Star Tribune
Trial in Madeline
MANKATO – Lawyers spent almost 90 minutes inside a courtroom here making their cases over whether Adam Fravel is guilty of killing his ex-girlfriend, Madeline Kingsbury, at the end of March in 2023.
Fravel, wearing a gray blazer over dress clothes, appeared largely nonresponsive as his trial started Thursday morning, beginning an anticipated several weeks of testimony from friends, family, neighbors, law enforcement and medical experts.
He is charged with four counts of murder in various degrees, including premeditated first-degree murder and murder while committing domestic abuse with a past pattern of domestic issues. The trial was moved out of Winona County earlier this year because of media coverage and community awareness surrounding the case.
In their opening statements, the state’s special prosecutor Phillip Prokopowicz and Fravel’s lawyer Zachary Bauer laid out a rough timeline of Fravel’s relationship with Kingsbury, as well as her disappearance, the search for her and where her body was found.
The shared facts ended there.
Prokopowicz went through Kingsbury’s history with Fravel, beginning with their days as students at Winona State University. He told jurors how they spent seven years together with their two children, ages 5 and 2. He detailed how Kingsbury was last seen alive on Friday, March 31, 2023, with Fravel as they dropped their children off at daycare.
And he alluded to the evidence found on Kingsbury’s body — a bath towel wrapped around her jaw and neck that matched a towel seen in photos inside her bathroom. The fitted bed sheet wrapped around Kingsbury’s body matches other bedding her family took from Kingsbury’s home shortly after she disappeared. And the black tape holding the sheet to the body matched the color and size of tape found in the garage.
Prokopowicz described the days leading up to Kingsbury’s disappearance and death as fraught with tension over Kingsbury leaving Fravel. He alluded to a history of domestic abuse in Kingsbury and Fravel’s relationship. The prosecutor also pointed to video evidence and testimony showing Fravel’s whereabouts were unknown for 45 minutes that Friday morning.
When the Minnesota Supreme Court this week declined to hear an appeal by the University of St. Thomas regarding the environmental impact of its new hockey/basketball arena under construction, neighbor and arena foe Dan Kennedy said the “ethical” thing for the university to do was stop construction until neighbor concerns are addressed.
Not going to happen, university officials said Thursday.
While a public review of a revised Environmental Assessment Worksheet continues through Nov. 7, construction of the 5,000-seat Lee and Penny Anderson Arena continues. In an e-mail Thursday, a university spokesman said the arena is expected to be completed in fall 2025.
“The University of St. Thomas is aware of the Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision to deny its petition to appeal and is reviewing the potential impacts of this decision,” an emailed statement from St. Thomas said. “Last week, the City of St. Paul published an updated EAW for public comment, and that process will continue. Construction of the Lee & Penny Anderson Arena will also continue, as permitted by law.”
But Kennedy said he believes that decision is not only wrong, but illegal. Because the state Court of Appeals this summer ruled the project’s first environmental review was inadequate, its site plans and building permits are invalid, said the president of Advocates for Responsible Development.
“We need somebody to specifically tell the University of St. Thomas that they must comply with the law,” Kennedy said. “This is an institution of higher learning, with a law school. They should comply with the law.”
Kennedy said he thought the Minnesota Court of Appeals had insisted on exactly that. In August, the appellate court ordered the city and university to conduct a new Environmental Assessment Worksheet. The previous assessment didn’t do enough to study the arena’s potential harm to the neighborhood’s parking, traffic and air quality, the court ruled.
“The reason why is that more sunlight in the morning time helps reinforce waking up, and having less light in the evening is less stimulation,” he said. “So when we’re winding down, preparing for sleep, having fewer hours of sunlight in the evening can help promote that process of falling asleep.”
Akingbola acknowledges that it can be sad to walk out of work or school when it’s already dark out, but in the long run, standard time is the way to go.
The U.S. already tried daylight savings year round in 1974
Despite the medical advice, there have been calls in recent years to make daylight savings time permanent.
Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, R-Big Lake, tried to pass a bill as recently as 2021 to make daylight savings time permanent, but it did not pass the Legislature.
The U.S. tried once before. According to Minnesota Star Tribune archives, due to an energy crisis, President Richard Nixon passed a law in January 1974 that made daylight savings a year-round thing.
A month into it, the Minneapolis Tribune ran an article saying there were calls to reverse the decision because there were more accidents in the pre-dawn darkness, particularly involving school children waiting for the bus. Under daylight savings time in January, sunrise wasn’t until well after 8 a.m. in Minnesota.
Karl-Anthony Towns may be in New York City, but his heart is in Minnesota.
On Wednesday night, Towns had some sweet seats for a Billie Eilish show at Madison Square Garden with his partner, Jordyn Woods, when she caught him watching the Timberwolves play the Chicago Bulls in a preseason game on his phone. Her video, posted to her Instagram story, made rounds on social media Thursday.
In the video, flames are literally spewing out from Eilish’s stage, lights are flashing all around and others in the crowd are head bobbing. And there is Towns, holding his phone in both hands and muttering to himself as the Timberwolves are down 88-75 late in the third quarter in a meaningless game.
“I promise he was enjoying the concert,” Woods wrote in the video’s caption.
The Wolves would go on to lose that game, 125-123. A nail-biter.
Towns’ trade to the New York Knicks for Julius Randle and others stunned the NBA world and all of Minnesota, where he was a beloved player for nine seasons and a leader on a team rapidly ascending toward championship contention.
“It was a lot of emotions,” Towns said. “Some amazing moments and times in nine years of my life in Minnesota, a place that I’ve called home. Guys who are not just teammates to me but brothers. We were like brothers. It definitely was a wild day, definitely coming to work.”
