MANKATO, Minn. – The chief prosecutor against Adam Fravel told jurors that they won’t hear from his strongest witness – the murder victim Maddi Kingsbury herself. In a 45-minute opening statement, Phillip Prokopowicz, speaking in calm and stoic tones, said:
“Madeline Kingsbury will not testify. She’s not here. But through the testimony of her friends, family, forensic scientists and investigators you will hear the story of Kingsbury’s life. You’ll hear her happiness, her sadness and her tragic death.”
Fravel, in gray suit and glasses, sat in silence as Prokopowicz accused him of abusing and killing the mother of their two children. Prokopowicz made these points about what the jury will hear over the next three to four weeks of the trial:
> A history of domestic violence to be told by friends and family.
> Kingsbury carried bruises on her neck and wore turtlenecks so they wouldn’t show.
> The sheet in which Kingsbury’s body was found 10 weeks after she disappeared matched a missing sheet from the couple’s shared duplex.
> Duct tape used to seal the body inside the sheet was like a roll found inside the duplex.
> Kingsbury died of asphyxiation, smothered in a bath towel in a slip knot around her and thattye towel matched a bath towel at the duplex.
> A timeline reconstructed from phone data and surveillance cameras tracked Fravel from Winona to 40 miles south near Mabel, where the body was found hidden a culvert.
Entrance to trial building. The courtroom is upstairs in the Blue Earth County Justice Center.
Prokopowicz
Prosecutor profile
The former chief deputy attorney for Dakota County, Phillip Prokopowicz, was brought out of retirement as a consultant in 2023 to help investigate the disappearance of Maddi Kingsbury – even before her body was found. He had a reputation for cases that are “potentially complex,” said Winona County prosecutor Karin Sonneman. In legal circles Pokopowicz was known as “arguably one of the best in the business” for his 18 years in Dakota Couty. He stayed on as a consultant on the case after Fravel was arrested and now heads the prosecution team at trial. At age 67, he lives in the southern St. Paul suburb of Inver Grove Heights.