuted in Wisconsin and fuel the cosmos of new affirmative defense laws across the land. And it would requite Chrystul'south lawyers the chance to effort to convince a jury that even if she killed a man, she deserved to go complimentary.


'The true story'

Volar's father, Randall P. Volar Jr., attends a hearing Nov. fifteen in Kenosha. He was accompanied past Volar's mother and other relatives. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Mail service)

Gauge David P. Wilk peered downwards from his bench at Chrystul. He'd seen her in court viii times now. Her mother and the activists sat behind the Volar family: aunts, a grandmother, Volar's female parent Diana and, seated closest to Chrystul, his father Randall P. Volar Jr. The family declined to be interviewed for this story.

"The true story has yet to be told," Volar'due south male parent said in a statement. "And when the truth comes out, I hope people's perceptions of my son will modify. My son was a proficient man, loved past his family and respected for his kindness and intelligence. Nosotros all miss him dearly and would practise annihilation to turn back the hands of fourth dimension so we could be with him. What happened is a tragedy for both families the Kizers and the Volars."

At the hearing, prosecutors once once again argued that the true story was a calculated attack that concluded a human being's life and endangered the lives of his neighbors. "We know," Graveley told the judge, "that the preplanning predates the incident."

His court filings testify that a few days before the crime, Chrystul sent a Facebook message to a friend saying, "I'm finna become a bmw." Her friend asked when. Chrystul replied, "Soon."

"And then," Graveley said, "there is a real-fourth dimension advice."

An activist stands outside the Kenosha Canton Courthouse on November. xv. A grouping of supporters from the surface area has been showing upward on Chrystul's court dates and writing messages to her. (Sarah 50. Voisin/The Washington Post)

The dark of the criminal offense, according to prosecutors, Chrystul was texting two people most where the key to "the auto" was and that she had learned how to start it.

At 10:42 p.grand., she texted: "When u want me to do it bae."

At xi:09 p.m.: "Nun but I'grand finna do it rn [right at present] doe."

11:xiii p.m.: "I'm finna do information technology."

12:03 a.m.: "But order some pizza some ima wait...It's just gone splatter every where I looked it upwards on google and it's a pillow ima wait until she comatose."

As Graveley spoke about the texts, Volar's female parent began to weep. His father set his head in his hands. Chrystul'due south expressions inverse by the minute: a bare stare, a forehead scrunched, her eyes wide and staring at her lawyer, Carl Johnson, waiting for him to interject.

Compared with Graveley'south booming confidence, Johnson sounded quiet and cautious. He took long pauses to review his notes. Chrystul'south instance was one of more than than a dozen he was overseeing.

In jail, Chrystul has started praying and reading the Bible each solar day. She wore a rosary to her hearing. To her correct is her public defender, Carl Johnson. (Sarah Fifty. Voisin/The Washington Post)

Johnson didn't address whether the offense was premeditated. The broadness of the affirmative defense law, he argued, means Chrystul has a complete defense to the charges.

If the judge agreed with him, information technology would be up to a jury to determine whether her crimes were a "direct result" of being trafficked.

If Wilk said the affirmative defence didn't utilise to cases like hers, Johnson would have to come up with an entirely new strategy for defending Chrystul.

She saturday beside him, yet pulling at her rosary while trying to read his notes.

"The courtroom," Wilk said after forty minutes, "is not going to rule today. The court is going to come back in approximately thirty days."

Chrystul stood and turned toward her mom. Then she shuffled across the room, out of the courthouse and back to her jail cell.


'Piffling kids?'

Chrystul'due south mother, Devore Taylor, 36, holds the violin her daughter used to play. Chrystul attended a performing arts school in Indiana earlier moving to Milwaukee. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

2 hours later, Chrystul'southward mom thanked the activists who drove her to and from Kenosha and climbed out of their car. Taylor, 36, didn't like asking for their assistance, but her truck was broken, and court was the only time she could see Chrystul in person.

Inside her Milwaukee flat, Taylor looked at the notes she had taken that day. At the bottom of the page, she'd written, "Affirmative defense. Find statute."

For a yr and a one-half she'd been going over information technology all in her head. Why hadn't she stopped Chrystul from going to live with her beau? Why hadn't she asked more questions about those new wearing apparel? She reminded herself that she had 3 other kids, worked long hours and moved to Milwaukee to survive. Just sometimes did it make her feel any better.

Here, Chrystul was everywhere. Photos of her taped to the walls. Her violin in storage, gathering dust. A box of belongings from the women's prison — where Chrystul served nine months this year for her fleeing charge — stashed where Taylor wouldn't have to wait at it.

When Chrystul finished that sentence in September, she was transferred back to the county jail in Kenosha to await her murder trial. She couldn't bring her possessions with her, and then they were sent to Taylor.

Taylor looks at a list of goals written in the Bible that her daughter had in prison house. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Mail service)

That evening, for the first time, Taylor started to get through the box. Beneath drawings and coloring books, she plant a leather-jump Bible. Inside was a list titled, "My goals."

"Finish school," Chrystul had written. "Gain 20 to 25 pounds." "Become out and do amend!!"

Beneath the Bible, Taylor found a large yellow envelope. Inside was a stack of documents and a alphabetic character from Chrystul's lawyers.

"Dear Ms. Kizer, Please find enclosed the materials you requested," it said. "They include the police reports from the investigation into Mr. Volar."

Taylor flipped to the adjacent page. And the next. Here was the search warrant for Volar's property, a list of all the computers and DVDs and flash drives taken from his house.

"Merely I looked up his abort records," Taylor said. "And this was not on in that location?"

She started to read what was on one flash bulldoze. Subsequently a moment, she had to wipe tears from her eyes so she could see the page. She started to read out loud, her vox cracking.

Taylor holds the police file on the sex crimes investigation into Randy Volar. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

Taylor reads that Volar possessed "hundreds" of child pornography videos. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Mail service)

The file states police obtained footage of Volar abusing multiple underage black girls. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Mail service)

Taylor begins to scream. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Mail service)

Inside the file, Taylor finds a photograph of Chrystul. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Mail)

"Numerous home videos recorded past the doubtable of him having sex with numerous females. … Most appear to exist in their teenage years from 14 to 17 years old."

She kept flipping, and then she was shouting.

"Twelve? Twelve? Come on, man, 12 years old? Lilliputian kids? They ain't even in their teens?"

She turned to another page, listing the child sexual assault charges against Volar.

"So why," she yelled, "are we here?"

There were dozens more pages, and on one, she saw a re-create of a photograph. It was a notwithstanding image from a video.

Taylor started flipping through the pictures, searching for one face in particular. And then, she found it.

There was her daughter, her arms wrapped effectually her body, smiling at the camera.


'Jail Country'

Taylor holds artwork Chrystul created and mailed to her from prison house. (Sarah Fifty. Voisin/The Washington Mail service)

In December, Chrystul went before the estimate again.

"The court," Wilk announced, "is satisfied that a blanket affirmative defense to all acts leads to an absurd result."

He decided: Chrystul did not have admission to the affirmative defense law for trafficking victims. In his view, neither would other trafficking victims charged with violent crimes.

Johnson plans to appeal the ruling — a process that could delay the jury trial for months. Chrystul returned to jail, where she is still trying to figure out how to pass the fourth dimension.

Sleeping gives her dark terrors. Seeing a counselor makes her agitated. Calling domicile only works when her mom can pay to respond the calls.

Cartoon, Chrystul says, is what makes her feel like herself. This fall, she spent weeks working on a board game of her own creation with a colorful, winding route similar the 1 in Processed Land. She chosen it "Jail Land."

With two friends, Chrystul molded and colored dried toothpaste into game pieces shaped like a book, a pack of cigarettes and a pocketbook of money. Equally the pieces moved downwards the route, they met opportunities and obstacles: church, Alcoholics Anonymous, a padded cell. Chance cards allow a player jump forward or sent them to "the hole."

Players who made it to the cease of the route went free. Each fourth dimension Chrystul played the game, she made sure to reach the end.

For weeks, she kept working to make the board more colorful, adding more pieces and trying to notice other inmates who wanted to play. And then, she was moved to another unit of measurement. Virtually all of her property she said, were thrown away or left behind.

She hasn't bothered drawing the game once again.

Instead, she uses her small supply of paper to send messages to her supporters, including a 29-twelvemonth-former white man who read about her instance and wrote to her from some other Wisconsin prison house. Their letters have get and so frequent that Chrystul has started calling him her beau. She knows he is serving time for the charge he pleaded guilty to in 2011: child enticement.

He told her the offense was the result of a misunderstanding. He is scheduled to be released adjacent year, simply will remain a registered sex offender. Chrystul says he is going to marry her.

Chrystul'due south mother and members of Volar'southward family lookout her walk through the courtroom during her November hearing. (Sarah Fifty. Voisin/The Washington Mail)

Susan Berger, in Kenosha, Wis., contributed to this written report

Jessica Contrera

Jessica Contrera is a reporter on The Washington Mail's local enterprise squad. She writes about people whose lives are being transformed past the major events and issues in the news.

About this story

Editing by Lynda Robinson. Photos by Sarah L. Voisin. Photo editing by Mark Miller. Video editing by Bister Ferguson. Re-create editing by Whitney Juckno. Design and development by Brandon Ferrill.