MANKATO, Minn. — The prosecution in the Adam Favel murder trial added detail to the picture that jurors are forming about the day that Maddi Kingsbury disappeared. A Winona police sergeant, Steven Rysted, had been one of the first officers at duplex that Fravel sand Kingsbury shared. Rysted testified that he photographed mud on tye driver’s door handle on Kingsbury’s blue minivan in the driveway. Prosecutor Phil Prokopowicz didn’t respond with any extrapolation about the mud, at least not at the moment, but the police theory is that Fravel drove the minivan with Kingsbury’s body to a remote dirt trail in Fillmore County and disposed of the body. Left hanging was whether the mud might match soil where Kingsbury’s body was found 10-1/2 weeks later. Her disappearance was at the end of March, a wet season. Asked by Fravel’s defense attorney whether he had photographed the mud on the door handle, Rysted said he might have. No pictures were entered in the court record, however.
Defense: Why no mud tests? Vomit tests?
Fravel’s defense attorney, Zach Bauer, also asked Rysted if he had seen vomit on the back porch of the Fravel-Kingsbury duplex, as a fellow officer testified earlier that she had observed. Rysted responded that he had not. Bauer’s cross-examination fit an emerging defense that police were lax in the early investigation: Why wasn’t a sample the mud taken for testing? Why wasn’t the vomit sampled for DNA testing?
Why a mid-day change of shoes?
The prosecution also introduced information that Fravel had changed his shoes during the day, implying the first pair was muddied been during the day. Ring-camera video, introduced during Rysted’s testimony, showed Fravel in white New Balance shoes in the morning, different shoes later. The prosecution also noted tlat ring-camera video showed Fravel wearing a red bomber hat with ear flaps and a white jacket, although Prokopowicz’s point wasn’t immediately clear.
.Earlier: Fravel trial /5: A visual journey of the duplex