A jury found Adam Fravel, 30, of Mabel, guilty in November. He
was arrested in June 2023, days after deputies found the body of
Madeline Kingsbury in a wooded area a few miles away from a
property owned by Fravel’s parents.
The 26-year-old Kingsbury vanished in March 2023 after dropping
off her and Fravel’s two young children at daycare in Winona, a
southeastern Minnesota city of about 26,000 residents.
The trial was moved to Mankato, about 136 miles (219 kilometers)
west of Winona, because of extensive pretrial publicity. Fravel
will be sentenced back in Winona by District Judge Nancy
Buytendorp. Premeditated first-degree murder, the most serious
of the four counts on which he was convicted, carries a
mandatory sentence of life in prison.
Police found Kingsbury’s body in a culvert along a gravel road,
in a gray fitted bed sheet that had been closed with black
Gorilla tape. Prosecutor Phil Prokopowicz said she was strangled
with a towel and that a medical examiner concluded she likely
died of asphyxiation. The towel, bedsheet and tape matched items
found in their Winona home, Prokopowicz said during the trial.
Prokopowicz and witnesses said Kingsbury had been planning to
leave Fravel for another man after becoming frustrated with his
alleged abusive behavior and inadequate contributions to their
family. He responded to those plans by killing her, the
prosecutor said.
“The relationship was never about them,” Prokopowicz said in his
closing statement. “It was always about him.”
Witnesses testified they had seen bruises on Kingsbury’s neck.
In one instance, a friend said she was on a video call with
Kingsbury when Fravel allegedly hit her. Another friend
testified that Kingsbury told her Fravel had warned Kingsbury
that she could end up like Gabby Petito, a woman who was killed
by her boyfriend in a high-profile 2021 case.
Fravel did not testify in his own defense. His attorney, Zach
Bauer, said in his closing argument that the case against Fravel
relied on “tunnel vision, revisionist history and secret
truths.” He contended that there was no sign of any physical
struggle inside the couple’s home. He also pointed to testimony
from a neighbor who claimed to have never heard the couple
argue.
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