Day Two: Adam Fravel on trial for the death of Madeline Kingsbury

The trial of Adam Fravel continued on Friday in Mankato with the first full day of witness testimony. Hubbard Broadcasting sister-station KAAL has a reporter in the courtroom and provides updates on the process. According court documents, the state plans on calling 180 witnesses to testify.

Both sides presented their opening statements on Thursday, with two members of the Winona Police Department taking the stand.

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 showed the first questioning of Fravel by WPD on the evening of March 31, 2023. Fravel can be heard answering general questions from Officer Sense, chuckling several times and ending 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 interview 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 January 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.

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.

Reporting from KAAL-TV.