Raped at 13, sold for sex, Sara Kruzan shot her pimp
Update – July 5, 2012: The California Supreme Court has returned the case of Sara Kruzan — who killed her pimp when she was 16 years old — back to Riverside Superior Court, where she was originally convicted.
Kim Deanne reports at FreeSaraKruzan:
Sixteen-year-old human trafficking victim Sara Kruzan was sentenced to life in prison without parole when, after years of sexual, physical and mental abuse, she shot her pimp. When Sara met G.G., the 31-year-old man who would become her pimp, she was only 11. G.G. groomed Sara two years before he raped her. By then, his control was complete and he forced her into prostitution. Sara and the other girls who G.G. exploited were out on the streets from 6pm to 6am, every night. Twelve hours a night, seven days a week, for three years, Sara was raped by strangers so G.G. could profit. After three years, she snapped, and she killed him.
Now 33, Sara has spent half her life in prison as a model prisoner. Sara was arrested and tried in 1994, before anyone was using the term “human trafficking” and when the country was still struggling to understand issues like domestic violence and pimp control that give one person coercive control over another. So there was no expert witness at Sara’s trial to explain how her years of repeated rape, trauma, and abuse had affected her actions. There was no expert to tell the jury that with counseling, support, and care, Sara could heal from her traumatic past and grow to be a strong and moral woman.
Last year Sara’s clemency plea was submitted to Gov. Schwarzenegger, in which he granted clemency by commuting Sara’s sentence to Life with parole. Although reducing Sara’s sentence provided her with hope that she would eventually be freed, many petitioners, along with myself, feel that Sara has served more than enough time and that Time Served should be granted.
The decision of whether or not to release Sara with time served rests solely with Gov. Jerry Brown. Sara Kruzan has spent the past 17 years in prison and deserves freedom. After surviving being raped and sold for three years as a child she deserves a chance to be a free woman, now.
Multiply Justice 
She did the crime, now do they time she now has a chance at parole. Do you think anything would’ve changed had she gotten out of juvi at 21?
Im sorry she was so young but when i was 16 i was not plotting on killing men, i never put myself in the position to have a pimp and then trade him in for a new one that will make me kill.
she can now wait and see what the parole board says to her like the rest of the people doing time for crimes i am sure they all regret.
It is obvious this person do not understand the hard realities of being put into the wrong situation, a situation that is not of your own doing or choosing. This little girl did not have parent to protect her, nor any family. This pimp took her when she was about 11 yrs old and for the next 5 yrs forced a life upon her that would eventually turn her against him…a monster. This life he forced on her would mold her into a murderer.
At 16 yrs old most of us were not planning murder, but again most of us had parents that would not allow anyone to continually rape us. Most of us at 16 were not sold to gangs of men to abuse our bodies and our minds. If someone famous like, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears were to be kidnapped, raped and beaten…and by some miracle they laid hands on a gun and killed the person inflicting all this pain on them…we would celebrate this outcome as a VICTORY.
SARA KRUZAN had the legal right to protect herself and she did…the courts got this one wrong (not the first time) and the judge is obviously completely disconnected. This 16 yr old needed mental help…a good psychiatrist. She did not need a judge to say she was not redeemable, she did not need the judge to say she was without value. That is what she received from men for the better part of her life.
You have said it but how could he bso inconsiderate. To not just release her if he understood the concern. JSMH
I see Jule had a perfect life… This was a child who was abused, raped and scared. If our county spent more time protecting our child and not spending tax payers money on bull*** maybe help would have been there for her and the other young girls he abused. She did what she had to to be free, to get away. She should have never been giving life. Another of her life had already been taken. It’s time she has a chance to live.
Who said she put HERSELF into that position to be raped and prostituted, she was ELEVEN YEARS OLD!!!! Maybe you need to educate yourself a little bit on human trafficking especially in 3rd world countries. In 3rd world countries they kidnap little girls and hold them against their will! So this is not an issue of her “putting herself into that position”.
However hard-hearted a person might be, 17 years in prison seems more than adequate punishment for a teenager who killed a man that for three years beat and raped her and made money by allowing other men to beat and rape her. Most of us were not “plotting” at 16 to kill a man, but then most of us weren’t raped, beaten, and forced intro prostitution at 13.
Micah 6:8 calls on us to do justice and love mercy. Ephesians 4:32 urges us to be tender-hearted and forgiving because God, through Christ, forgives us of sins that carry the death penalty. In Mark 12:31, Jesus commands us to love our neighbors the way we love ourselves. If the facts of this case are what I understand them to be, this young woman has more than paid whatever debt she owed society. Life without parole was excessive punishment; her case for clemency / parole should be considered immediately. Our courts and prisons should be focused not merely on punishment, but on redemption and restoration. They certainly do not exist to mete out harsh punishment on young women who have been oppressed in the manner Sara Kruzan was oppressed.
Sara was a child when this happened. This pimp introduced prostitution to her and sold her on the streets. On top of that molesting her and taking advantage of her. I do not condone murder, but a Life sentence for this girl who was a child at the time is absurd and cruel. The judge is the one who lacked moral scruples. Sara has spent more than enough time in prison!! Free her !!
I also commend Kim Deanne for getting her story out there and helping Sara to get free.
She needs a second chance at life. Her first chance was stolen by a pimp.
She should be applauded and PAID a very big financial compensation for :
1) Having put a pimp out of any possibility of harming any other kid
2) harshly sentenced.
By any chance : does the judge ever use the services of a pimp?
She should definitely be freed. She has spent way to much time in prison. If that case had happened today, she probably wouldn’t had been charged at all. She has spent more than half her life in prison. Prison is all she’s gonna know when she gets out, which in my opinion means the state owes her the help she’s gonna need if she is to get out. The state should be held responsible to making sure she gets proper help to be able to adjust to life outside of prison.
I just saw an upcoming episode of this young woman who will be on Dr. Phil tomorrow. I had to search to read what happened. First of all its really easy for folks to say if you do the crime…but until you walk in their shoes, no one will ever know what this child has gone through. Yes she was 16 but she had no business in prison for life. Now she is 33 years old. That is disgraceful!!….she has done her time, she needs to be home with her family. She wasn’t a threat then, the pimp was the threat and good riddance as far as I’m concerned. This young woman did society a favor. I wish you well and hope and pray you will be set free.
Blessings
My heart goes out to Sara K. I just watched Dr. Phil, and all I can say is Shame!!!! on her mother. At 11 years old this child was an A student with no real guide from a parent. Just the fact that this was going on for 6 years under her mother’s nose, to think she said she had thoughts that her daughter was out there, and that she found clothes under her bed, also that people were telling her that they saw Sara with this ass of a man G.G. … Is she kidding!!! Any real mother would have been at the police station in a heart beat. I believe that her mother was on drugs!!!! why else would she not be there to support her child. I just feel so sick about this. I just pray for many blessings for Sara. Hopefully she will be out soon.