ST. PAUL, Minn. —Winona murderer Adam Fravel had what may be his last day in court — a last-ditch appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court of his life sentence. Fravel wasn’t present for the event. His attorney, public defender Greg Scanlan, argued the case. In asking for a new trial, Scanlan said the death of Maddi Kingsbury conceivably may have been due to a sexual encounter gone wrong. If so, he contended, Fravel’s conviction for first-degree murder was excessive. The evidence at the trial was insufficient to establish that Kingsbury’s death was anything more than negligence. Scanlan noted that Kingsbury’s body, which was found hidden in the woods two months after she died, was fully clothed with a towel tied around her neck which covered her face. The towel was tied with a slip-knot, which he said doesn’t bespeak intentional homicide but rather a quintessential method of erotic asphyxia. Scanlan also challenged the testimony of a domestic abuse expert at the trial. The “expert,” he said, was speaking beyond her area of expertise. The prosecutor for Winona County at the trial, Phillip Prokopowicz, offered the Supreme Court the same responses he had before in a lower appellate court. Favel, now 32 years old, is in the 14th month of his life sentence at the Stillwater state prison.
