Adam Fravel guilty on all counts in murder of Madeline Kingsbury; statements outside courthouse
(ABC 6 News) – Adam Fravel was found guilty of two counts of 1st-degree murder and two counts of 2nd-degree murder Nov. 7.
A Mankato jury reached the verdict after two days and ten hours of deliberations.
Winona mother Madeline Kingsbury disappeared in March of 2023 after dropping her kids off with Fravel at daycare.
Kingsbury’s remains were eventually discovered in June of that year, in a culvert in rural Fillmore County. The property is a few miles north of Fravel’s parents’ home in Mabel.
Fravel faces life in prison for the 1st-degree murder convictions.
The prosecution had to prove that Fravel had planned the murder in order to secure a 1st-degree murder–premeditation conviction, and prove that Fravel had abused Kingsbury in order to secure 1st-degree murder–past pattern of domestic abuse conviction.
His sentencing is scheduled for 1:45 p.m. Dec. 17.
—–PREVIOUS COVERAGE—–
(ABC 6 News) – Jury deliberations continue into a second day in Adam Fravel’s murder trial in Mankato, Minn. Thursday morning.
Fravel is charged with two counts of 1st degree murder and two counts of 2nd degree murder in the death of the mother of his two children, Madeline Kingsbury.
Kingsbury disappeared in March of 2023 after dropping her kids off with Fravel at daycare. Kingsbury’s remains were eventually discovered in June of that year, in a culvert in rural Fillmore County. The property is a few miles north of Fravel’s parents home in Mabel.
The 12 jurors had until 9:30 p.m. Wednesday to give their verdict before breaking for the evening and that deadline was extended to 10 p.m. with court officials saying the jury believed it “was close” to reaching a decision. Ultimately, the jury decided it needed more time and deliberations continue starting at 8 a.m. Thursday.
Judge Nancy Buytendorp, at the request of both the prosecution and the defense, ruled that the jury will be sequestered. This means that jurors will be monitored during any breaks, including at night, to ensure they are not speaking to the public or being influenced before reaching a verdict.
Around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, jurors filed back into the courtroom with three questions for the judge. One question asked was, “can he [Fravel] be found guilty on all four charges?” Judge Buytendorp referred them back to the original instructions in which jurors were told to keep each charge separate and use the evidence to assist them in their decision.
It is unclear when a verdict in this case will be reached.
—————————————————— NOV. 6th ————————————————–
(ABC 6 News) – UPDATE: Jury deliberations in the Adam Fravel murder trial will continue into Thursday morning.
Both the prosecution and the defense are set to give their closing arguments on Wednesday morning in Adam Fravel’s murder trial in Mankato, Minn.
Fravel is charged with two first-degree and two second-degree murder charges for the death of his former girlfriend and mother of his two children, Madeline Kingsbury.
Wednesday also marks the first time that both Fravel and Kingsbury’s families are able to sit in the courtroom gallery. Many of the pair’s close friends and family members were called as witnesses in this case and were sequestered during trial, meaning they can only be in the courtroom while they are testifying to ensure their testimonies are not influenced by each other. Every open seat in the gallery of the Blue Earth Justice Center is filled.
The lead prosecutor on this case, Phillip Prokopowicz, faced the jury and spoke slowly and directly as he told a story of a man who was losing control, who was losing his family and was refusing to let go of his former girlfriend.
He began with essentially telling the jury that the state is well aware of the lack of direct evidence in this case, however, he believes the circumstantial evidence is just as strong.
Prokopowicz argued this case can be broken down into several different elements, including motive, opportunity and manner of death, all of which in this case, he says leads back to Fravel. The jury was reminded of evidence including hundreds of pages of text messages, autopsy results, phone data, as well as testimonies from family, friends, law enforcement officers among others.
The state told the jury that Fravel constantly controlled Kingsbury through manipulation, verbal abuse, threats and physical violence. Often, Fravel would use guilt from the couple’s children to convince Kingsbury to stay in the relationship, according to Prokopowicz, which can be seen in various pieces of evidence presented during the last few weeks of testimony.
Prokopowicz said Fravel’s motive for murdering Kingsbury was clear: he was financially and emotionally dependent on her, she was taking his children and she had found a new relationship she wanted to pursue.
“No longer did the degrading comments work, the verbal threats, the physical abuse, the strangulation, shoving her into a counter, therapy, counseling and he could no longer play on her sense of guilt,” argued Prokopowicz. “This relationship was no longer about him and he was damned if she was going to let her take his kids and life from him.”
The state told the jury that Fravel’s anger swelled in the days leading up to March 31, 2023.
“It’s reasonable and it’s rational that Adam Fravel’s self-centeredness, his jealousy, his selfishness, caused him to strike out with the one person who caused it all. There is no one but the defendant, Adam Fravel,” Prokopowicz argued.
Another point in the state’s case is that Fravel had the opportunity to commit the murder, reminding the jury that Fravel is the last one to have seen Kingsbury the morning she disappeared. Kingsbury’s phone last locked at 8:16 a.m. and, “her stuff never left that residence because Madeline Kingsbury never left that residence alive.” There were no broken windows, signs of a struggle, or signs of a break-in because, “the person who killed Madeline Jane Kingsbury was already in the residence.”
When it comes Kingsbury’s manner of death, Prokopowicz reminded the jury that the mother of two was found with a blue and white bath towel wrapped tightly around her head, wrapped in a grey fitted sheet with black duct tape inside a culvert a few miles north of Fravel’s parents home in Mabel. Testimony regarding extractions from Kingsbury’s phone showed two photos of a blue and white bath towel with her children. The sheet was also consistent with grey bedding found from the couple’s home along with a roll of black duct tape found in their garage.
Other key points in this case include scratches on Fravel’s face in the days following Kingsbury’s disappearance, bruises on his body, security cameras at the home dismantled less than a week before March 31, license plates not matching up, among other pieces of evidence detailed in this article.
The defense, however, pushed back against many of these claims. Fravel’s attorney, Zachary Bauer, referred back to points he made in opening statements including his argument of tunnel vision, revisionist history and secret truths in this case.
In Bauer’s argument of tunnel vision, he told the jury that law enforcement zeroed in on Fravel from the beginning. He further argued that law enforcement were, “never interested in anything that didn’t match what they wanted.”
The jury was reminded that there was never a fiber analysis conducted on the grey fitted sheet, no pictures were shown of the alleged matching pillow case and that the state only presented a picture of the tag on that item.
“Why are we relying on a tag when that’s seen on every single pillow case and sheet in America?” Bauer questioned. “That’s it, that’s what they gave you, and that’s the absolute impetus of tunnel vision in this case.”
Bauer also alluded to sloppy police work throughout this trial as he claims many pieces of evidence were never collected. This includes a pair of scissors and a roll of duct tape at the couple’s home, the fact that the grey bedding was initially removed from the home by a friend of Kingsbury’s and was not in police custody for more than a month and that evidence collected from her autopsy had visible standing water.
Bauer argued from the beginning that friends and family of Kingsbury influenced each other’s memories as to how events played out, pointing out that while some friends witnessed bruising on Kingsbury’s neck, her own sister and new boyfriend never saw any such marks. Moreover, Kingsbury told her sister that the pair “will probably get married” and that the couple had discussed whether to have more children in Feb. of 2023, after the prosecution argued she had began seeing someone else.
This case also consists of secret truths, according to Bauer. Fravel’s team argued that any bruising seen on Kingsbury’s neck was due to “things getting out of hand in the bedroom,” per a text sent from her phone to a friend. Bauer also claims the argument is supported by various explicit searches on porn sites from Kingsbury’s phone.
Perhaps the biggest hitch with the defense, Bauer argued, is that 198th St., where Kingsbury’s remains were found, had been searched four separate times by several people included a hunting dog. Kingsbury’s remains were not discovered until June 7 of that year. Large logs were found piled on top of her body at the time of her discovery.
“Do you think it’s reasonable to conclude that he misses that? That he misses logs and branches stacked on top of each other? Does his dog miss that?” Bauer argued to the jury. “It’s not rational to conclude that and that is what this whole thing is built on.”
Bauer told the jury that while circumstantial and direct evidence are not seen any differently in court, the circumstantial evidence here does not outweigh the lack of physical evidence linking Fravel to the crime.
“You have to be okay with no fiber analysis test. You have to be okay w Sgt. Dan Dornink never walking 198th St.,” Bauer said. “Between no bruising on the autopsy. Between no DNA under her fingernails. Between no direct evidence of the abuse. At some point enough is enough. The state has not met the burden in this case. Those doubts are at practically every corner.”
Following closing statements, the jury was given specific instructions and access to evidence presented throughout the trial to begin deliberations.
Deliberations could take hours or even longer.
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(ABC 6 News) – Adam Fravel’s defense team rested its case after calling five witnesses to take the stand on Friday morning.
In total, the defense called two law enforcement officers, Fravel’s brother, a neighbor of the couple’s home in Winona, and a neighbor of Fravel’s parents’ house in Mabel.
Houston County Sheriff’s Dept. Lt. Steven Garrett testified to his participation in searches to find Madeline Kingsbury on April 2 and 3 of 2023, both on foot and on ATV.
On April 3, Garrett told the courtroom that he searched four dead-end roads on ATV, including 198th St. where Kingsbury’s remains would eventually be found in June of that year. When shown a map of that road, Garrett testified that he did not search the entire street because he thought the gate nearby indicated that it was private property.
Garrett also told the jury that he never saw anything strange in the ditches and culverts along the road, adding that at times, he was unable to see all the way down into the culverts due to overgrowth.
Another witness on the stand Friday is Raymond Curtis, who lived two doors down from Kingsbury and Fravel in Winona.
Curtis testified that on March 31, 2023, he was outside his home when he saw a man walking around Kingsbury’s blue van parked in their driveway.
The man was “slender”, according to Curtis, and he claims he had never seen him before.
Curtis could not recall the time of day when he saw this man and the court ultimately took a recess to allow for the defense to remind Curtis of his previous testimony at Fravel’s grand jury hearing.
Once court was back in session, Curtis testified that he saw the man in the late morning. He also said the man was waving at him.
During cross examination, prosecutors asked if Curtis truly remembered the incidents, to which Curtis replied that he, “remembered some, but not all of it.”
Fravel’s brother, Ryan Fravel, also took the stand and told the jury that Kingsbury and Fravel had ups and downs in their relationship, but he never saw any bruises on her or heard any yelling between the couple.
He previously told investigators that his brother was an “emotional guy”, but he never saw him get angry.
Fravel waived the right to testify in his own defense Friday.
Despite closing arguments slated for Monday, they have now been rescheduled for Wednesday to allow jurors to vote in the election. Jury instructions and deliberations will begin immediately after.
—————————————————- OCT. 31ST ——————————————–
(ABC 6 News) – After calling 68 witnesses to testify, the state rested its case Thursday afternoon in Adam Fravel’s murder trial.
Sgt. Adam Brommerich, with the Winona Police Department, took the stand Thursday morning to go over surveillance video and other evidence obtained during the investigation.
The state presented a timeline of surveillance video, phone data and more, which tracked the movements of Fravel and Kingsbury, as well as Kingsbury’s blue van seen traveling south from the couple’s residence in Winona towards the location where Kingsbury’s body was eventually discovered.
At 8:05 a.m. on March 31, Kingsbury and Fravel are captured on Ring doorbell dropping their kids off at daycare. The two returned back to their residence just a few minutes later, according to evidence presented during trial.
Kingsbury is seen wearing a tan, plaid coat, while Fravel is in a white jacket.
At 8:14 a.m., Kingsbury’s phone connects to their home Wi-Fi, sends a text message to her sister and sends $20 in Apple cash to Adam Fravel’s phone.
At 8:15 a.m, a Caribou Coffee reward for a free drink was purchased, but never redeemed.
At 8:16 a.m., her phone is locked for the final time before the battery died on April 1.
Over an hour later, cameras across the road from the couple’s home captured a person crouching in front of the van in the driveway, then walking toward the rear of the vehicle.
At 10:00 a.m., the blue van is seen on security footage at the Kwik Trip at 375 Cottonwood Drive. Fravel is seen getting out of the car to fill it up with gas, and a license plate is shown. Sgt. Brommerich testified Thursday that the license plate was not registered to the van but was instead registered to Fravel’s Chrysler truck.
The license plate of the van was never pictured again on March 31, 2023, according to Sgt. Brommerich.
The van is then seen again on several cameras along the route to Kingsbury and Fravel’s home. Video from a nearby camera shows the van backing into the driveway.
At 10:31 a.m., a text sent from Fravel’s phone to Kingsbury’s said he filled the car up with gas. Another text is sent at 11:00 a.m., saying “You just gonna stay home?’
The van is captured leaving the residence again at 11:26 a.m., and seen on several cameras heading south past Rushford until 11:59 a.m.
From noon until 12:44 p.m., the van was not seen on any cameras. Sgt. Brommerich testified that there were no cameras law enforcement could find with video of the van from the last camera near Rushford to where Kingsbury’s body was found just north of Mabel.
From 12:44 p.m. to 1:28 p.m. that day, the van is captured by cameras again near Rushford and HWY 43, this time headed north toward Winona, until it eventually returns to Kingsbury and Fravel’s home.
A text sent from Fravel’s phone to Kingbury’s phone at 1:33 p.m. read, “Umm I’m back and my car is still here? You got a ride or something?”
At 2:12, another text was sent, saying “Alright at least let me know if you’ll be back for pickup.”
At 2:38 p.m., a text from Fravel’s phone to his friend said, “Sup bro how’s your Friday.”
At 2:59 p.m., another text is sent from Fravel to Kingsbury’s phone, saying “Any plans for supper” with another at 3:43 p.m. reading, “Maddi please let me know if you’re okay and if you’ll be back for pick up.”
At 4:13 p.m., Fravel’s phone sends another text to her saying, “Alright I’m leaving to pick up the kids.” Fravel is seen alone at 4:21 p.m. picking up the couple’s two kids from daycare, wearing a white jacket and brown boots.
Sgt. Brommerich also testified that the sheet Kingsbury’s remains were found wrapped in was a match to bedding taken from the couple’s home.
The bedding was removed from the home on April 27, 2023 by Katie Kolka, a friend of Madeline Kingsbury, and was collected by police until after Kingsbury’s body was found. The defense pointed out that there was a long period of time from when Kingsbury went missing to when those sheets were taken.
The defense also pointed out that there had never been a test to compare the fibers and prove they matched. Brommerich testified the BCA did not have that kind of technology, and the defense questioned why it was not taken to another lab.
The defense also showed several text conversations to the jury, where Fravel and Kingsbury talk about their kids, moving to a different house and birth control options in the month leading up to Kingsbury’s disappearance.
The defense is preparing to call five witnesses Friday with closing arguments and jury instructions are slated for Monday.
—————————————————- OCT. 30TH ——————————————–
(ABC 6 News) — Those closest to Madeline Kingsbury have taken the stand this week as Adam Fravel’s murder trial continues into its fourth week.
Kingsbury, the mother of Fravel’s two children, was found in a ditch in rural Fillmore County a little over two months after she was reported missing.
Kingsbury’s parents testified on Tuesday, while Wednesday the prosecution focused on her close friends, all of which testified to the violence they saw in the couple’s relationship.
According to her friends, on the day before Kingsbury was reported missing, she was preparing to move out of the home she shared with Fravel.
The state’s star witness, Kingsbury’s best friend Katie Kolka, told the jury the pair had spent that afternoon at her home after Kingsbury became concerned that Fravel was following her around the house and questioning her about her wanting to move out.
Kolka testified the next day, on March 31, Kingsbury never responded to any of her messages. Kolka knocked on all of her home’s windows and doors before deciding to call her sister, Megan Hancock, to get law enforcement involved.
Testimonies also centered around marks seen on Kingsbury’s throat several times in the months leading up to her disappearance and tragic death.
One of these marks was seen the very month Kingsbury disappeared in March of 2023. Lauren Debois told the jury she met the mother of two near Mayo Clinic and saw reddish marks around her neck.
According to Debois, Kingsbury claimed Fravel choked her and was working on a plan to ensure it didn’t happen again. She even testified that she gave Kingsbury makeup to cover it up.
Debois’ testimony was similar to what Kingsbury’s stepmother said on Tuesday as she too testified about seeing a dark red mark on her daughter’s throat just a year and a half before that.
Kingsbury said Fravel told her she would never see the kids again if she left, according to DeBois’ testimony. His defense claimed those comments were referring to a custody battle.
Hailey Scott, another friend of Kingsbury, said she was on FaceTime with Kingsbury in February 2021 when Fravel came into the home asking why the house was so messy. Scott testified Kingsbury said “maybe if I had some help,” and Fravel backhanded her, according to Scott’s testimony.
Nearly all of Kingsbury’s friends called to the stand said she told them about an incident in fall 2021 when she and Fravel were watching a documentary about Gabby Petito, who gained national attention after she was killed by her partner, and Fravel allegedly wrapped his hands around her neck and said Kingsbury would end up like Petito.
The state used these testimonies to try to prove Fravel had a history of domestic violence in his relationship with Kingsbury.
The trial is nearly finished as both the state and defense expect to rest their cases this week. Closing arguments are set for Monday.
—————————————————- OCT. 29TH ——————————————–
(ABC 6 News) – Family members of Madeline Kingsbury are set to testify in Adam Fravel’s murder trial in Mankato, Minn. on Tuesday.
The first to do so is Kingsbury’s biological mother, Krista Hultgren. Hultgren’s testimony is crucial in proving the prosecution’s argument alleging Fravel committed a pattern of domestic violence toward the mother of his children. She also answered questions related to the pair’s on/off again, seven-year relationship.
Hultgren told the jury about one incident in Sept. 2021 that happened while Kingsbury was getting her children ready for daycare. Kingsbury texted her mother that Fravel, “pushed her down on the couch, put his hands around her neck and said, ‘I can make you disappear like Gabby Petito.'”
Petito was a 22-year-old influencer on YouTube that was strangled by her fiancé in 2021.
Hultgren said Kingsbury was frantic, talking fast and hyperventilating, telling the court, “it was shocking to me and I told her to take the kids away from the house that weekend and stay at her dad’s.”
Kingsbury’s father, David Kingsbury, also testified about the incident saying “[Maddi] was hysterical, she was sobbing, it was hard to get information out of her” adding that he “advised her to fill out a police report multiple times.” Maddi moved out of the couple’s home with their two children to her father’s place for three or four days after David told her the relationship, “obviously needed to end, it cannot go on and it is dangerous.” Maddi eventually moved her and her children back into her Winona home because Kingsbury said she wanted them to be close to their dad.
Hultgren testified that ever since the birth of their first child, Kingsbury felt like she was not getting enough help from Fravel, testifying, that “[Maddi] said she was exhausted most of the time, working, going to school and paying for everything for the kids.”
David Kingsbury told the courtroom that he has not had a conversation with Fravel since Nov. of 2020, after throwing him out of his house. Kingsbury testified that while the couple was staying at his home, he texted Fravel calling him “selfish, narcissistic and arrogant” and when he didn’t respond, Kingsbury kicked Fravel out while he and Maddi were staying there.
Kingsbury said that he never saw bruising on his daughter’s body. He also testified that Fravel repeatedly ‘gaslit’ his daughter.
Upon Kingsbury leaving the courtroom, Fravel’s defense attorney, Zach Bauer, instructed the prosecution to no longer allow witnesses to use the term ‘gaslighting’.
—————————————————- OCT. 28TH ————————————————–
(ABC 6 News) – Week three of testimony is underway in Adam Fravel’s murder trial, as the defense attempts to get evidence thrown out while one of the lead investigators on Madeline Kingsbury’s disappearance takes the stand.
Photographs taken of what’s believed to be Kingsbury’s journal, what’s been deemed as court exhibit Z, were the reason for court starting about 45 minutes late on Monday. Fravel’s team attempted to throw the pictures out as evidence due to a claim of it “technically being hearsay”, it is not relevant, and at the very least its “cumulative in nature.” However, the prosecution told Judge Nancy Buytendorp that the journal is most likely Kingsbury’s because it was found in her bedroom and several pages are written to her daughter, it is evidence of the couple’s relationship, and it shows “a full picture of Kingsbury and who she was, especially following the evidence presented last week.”
Last week, prosecutors tried to get search histories from Kingsbury’s phone on pornographic sites thrown out of court, however the judge allowed them into the trial.
Judge Buytendorp agreed with the defense and the evidence will not be allowed.
The lead Minn. Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agent on Kingsbury’s case, Joe Swenson, took the stand in Fravel’s trial on Monday morning.
Points given in Agent Swenson’s testimony were critical to various arguments made by both teams of attorneys, including information related to Kingsbury’s remains, as well as how and why certain evidence was collected.
Upon Kingsbury’s autopsy, Agent Swenson told the courtroom all evidence was placed into paper bags, including the grey, fitted bed sheet Kingsbury was found wrapped in, the towel wrapped around her head, a wash cloth and the clothing she was wearing. When he arrived to collect that evidence, Agent Swenson told the court there was standing water on the exterior of the bags and the items inside were not entirely dry. It’s something he says is, “not consistent with what I’ve seen before.”
The bedsheet wrapped around Kingsbury’s body was held together with pieces of black duct tape.
Agent Swenson also testified to the jury about the way Kingsbury’s body was found underneath a pile of logs on Jun 7, 2023 that, “certainly appeared the logs were places there.” Agent Swenson stated on the record that Kingsbury’s, “feet and legs were shoved into the culvert, the logs were placed on top of her body and it appeared her body wouldn’t fit into the culvert.”
Fravel’s attorney, Zach Bauer, pressed Agent Swenson on various points in his testimony regarding evidence in this case. Agent Swenson told the courtroom the fitted bed sheet recovered in Kingsbury’s autopsy would be compared to the bedding pulled from the home she shared with Fravel using only photographs because “a fiber analysis could not be conducted at the BCA.” It is unclear why.
The jury also saw photographs taken by the BCA during another search at the couple’s Winona home depicting a roll of black duct tape and a pair of scissors. The tape and scissors were not collected into evidence by investigators. Agent Swenson told the courtroom law enforcement can only collect items listed on the warrant, but Bauer pointed out investigators can always get a new warrant if needed.
Last to testify before lunch was Winona Police Dept. Sgt. Adam Brommerich, another top investigator. Among other duties, Brommerich told the courtroom he conducted a DNA swab on Fravel as well as took photographs of minor injuries on his face and body on April 6, 2023. In the photographs shown as evidence, the courtroom saw a few red scratches on Fravel’s nose and several bruises on his body. There were two yellowing bruises on his chest area, one bruise on his left forearm and another on his left bicep.
Several BCA forensic scientists also testified to the courtroom in this case, including Clair Beyer, who tested the evidence for DNA. Beyer told the jury she tested several items including a sexual assault kit, hair, Kingsbury’s fingernails, the grey bedsheet, duct tape, her clothing, a bath towel and a wash cloth. All of those items except for one either had no DNA or had insufficient DNA to perform any sort of profiling.
The towel, however, Beyer told the court showed a mixture of DNA from two individuals. Beyer said they were likely from Fravel and Kingsbury.
Another forensic scientist with the BCA, Colette Celichowski, attempted to pull fingertips from evidence collected in this case, but no fingerprints were detected.
At this point, 54 of the state’s witnesses have taken the stand in this trial.
—————————————————- OCT. 25TH ————————————————–
(ABC 6 News) – Prosecutors have begun building their case surrounding the alleged history of domestic abuse from Adam Fravel to his late ex-girlfriend and mother of his children, Madeline Kingsbury, in his murder trial.
More than 90 pages of text messages between Fravel and Kingsbury were presented to the jury. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agent who sifted through that data, Matt Lund, reading all of the text messages leading up to Kingsbury’s disappearance on March 31, 2023 to the courtroom. Text messages from Dec. of 2022 reveal Kingsbury deciding against attending couple’s therapy with Fravel, texting him, ” I appreciate all that you’ve done this past year but its just too late. I needed this before but I learned to take care of myself and our kids the hard way and I’m sorry that I can’t just go back.”
Fravel replies to her throughout this thread saying, “It just stinks you want to end it right when I’m going to start providing again.” Throughout his testimony, Lund reads more texts from Kingsbury to the jury in which she tells Fravel she is sorry but that she did not want to continue the relationship anymore in order to prioritize her happiness. That’s when Fravel began sending dozens of pictures to Kingsbury of them and their children, telling her he was sending them to her to save before he deletes everything, despite her telling him to stop.
In another text message thread dated March 30, 2023, the prosecution showed messages from Fravel to Kingsbury asking her why he no longer had access to her location. She blames it on the new phone she just purchased that week.
More messages are captured on March 31, the day Kingsbury was reported missing and was scheduled to go to Rochester for work. In total, Fravel texts Kingsbury 12 times that day. In those messages, he says he is “gonna leave [the house] soon” at 10:29 a.m., and in another text at 1:33 p.m. writes “Umm I’m back and my car is still here? You get a ride or something?”
Testimony was also given on Thursday from BCA Special Agent Cory Streeter, who analyzed location data extracted from Fravel and Kingsbury’s phones. Data showed to the jury indicated that from 7:57 a.m. on March 31, his phone left the couple’s home in Winona heading to the children’s daycare at 8:06 a.m. The points move again back to the residence at 8:14 a.m.
But from 8:14 a.m. to 4:14 p.m. that day, Fravel’s cellphone never leaves the house until he picked up his children from daycare that afternoon. From 4:21 p.m. to 5:14 p.m., Fravel’s phone moves from the daycare to his parents home in Mabel Minn. where it remains for the rest of the night.
Kingsbury’s phone data revealed a similar pattern that morning, but Lund testified that her cellphone never again leaves the residence after 8:14 a.m.
Several people have testified over the last week that Kingsbury’s blue van was spotted on several security cameras from Winona heading south on Highway 43 between 11:56 a.m. to 12:46 p.m., despite neither phone leaving the residence in that time frame.
Thursday, Winona Police Dept. Investigator Angela Evans testified to various electronic data she analyzed including Fravel’s laptop, a trail camera he was spotted on in April, and photos pulled off of Kingsbury’s iPhone.
On March 31, Evans told the jury Fravel’s laptop was “logged on using credentials” at 8:15 a.m., a browser was used a minute later before the account was logged off, until the computer was logged on with credentials once again and a browser was accessed at 3:08 p.m. Evans testified that there were two anonymous browsers installed on Fravel’s laptop including Duck Duck Go and TOR: both of which do not produce data given they are used for anonymity, while TOR is “typically used to access the dark web.”
The trail camera photo, taken of Fravel riding a UTV on private property on April 9 at 4:51 p.m., was also presented to the courtroom by prosecutors. Evans used tools to lighten the photo, showing Fravel wearing a long shirt, hat, sunglasses while driving a ranger with a long, brown handle of a tool visible in the UTV’s bed on the Wisel Creek property, just south of Kingsbury’s remains site. Prosecutors are working to prove that it is a handle to a shovel, but defense attorney, Zach Bauer, pointed out that it could be a number of farm tools.
The state is alleging the shovel believed to be in the photo and ranger, are the same shovel and UTV that cadaver dogs alerted to at Fravel’s parents home in Mabel on April 10, 2023.
Evans also spoke about two pictures pulled from Kingsbury’s phone taken of her two children: one photo from March 5, 2023, of them in the bathroom and another taken in Dec. 2022. In both photos, a blue and white polka dot bath towel is visible and Evans testified that it is consistent with the one found wrapped around Kingsbury’s head at the time her body was discovered by law enforcement on June 7, 2023.
More phone data pulled from Kingsbury’s phone show she sent one text message to her sister at 8:14 a.m. the day she went missing and no other outgoing messages or calls were made from this phone.
Other text messages between Kingsbury and Fravel were also shown to the court. On Sept. 9, 2022, Kingsbury texted Fravel, “I’m not okay with or over the fact that you put your hand around my neck and pushed me down in front of the kids earlier so don’t,” in which Fravel replied, “You’ll adjust.”
On Nov. 23, 2022, Kingsbury texted Fravel, “I want to have sex. But like a little rough but not like choking me.”
Fravel’s defense team in this case is working to convince the jury that Kingsbury had ‘secret truths’ regarding her sex life while prosecutors are alleging the abuse to Kingsbury was not from activities in the bedroom.
Bauer showed sexual text messages to the courtroom from Kingsbury to Fravel about a month before she disappeared. Some texts dated back to late Nov. 2022.
Prosecutors attempted to disallow some of Kingsbury’s website searches from being presented in court by the defense arguing the “searches do not reflect the defendant” and that “none of the abuse was sexual.” Bauer said “it is absolutely relevant in this case.” Judge Nancy Buytendorp agreed and ruled it to be admitted as evidence.
Kingsbury’s website activity was presented to the courtroom, including her searches for explicit videos on Feb. 28, 2023. Kingsbury also Googled “coming clean about cheating” on March 25, 2023.
The defense also presented photos pulled from the couple’s phones as well, two of which showed an air mattress without a bedsheet in 2023, one dated from Jan. and another in March, just a few days before Kingsbury went missing.
—————————————————- OCT. 24TH ————————————————–
(ABC 6 News) – Thursday, the jury in Adam Fravel’s murder trial heard more testimony from law enforcement regarding surveillance conducted on the father of two as well as data extracted from his cellphone.
Winona County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Nicholas Walch told the jury he put a tracker on Fravel’s vehicle on April 2, 2023 while he was being questioned by investigators at the Rushford Police Dept. He also told the courtroom that while investigating this case, Fravel’s garbage at his parents residence in Mabel, Minn. was pulled and collected.
Walch also told the courtroom he participated in searches at the Mabel home and observed a UTV Polaris ranger parked inside a barn with a chain and cat litter in the bed of the vehicle. This was during a consent search at the property.
On April 10, a search warrant for the UTV was executed at the home and this time it had a shovel in the back and it was collected into evidence. He also testified that Richard and Ann Fravel offered home surveillance to police on April 2 and the SD card was collected into evidence.
Attorneys cross examined the investigator multiple times on surveillance conducted at the Mabel home, which Walch told the courtroom he only did on one occasion at the Highway 43 intersection nearby. Prosecutors pointed out that police were only watching the roads and that Fravel would not have been seen if he left the residence on the UTV on the back of the property.
A Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension digital forensic examiner, Jeffrey Mound, received three phones to extract location data from on April 4: an iPhone 14 belonging to Fravel, and an iPhone 13 and 8+ both belonging to Kingsbury.
A special agent with the BCA, Joseph Murphy, testified that he analyzed cellphone data related to the Wyze cameras installed at Fravel and Kingsbury’s Winona home. That data showed two operational cameras at the home and 14 photos were collected from the cellphones.
That data showed the cameras were no longer operational after March 29, 2023, two days before Kingsbury was reported as missing. That camera was deleted at 7:02 a.m. that day using Fravel’s phone.
After the jury left the courtroom, attorneys spoke with Judge Nancy Buytendorp about allowing certain pieces of evidence into the trial, including explicit searches and websites accessed by Kingsbury. The defense is looking to prove that any bruising on Kingsbury’s body and neck were due to actions in the bedroom, while the state’s case against Fravel alleges a history of domestic violence and abuse.
Prosecutor Phil Prokopowicz argued the searches were not relevant to the case, would be prejudiced to Kingsbury, and it’s unclear what Kingsbury specifically viewed in those searches. Zach Bauer, Fravel’s attorney, told the judge, “it’s absolutely relevant to this case,” and that on Nov. 22 in 2022, “there were conversations between Fravel and Kingsbury having rough sex that night.” The judge ruled the evidence would be submitted.
Bauer, also making a statement to the judge regarding objections he has made over the last week. During parts of testimony, some witnesses have referred to Kingsbury as “Maddi” and “Madeline” as well as referred to the couples home as a “crime scene.” Bauer told Judge Buytendorp that “we will request a mistrial if this continues.”
—————————————————- OCT. 23nd —————————————————
(ABC 6 News) – The medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Madeline Kingsbury will testify in Adam Fravel’s murder trial Wednesday.
Images of the mother’s remains are graphic and will not be shown to the public inside the courtroom out of respect for Kingsbury’s family, according to one court official. Only members of the jury, attorneys, the witness and journalists in the media room are able to view the photos.
The medical examiner, Dr. Ross Zumwalt of Mayo Clinic, told the courtroom he was a forensic pathologist and had performed 700-800 autopsies in his career. On June 8, 2023, Dr. Zumwalt told the jury upon receiving the body bag, “I saw a body wrapped in a sheet and a body that was badly decomposed.” He also stated that a towel was seen wrapped around Kingsbury’s head, saying “[the towel] was tied in a slipknot” and that it was “tied pretty tight.”
The autopsy photos showed the grey bed sheet Kingsbury was wrapped in, stained several different colors due to the advanced state of decomposition, according to Dr. Zumwalt.
Dr. Zumwalt also found a wash cloth inside the body bag, saying, “it just kind of fell out.”
In his testimony, Dr. Zumwalt explained to the jury the autopsy found no signs of natural causes, nothing suspicious in the toxicology report, and no fractured bones. The doctor determined Kingsbury’s manner of death to be a homicide and told the jury, “it was my opinion that she died at the hands of another person and I called it homicidal violence.” Prosecutors alleged to the jury that asphyxia is most likely the cause of death in this case, but because of the advanced state of decomposition, Kingsbury’s exact cause of death is unclear.
The uncertainty as to Kingsbury’s cause of death is a point Fravel’s defense attorney, Zach Bauer, made to the jury. That, in addition to Dr. Zumwalt’s testimony stating no determination is ever made with 100% medical certainty, only with medical reasoning.
Dr. Zumwalt did testify, however, that asphyxiation is likely how the 26-year-old died and that there would not be many physical signs if that were the case. The doctor told the jury that the towel around Kingsbury’s head was tied tight enough that it could have asphyxiated her.
One of the men who co-owned the property adjacent to where Kingsbury’s body was found, Alan Spaulding, also took the stand on Wednesday. Spaulding co-owns what’s referred to as the Steil Stanton Property in this case, on 198th St. where Kingsbury’s body was found, alongside Timothy Steil who also testified earlier in this trial.
Spaulding told the jury he also owns land referred to as the Wisel Creek property, which also surrounds the property and home owned Fravel’s parents, Richard and Ann Fravel. According to Spaulding, Richard Fravel performed odd jobs on both properties since 2006 including light mechanic work and mowing the lawns. However, Richard Fravel did not do anything on the properties in the five to six months leading up to March, 2023. Spaulding told the jury Richard Fravel did sometimes store items inside his barn on the Wisel Creek property.
Adam Fravel was never seen on either properties, according to Spaulding, but testified that Fravel installed a wifi router and computer at a cabin located on the Steil Stanton property around three or four years ago.
On the weekend of April 7-9, 2023, Spaulding said he decided to install four trail cameras on the Wisel Creek property for the first time that spring. On the morning of April 9, Spaulding told the courtroom that Fravel was caught on one of these cameras riding a UTV heading north toward the Steil Stanton property, despite him not having permission to be on the private land.
Spaulding told the courtroom out of his decades of owning the property, he was unaware of the culvert on 198th St. where Kingsbury’s body was found. He is the third person to testify to having no knowledge that culvert existed, as the state works to convince the jury that is the reason she was not found in earlier searches.
In total, 21 witness testified to the court on Wednesday.
—————————————————- OCT. 22nd —————————————————
(ABC 6 News) – Tuesday, several more of the state’s witnesses are giving testimony to the court in Adam Fravel’s murder trial surrounding the recovery of Madeline Kingsbury’s remains as well as her financial records.
Robert Wilkinson, a special agent with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, was back on the stand, this time discussing his analysis of Kingsbury’s finances. According to Wells Fargo bank records dating back to 25 months before she went missing, Kingsbury used Apple Cash to transfer money to Fravel as well as her own family.
Throughout 2021, Kingsbury had transferred $6,100.11 in Apple Cash. Then in 2022, she had transferred another $6,406.49. Wilkinson testified that at least 50% of this was sent to Fravel. Finally in the first three months of 2023, up until Kingsbury disappeared, she had transferred $5,272.78. Wilkinson stated that at least $4,000 went to Fravel.
Wilkinson also told the courtroom that upon his analysis of these records, that Fravel’s income had decreased from 2021 to 2023.
The special agent added that Kingsbury sent more money to Fravel in the first 90 days of 2023 than she had in entire years prior. The defense questioned why Wilkinson did not analyze Kingsbury’s savings account, as he had with Fravel’s account, but Wilkinson said no money was transferred to Fravel from that account and so he did not find it relevant to this missing person’s case.
The state made a stipulation regarding Kingsbury’s life insurance policy that both of Fravel’s defense attorneys agreed to. Prosecutor Phil Prokopowicz stated that Kingsbury’s employer, Mayo Clinic, had a $170,000 life insurance policy and as of March 2023, Kingsbury did not have a designated beneficiary. The money would ultimately go to a trust and a death certificate is needed to access it. That trust would automatically be given to Kingsbury’s next of kin, her children, and Fravel would be able to access it as the father.
This means that the state and defense agree, no evidence is needed to prove this point and the jury should accept this stipulation as a fact and decide how much importance it deserves in forming their own opinions on the case.
Next on the witness stand Tuesday afternoon, is Fillmore County Sheriff’s investigator Dan Dornink, who discovered Kingsbury’s remains on June 7, 2023.
Dornink testified that he had searched 198th street, which is where Kingsbury’s remains had been located, throughout the week of April 2, 2023, just days after the mother was reported missing. The property is owned by Alan Spaulding and Timothy Steil. He also stated that other investigators assisted in the search as well as an official with the DNR using an ATV on the property.
Nothing was found in this search and Investigator Dornink testified that 198th St. was considered searched at that point.
The jury was shown several maps starting from the couple’s home in Winona down to Mabel, Minn. Fravel told police that he had driven down Highway 43 the day Kingsbury was reported missing on March 31 in her blue van, before he claimed he forgot something and had to turn around.
Investigator Dornink testified that he was tasked with searching surveillance videos for Kingsbury’s van from that day. The van was caught on four surveillance cameras: one at the D & D Car Wash in Rushford at 11:56 a.m., at Brown’s Tire & Battery Inc. in Rushford at 11:51 a.m., twice on one home’s surveillance camera heading both south and north on Highway 43 and finally on another home’s surveillance camera. There is no footage of the van after that.
Dornink testified that the timestamp from the Brown’s camera is not believed to be accurate.
The home that captured the van twice on March 31 saw it going southbound on Highway 43 at 11:59 a.m. and then northbound later at 12:44 p.m.
There is a 44 minute gap where the van is not seen on any surveillance before being seen driving north again.
Dornink told the court he began recreating the drive, and determined it would have taken the driver 10 minutes to get to Choice, a small town in between Rushford and Mabel, and 12 minutes to reach 198th St. Dornink also testified that Kingsbury’s remains site was about 0.04 miles from Highway 43, which is a one minute drive.
To drive from the last surveillance camera to 198th street and back, it would take 26 minutes, according to Dornink’s testimony. Dornink testified that in that time, someone would have had 18 minutes to unload and cover Kingsbury’s body.
On June 7, 2023, Dornink was searching 198th street again after receiving information from the Winona Police Dept. He said as he was about to finish his search, he heard flies. He told the courtroom this was relevant because, “I know they congregate around rotting or decomposition.” In a culvert just off of the road, he eventually found a grey bed sheet underneath several large logs and vegetation. At this time, Dornink said he phoned the BCA and other officers with the FCSO to ensure there was a body camera present.
Tuesday, Dornink showed the courtroom BCA agent Joe Swenson’s body camera footage as investigators began uncovering the bedding and said, “the smell began to increase as we removed the logs” and that police needed to open the sheet, “to confirm what was inside.”
Inside the fitted grey bed sheet there was a body with brown hair wearing a black shirt. The body would later be identified as Madeline Kingsbury. Kingsbury’s remains were brought to the Southeast Regional Medical Examiner’s Office.
Dornink testified to the court that culverts are typically known to law enforcement and that officers had been searching every culvert in the area. The investigator told the jury he did not know this culvert existed.
Also on the witness stand Monday is Steven Swenson, a forensic scientist with the BCA. Swenson testified to the advanced stages of decomposition that was evident upon recovering Kingsbury’s remains, which he helped assist with on the crime scene team.
Photos shown to the courtroom showed a blue and white towel inside the grey fitted bedsheet with the body.
Swenson testified that upon Kingsbury’s autopsy, the BCA was provided all of the clothing she was wearing, the grey bed sheet, a wash cloth, a blue and white towel, a hair tie, the black duct tape and her fingernails.
One of Fravel’s defense attorneys, Zach Bauer, pressed Swenson as to why several beer cans also found at the scene were not collected as evidence. Swenson told the courtroom the cans were determined to be too old to be relevant to the case.
Kingsbury’s remains were found at the edge of a privately owned property and one of its owners, Timothy Steil, was called as a witness by the prosecution. Steil owns the property with two other men as a cabin and resides in Lino Lakes.
Steil told the courtroom he paid Richard Fravel, Adam Fravel’s father, to mow his property and had given him a set of keys. Steil testified that he ended work with Richard Fravel after hearing of the investigation surrounding the disappearance of his son’s former girlfriend back in March of 2023. Around that time, Steil said he had gave law enforcement full access to his property and promised to assist in the search.
Steil said he had searched his property around five times for Kingsbury, including with his hunting dog. On the weekend of April 7 and 8, Steil said he searched 198th St. and that there were, “no leaves and it was easy searching.” Steil did not find anything, his dog never alerted to any spot on 198th St. and therefore he, “didn’t see a reason to search again.”
—————————————————- OCT. 21ST —————————————————
(ABC 6 News) – More of the state’s witnesses are taking the stand Monday, as Adam Fravel’s murder trial enters its third week in Mankato, Minn.
The first on the stand this week is another investigator with the Winona Police Dept. who worked on Madeline Kingsbury’s case. Investigator Derek Lanning with WPD interviewed Kingsbury’s new boyfriend, Spencer Sullivan, the day after she was reported missing on April 1, 2023.
Investigator Lanning testified that upon telling Sullivan Kingsbury was missing, he was “visibly upset, broke down and cried”. When asked for his cooperation, Investigator Lanning said Sullivan willingly gave a DNA sample, his phone, password and said, “whatever helps.”
About a week later, Investigator Lanning conducted a follow-up with Sullivan on April 8 to verify his timeline. Sullivan’s managers at Aldi’s confirmed Sullivan was working from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on March 31. Sullivan was then caught on surveillance video at a local shoe store from 1:12 p.m. to 1:24 p.m. Later, several people confirmed Sullivan was seen at Bubs Brewing Company, a Winona restaurant, sometime between 1:30 and 2 p.m. to pick up an order.
Between two search warrants served at the home of Fravel’s parents in Mabel, Minn. on April 2 and 7, Investigator Lanning told the court several pieces of evidence were collected including Fravel’s laptop, white new balance shoes, a red bomber hat, a white jacket, and a pair of hiking boots among other articles of clothing. A photograph presented to the court showed mud and dirt encrusted on the bottom of the white shoes.
However, Investigator Lanning testified that he also saw other possible evidence on the property and filed for another search warrant.
Law enforcement then found about four smashed pieces of electronics in a dumpster outside the home of Fravel’s parents. On the same property, another piece of electronic equipment was found in a burn pit. It was melted and nearly unidentifiable, as depicted in a photograph shown to the court.
During cross examination, Investigator Lanning stated the burn pit seemed to be used regularly and there were other items in the pit. On a different note, the defense also pointed out that according to a Target receipt from Kingsbury the day before she went missing, on March 30, she purchased a new, black iPhone.
Another big piece of evidence Monday was the last known video of Kingsbury before she disappeared, captured on a Ring camera from her children’s daycare that morning. Brooke Pelowski, the daycare provider for Fravel and Kingsbury’s two children, turned over that footage to the WPD.
In the video captured the morning of March 31, 2023 around 8 a.m., Fravel, Kingsbury and their children, are seen walking up to the door. Fravel is wearing a white jacket, white shoes and a red bomber hat. The doorbell camera also captured Fravel picking up the children without Kingsbury later that day around 4:21 p.m., wearing brown boots instead of the white shoes.
Fravel’s clothing was later collected into evidence by WPD, according to Investigator Lanning.
Also taking the stand Monday, was WPD Sgt. Steven Rysted, one of the first officers looking into the case on April 1, 2023.
Sgt. Rysted testified that he captured photographs of Kingsbury’s blue van in the driveway and claimed he saw mud on the driver’s side door handle.
When questioned on whether he took pictures of the alleged mud by one of Fravel’s defense attorneys, Zach Bauer, Sgt. Rysted said he “might have.” However, no photographs of the handle were shown to the jury.
Following investigators testimony, those that lived closest to Kingsbury and Fravel took their turn on the stand.
A neighbor living on the same street as the couple, Jeremy Loechler, stated to the court that he told WPD he noticed something strange on March 31, 2023. Loechler testified that around 9:30 a.m. that day, he noticed Kingsbury’s blue van was backed into the driveway, not pulled in and facing the garage as it usually is.
Rachel Henke, who shared a duplex with Fravel and Kingsbury, testified that she never interacted with Fravel, only Kingsbury. Henke, who shares the same walls as the couple, told the courtroom she never heard fighting between them since they moved in April of 2021. Henke testified that she is typically not home from 7:45 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday. She also added she rarely saw Fravel outside the home nor saw any types of bruising or marks on Kingsbury during their conversations.
The couple’s landlord, Kayla Oppelt, told the court that for the first four months of Kingsbury and Fravel living in the duplex, the couple split rent with each other. However, from Aug. 2021 through March 2023, Kingsbury paid the $1,000 rent herself.
Oppelt testified that she had told the couple they needed to move out by May of 2023, but said Kingsbury texted her on March 27 indicating that she unexpectedly needed a new place and would be moving out early.
After WPD began investigating Kingsbury’s disappearance, Oppelt changed the locks and gave WPD the keys as well as exclusive access to the home. Police gave Oppelt the duplex keys back on April 26 of that year. Oppelt testified that a few days after that, Kingsbury’s family arrived to collect her things from the home followed by Fravel’s father and his lawyer a few days after that. According to Oppelt, Fravel’s father and lawyer were inside the duplex for “a few hours” but did not take anything out of the home. Kingsbury’s sorority sisters arrived about a week after that to clean the duplex.
The last person to testify Monday was special agent Robert Wilkinson with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, who was called onto the case to conduct cell phone searches and extractions. Wilkinson testified that he specifically extracted Sullivan and Fravel’s phone.
Upon better analysis of Kingsbury’s credit card information, Wilkinson told the courtroom there was a Caribou Coffee app installed on the 26-year-old’s cell phone. In that, someone on Kingsbury’s account had set aside 150 points for a free drink upgrade on March 31, 2023 at 8:15 a.m., but those points were never redeemed. It also showed that Kingsbury transferred $20 in Apple Cash to Fravel at 8:14 a.m. that same morning.
Wilkinson showed the courtroom an in-depth look at Fravel’s financial records. Throughout 2021, Fravel had about $2,488.95 in his savings account and $2,686.78 in his checking account by that Dec. The next year by that same time, Fravel only had $5.96 in his savings account and about $270 in his checking account.
Further, those records showed the jury that throughout the entire year of 2021, Kingsbury had transferred Fravel $3,808.89. However from Jan. to March of 2023, up until Kingsbury went missing, she had already sent him $4,035.28.
Kingsbury’s financial records will be presented to the courtroom on Tuesday.
In total, 11 of the state’s witnesses took the stand on Monday.
—————————————————- OCT. 18TH —————————————————
(ABC 6 News) – Friday marks the first full day of witness testimony in Adam Fravel’s murder trial in Mankato, Minn.
The first to present witnesses in this case is the prosecution, and according to court documents, there are 180 the state plans to have testify to the jury.
Following opening statements, the first two state witnesses took the stand on Thursday were both with the Winona Police Dept.
The first, Officer Ethan Sense, was one of the officers that responded to the initial welfare check at Madeline Kingsbury and Fravel’s shared duplex.
A major point in the testimony was Officer Sense telling the court he had seen, what he says could have been, vomit on the back step of the home. Upon being pressed by the defense, Officer Sense stated it was never tested for DNA, which can be found in vomit.
The first piece of evidence shown to the court was Officer Sense’s body camera, which recording the first questioning of Fravel by WPD on the evening of March 31, 2023. Fravel can be heard answering general questions from Officer Sense, chuckled several times and ended the call by saying, “I don’t know if I should be worried or what.”
Next on the stand is WPD investigator, Anita Sobotta, who was one of the officers to question Fravel in person in the first two days following Kingsbury’s disappearance. The state showed Sobotta’s body camera footage of the interview to the court.
The first took place on April 1, 2023, at the home of Fravel’s parents in Mabel, where he had spent the night with his two children. Fravel was initially seen laughing in a recliner inside when police arrived. Fravel told Sobotta he and Kingsbury had been “in an on and off relationship for seven years” and had just started couple therapy back in Jan. of that year. He then explained that “two to three weeks ago, [he and Kingsbury] just weren’t feeling it anymore” and decided to separate.
On this day, Fravel is also seen on video voluntarily giving officers his phone and password.
Evidence of Fravel’s text messages with Kingsbury were shown to the court, in which she had sent him money virtually the day before she went missing on Thursday, March 30, 2023. The next day, when she was reported missing, Fravel texts Kingsbury about half a dozen times throughout the late morning and early afternoon asking her what her plan is, where she is and if she will be taking their daughter to visit family over the weekend.
More of Sobotta’s body camera footage shows the second police interview with Fravel on April 2, 2023, this time at the Rushford Police Dept. On the video, Fravel is heard answering more questions and detailing his relationship with Kingsbury. He told investigators she had told him a few weeks prior she began dating a man named Spencer Sullivan and that “we just don’t have the love [anymore].”
However, about an hour into the interview investigators told Fravel his stories were not making sense to them and asked him directly numerous times, “do you know where Maddi is” and “do you have anything to do with her disappearance” to which Fravel replied, “no.”
Fravel was also pressed about his alleged threat to Kingsbury about her ending up like homicide victim, Gabby Petito, and he claimed “I was infatuated with the case. It was so stupid, I was just trying to make a joke,” claiming he did not choke her but hugged her from behind.
Sobotta pressed Fravel about scratches on the left side of his face on his nose, above his eye, on his neck and two more below his nose. Fravel claims the scratches were from his at home gym equipment, but then said it could have been from his daughter, or a cat, or a dog. Fravel told investigators, “Maddi and I do not have any history of violence and we have never laid hands on each other,” despite investigators saying others have said the opposite.
The interview ended when Fravel said, “I’ve been working with you guys but now I am putting up a wall,” and invoked his right to an attorney.
Friday, one Fravel’s defense attorneys, Zachary Bauer, began his cross examination of Sobotta. Bauer pressed Sobotta as to why she never took pictures of the scratches on Fravel’s face during those first days of questioning and why she did not follow up on Officer Sense’s report detailing possible untested vomit outside the home. Sobotta claimed the main focus at that point was solely locating Kingsbury and explained an agent with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension did photograph the scratches later.
Friday afternoon, forensic scientist McKenzie Anderson with the BCA, a member of the crime scene team that processed Fravel and Kingsbury’s home the night of April 1, 2023 took the stand.
Video evidence of the BCA’s initial walk through the house was shown to the court, showing an extremely cluttered and messy home in each room. More photographs of the home show an iPhone on the floor of the living room, a bundle of grey bedding in a pile on the laundry room floor, the jacket Kingsbury was last seen in at the daycare the morning she went missing, along with her backpack containing two laptops, a wallet with her ID inside and a pager for Mayo Clinic.
In the basement, BCA members found a tote containing four empty boxes for indoor and outdoor security cameras.
Photographs of bedrooms inside the home were also shown to the courtroom, including images inside the main bedroom and a child’s bedroom showing something that had been screwed into the wall was taken down and paint was missing from the wall.
Anderson testified to the court that after processing the home, there was no blood detected.
After processing the van, belonging to Kingsbury but driven by Fravel the day Kingsbury was reported missing, Anderson said no blood was detected.
—————————————————- OCT. 17TH —————————————————
(ABC 6 News) – Thursday morning, opening statements in Adam Fravel’s murder trial were given to a nearly full courtroom at the Blue Earth Co. Justice Center.
For the very first time, Fravel and his team of attorneys, Zachary Bauer and Grace Dokken of Meshbesher & Spence, presented their arguments to the 17-person jury as to why he is innocent in the murder of the mother of his children, Madeline Kingsbury.
The prosecution gave its opening arguments to the jury first, with attorney Phillip Propokowicz taking the lead. Propokowicz appearing calm, stoic and matter of fact to the jury as he tells the story of Kingsbury’s life. He says “Madeline Kingsbury will not testify. She’s not here. But through the testimony of her friends, family, forensic scientists and investigators you will hear the story of Kingsbury’s life. You’ll hear her happiness, her sadness and her tragic death.”
Propokowicz explained to the jury the evidence they will see, the testimony they will hear and went through the last few months and weeks of Kingsbury’s life. A great detail of the testimony was spent on the mother went missing, March 31, 2023.
A history of domestic violence was painted to the jury, as Propokowicz walked through several instances that friends or family saw abuse happening by Fravel to Kingsbury. One of these dates back to 2021, when Kingsbury was watching coverage on the Gabby Petito case. Propokowicz said that “Fravel put his hands around her neck, pushed her down and threatened she would end up like Petito if she did not learn to mind.”
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According to friends and family, Propokowicz says Kingsbury was seen with bruises on her neck several times before she disappeared and, “would even wear turtlenecks in the heat of the summer.”
Another part of the opening statement was the pieces of evidence the state is preparing to show the court, including the way in which Kingsbury’s body was found several months after she was reported missing. Kingsbury was found in a culvert on a gravel road off of Highway 43 just south of Rushford, Minn. in Fillmore Co.
Kingsbury’s body was found wrapped in a bedsheet held together by black duct tape. Propokowicz told the jury that same bed sheet matches the missing sheet inside Fravel and Kingsbury’s shared home and that the duct tape is consistent with a similar roll found inside as well.
Kingsbury’s cause of death was ruled to be asphyxiation and a bath towel was found wrapped in a slip knot around her neck. Propokowicz says a photo on Kingsbury’s phone of her children bathing in a bathroom shows the same bath towel hanging on a towel rack.
Propokowicz tells the jury that they will see pieces of evidence like phone data and surveillance cameras to create Fravel’s timeline from the day Kingsbury disappeared and claims Fravel was driving right where the 26-year-old’s body was found.
After 45 minutes, Propokowicz wrapped up his opening statement.
On the other side, Fravel’s lead attorney, Bauer, told the courtroom it, “all comes down to a case of tunnel vision, revisionist history and secret truths.”
Bauer, constantly pacing, using his hands and speaking very conversational to the jury, painted a picture of a man that has been deemed guilty by law enforcement from the beginning.
Bauer argued that 24 hours after Kingsbury was reported missing on March 31, 2023, law enforcement zeroed in on Fravel and Fravel alone. Bauer stated that from April 1 until Kingsbury’s body was discovered on June 7 of that same year, Fravel was under constant surveillance. He claimed that law enforcement ignored evidence and despite several search warrants on Fravel’s person, property, electronics, vehicles and even his garbage, no direct evidence was found.
‘Revisionist history’ is another term that Bauer frequently used in his opening statements, which is defined by Cambridge Dictionary as “someone who examines and tries to change existing beliefs about how events happened or what their importance or meaning is.” Bauer questioned why the ‘history of domestic violence’ alleged between Fravel and Kingsbury was not discussed by her friends before the spring of 2023.
Bauer stated that Kingsbury’s friends had a ‘lot of frustration with how the case was moving forward’ and that they were able to discuss these stories and allegations with each other before speaking to law enforcement. Bauer told the jury there is “a lot of revisionist history with those statements.”
Another big point in Bauer’s opening arguments was the topic of ‘secret truths’ of which he claims Kingsbury had many. One of these, he says, is regarding her recent relationship with a new partner, Spencer Sullivan. Sullivan and Kingsbury were old acquaintances at Winona State University and began speaking in the fall of 2022 before their relationship became sexually intimate.
Kingsbury and Sullivan’s relationship was ‘severely downplayed’ to her own family and friends. He also claims that when it comes to the apparent bruising seen on Kingsbury’s neck several times according to family and friends, Bauer stated Kingsbury herself claimed it was because “things got out of hand in the bedroom.” The attorney told the jury they would hear from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension that Kingsbury had researched choking multiple times on X websites.
Bauer told the jury that Fravel and Kingsbury’s relationship was full of love since they met at Winona State University and eventually brought them their two children. He added that it “had its ups and downs and there was fighting like everyone else,” and further argued that Fravel moving out of their shared townhome in Winona at the time of Kingsbury’s disappearance “was quite frankly a regular occurrence in their relationship.”
His opening statements ended with him telling the jury, “the only verdict supported by evidence shown in the case and the only verdict you can come to is not guilty.”
For a full timeline of events leading up to the trial, click here.
For a timeline of the lengthy jury selection process to begin this trial, click here.
ABC 6 News is in court for the entirety of this trial and will bring you the latest as it happens.