Adam Fravel murder trial: Madeline Kingsbury’s parents take stand

Family members of Madeline Kingsbury testified on Tuesday in Adam Fravel’s murder trial in Mankato.

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 seven-year on/off again, seven-year relationship.

Hultgren told the jury about one incident in September 2022 that happened while Kingsbury was getting her children ready for day care. 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 who 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 “[Madeline] 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.”

Madeline Kingsbury 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.” Madeline Kingsbury eventually moved her and her children back into her Winona home because David Kingsbury said she wanted them to be close to their dad.

Hultgren testified that ever since the birth of their first child, Madeline Kingsbury felt like she was not getting enough help from Fravel, testifying, that “[Madeline] 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 November 2020, after throwing him out of his house. David 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, David Kingsbury kicked Fravel out while he and Madeline Kingsbury were staying there.

David 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.”