MN Supreme Court upholds Adam Fravel murder conviction

The Minnesota Supreme Court denied Adam Fravel's appeal, upholding his murder convictions in the killing of Madeline Kingsbury and leaving in place his life sentence without parole. (fox9.com)

A jury had convicted Fravel of first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree murder tied to a past pattern of domestic abuse, second-degree intentional murder and second-degree felony murder. The high court ruled the trial properly admitted expert domestic-violence testimony and the medical examiner's opinion that the death was caused by homicidal violence, and it found the evidence sufficient for all counts.

The episode traces back to a relationship that began about 2016 in Winona, where the couple had two children and lived together. Friends and family say Fravel showed a pattern of physical abuse, including choking and hitting, and Kingsbury had told people she feared he would harm her. Kingsbury disappeared after dropping the children at daycare on March 31, 2023; Fravel was the last known person to see her and gave inconsistent accounts of her leaving. A massive volunteer search followed and her children were placed with her parents after a judge denied Fravel custody. Her body was found near Fravel's parents' home on June 7, 2023, wrapped in a bedsheet with a towel knotted around her head.

Fravel was arrested the day her body was found and initially charged with second-degree murder, then prosecutors added first-degree counts in October 2023. A Blue Earth County jury convicted him on November 7, 2024, and a judge sentenced him to life without parole on December 17, 2024; his appeal was rejected by the state Supreme Court. The case comes amid a rise in intimate partner violence in Minnesota; at least 31 people died that way in 2025, up from 24 a year earlier. The Supreme Court decision keeps the convictions intact and ends Fravel's path for overturning the verdict.