(ABC 6 News) — On Tuesday, December 17th, Adam Fravel was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release for the murder of Madeline Kingsbury.

Madeline Kingsbury’s mother, Christa Hultgren, read the first victim impact statement.

“The defendant could have stopped, but he didn’t,” Hultgren read. “He could have treated Madeline like the extraordinary person she was, but he didn’t. … He ripped her from her children, her family, and her friends.”

“The only thing Madeline’s children will know about him, when they’re old enough to understand, is what kind of deplorable human being he turned out to be,” Hultgren continued.

Holly Waterston, Kingsbury’s stepsister, spoke about the impact of the murder on the Kingsbury family’s children.

“The children in our family don’t get to walk through their lives in a cloak of childhood innocence anymore,” Waterston said. “It was ripped from their young shoulders — stomped on, shredded, and destroyed.”

Waterston described being awakened in the middle of the night by one of her daughters, who said Kingsbury’s son had a nightmare and needed his mother.

“I’m supposed to be able to explain that monsters aren’t real … and hug their fears away,” she said. “Nothing prepared me for being able to comfort my nephew … because there is a real-life monster that killed his mommy.”

David Kingsbury, Madeline’s father, took the stand third and described the search for and discovery of his daughter’s body.

“Sixty-nine days spent searching, desperately for her. Nights spent staring out into the darkness, wondering where she was. Wondering if she was alive or dead, and wondering if we would ever find her,” he said. “Learning that her body had been wrapped in a sheet and stuffed into a culvert at the end of a road. Finally located because a sheriff’s deputy had seen an unusually large number of flies. Authoring my youngest child’s obituary. Telling my grandchildren they would never see their mommy again.”

Megan Hancock, Madeline Kingsbury’s sister, said she watched her parents “crumble and disintegrate and turn into shadows of themselves” during the search for Kingsbury’s body.

“How can I tell you what it was like to try to have a semblance of a goodbye through that body bag?” Hancock asked the courtroom. “How can I tell you what it was like to feel how much of her was already gone, to hold her hand through the body bag … helping to guide her into the incinerator because we refused to let her be alone anymore? It’s indescribable.”

A Winona County staff member read Cathy and Steven Kingsbury’s victim impact statement, wherein the two — Madeline’s stepmother and brother, respectively — described the loss Madeline’s children experienced.

Minnesota State Statute prohibits multiple life sentences for the same crime, according to court proceedings. Fravel was convicted of two counts of 1st-degree murder and two counts of 2nd-degree murder by jury trial.

Zach Bauer, Fravel’s defense attorney, said Fravel intended to use his right to appeal the conviction.

“I never caused harm to Maddi, and I am innocent,” Fravel said. “Thank you.”

Before the sentencing

Kingsbury, the mother of Fravel’s two children, went missing on March 31, 2023, when she was last seen around 8 a.m. that day while dropping her kids off at daycare with Fravel. She sent a last text message to her sister at 8:15 a.m.

RELATED: Adam Fravel trial: Timeline from Madeline Kingsbury’s disappearance to Mankato courthouse

After extensive searches for multiple months, human remains were found near Hwy 43 in Fillmore County, and Fravel was arrested in Winona County on suspicion of second-degree murder on June 7, 2023. The next day, the remains were identified as Kingsbury.

RELATED: Autopsy results confirm human remains found near Mabel are that of Madeline Kingsbury

Fravel’s trial then began on October 7, 2024, in Mankato with a lengthy jury selection process before the actual trial proceedings were able to get underway.

RELATED: Fravel on Trial: A timeline of the lengthy jury selection process

On November 7, 2024, Fravel was found guilty of two counts of 1st-degree murder and two counts of 2nd-degree murder. A Mankato jury reached the verdict after two days and ten hours of deliberations.

RELATED: Adam Fravel guilty on all counts in murder of Madeline Kingsbury; statements outside courthouse