Judge: Kingsbury kids to stay with grandparents
WINONA, Minn. – A judge denied Winona murderer Adam Fravel custody his 7-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son. The children will remain with their maternal grandparents, Judge Dwight Luhmann ruled. Fravel was brought out of prison, where he’s serving a life sentence, for the custody hearing. Afterward he was taken back. The children, Elliana and Noah, have lived with the grandparents in Farmington, 100 miles away, since Fravel became a suspect in the murder of their mother Madeline Kingsbury in 2023. Judge Luhmann’s decision clears the way for the grandparents to adopt the children formally.
Verbatim
Grandparents, in their court filing, called Favel a “palpably unfit” parent. They said he was “substantially, continuously or repeatedly refused or neglected to comply with the duties imposed upon him by the parent and child relationship. The children experience egregious harm in his care that is of a nature, duration or chronicity that indicates a lack of regard for the children’s wellbeing.”
Probe continuing in Rollingstone shootings
ROLLINGSTONE, Minn. –The quest for clues continued a fifth day into drive-by shootings in Rollingstone. Three houses were hit by bullets. From recovered bullet casings, investigators know the weapon that was used. Surveillance video, also, identifies a dark vehicle.
Earlier: Drive-by attacks: Bullets hit three Rollingstone homes
Unhitching trailer blocks Utica street, tracks
UTICA, Minn. –A fully loaded semi-trailer disconnected from its tractor while crossing the Canadian Pacific railroad tracks in Utica. This was about 5:15 a.m. Main Street was blocked until the trailer could be hooked up again. There were no trains. There were no injuries.
Gifts for new Owl Center now tally $1.5 million
HOUSTON, Minn. — The International Owl Center in Houston has reached a $1.5 million milestone in a fund-raising campaign to build a world-class aviary and tourist attraction on the Root River. Karla Bloem, who runs the center, said the project has been buoyed by a $90,000 gift from a supporter in LaCrosse. There also has been a $10, 000 gift from a Nebraska visitor, she said. Bloem noted that Houston, population 990, cannot generate enough local capital for the project, no matter the long-term tourism and other financial benefits. The campaign goal: $17.3 million.
Earlier: Owl Center unveils future home sketches
News summary at mid-week May 28, 2025
FAITH: Catholic Diocese to shutter East End church
ECONOMY: Although stabilizing, Fastenal stock still off peak
CRIME: Armed West Ender gives up as cops close in
CRIME: Drive-by attacks: Bullets hit three Rollingstone homes
CRIME: Life in prison for Necedah murder, torching corpse
CRIME: Vandals mess up seminary’s chicken project
CRIME: Marion Street drama: Cops get their man quietly
CRIME: Murderer Fravel in back Winona jail for loose ends
CRIME: Sexploitation convict Quintana briefly back
TRAFFIC: Stockton Hill upgrade begins Monday
COLLEGES: Minn-Southeast grad feted for fiddle craft
GOVERNANCE: Courts revises excessive force policing rule
AVIATION: Pilot: “Ladies, gentlemen. We have a wildlife situation”
ARTS: Masterpiece Hall: Glorious girders glisten
Rising on the Levee: Hotel suites, flats
First exterior brickwork has been applied. Windows in place. Riverside at Center Street on what’s been called the 60 Main lot. What everybody wants to know: Will the Wiesers complete the project by the Fall 2025 occupancy target? Fall this year begins September 22. Image: Steve Lunde
Minnesota prep
Baseball: Rochester Century Panthers 7, New Prague Trojans 3
Baseball: Lakeville North Panthers 7, Rochester Marshall Rockets 2
Lacrosse (girls): New Prague Trojans 8, Rochester Century Panthers 5
Volleyball (boys): Rochester Century/Rochester Marshall/Rochester Mayo 3 New Prague Trojans 0
Catholic Diocese to shutter East End church
WINONA, Minn. – Catholic parishioners at St. John Nepomucene Church had sensed for months that the bad news was coming. It arrived Wednesday. The Rochester-based general vicar of the Diocese, William Thompson told the church’s lay leadership that St. John would be closed. The last Mass will be in mid-June or July, he said. The vicar acknowledged that the Vatican had not finalized approval but that it was a formality expected any day. The St. John closure will reduces the number of Catholic churches in Winona four:
> St. Stan’s Basilica. 625 East Fourth Street.
> Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, 360 Main.Street, which historically had been the primary Diocesan church until the Diocese moved its headquarters to Rochester.
> St. Mary’s, 1303 West Broadway.
> St Casimir, 626 West Broadway.
About rumors that St.Casimir also was being closed, Vicar Thompson said he couldn’t comment. It was known, however that he would be back in town soon to meet with St. Casimir parishioners.
Earlier: More sex abuse claims against Catholic Diocese
Earlier: A diminishing Catholic presence on Main Street
St. John, 558 East Broadway Street. Last Mass being sung in a few weeks. Image: Steve Lunde
Changing times, dwindling brethren
The average weekly attendance at the Winona-Rochester Diocese was 20,600 in 2013 — 37% decline in four years. The Diocese has 114 parishes in 20 southern Minnesota counties with a population of 585,000. In recent years the Diocese has closed numerous churches, including Elba, Houston, Minnieska and Wilson. Among realities:
> Growing secularism in American culture
> A shortage of priests with a major decline in men aspiring to the priesthood.
> Diocesan finances that have been depleted by massive payouts for choir-boy sex scandals.
> Rural depopulation and a shift to town living.
> Personal mobility with near-universal access to automobiles and improved transportation infrastructures, diminishing traditional neighborhood identities.
Whitewater burglar alarm a technical glitch
ELBA, Minn. – Alerted by a motion detector, police converged on the ranger station after hours at Whitewater State Park. It turned out being a malfunctioning alarm. All was well. This was about 7:05 p.m. Responding were Winona County sheriff’s deputies and St. Charles police.
Emergency, fire crews make 45 calls
WINONA, Minn. – The Fire Department reported 32 emergency medical calls plus 13 fire calls in recent days:
> Tuesday, May 27: 4 medical call plus 2 fire calls.
> Monday, May 26: 7 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.
> Sunday, May 25: 5 medical calls plus 4 fire calls.
> Saturday, May 24: 1 medical call plus 1 fire call.
> Friday, May 23: 5 medical call plus 2 fire calls.
> Thursday, May 22: 6 medical calls plus 1 fire call.
> Wednesday, May 21: 4 medical calls plus 1 fire call.
Earlier: Emergency, fire crews make 51 calls
She said two drinks, breath test said 0.l7%
WINONA, Minn. – With the alcohol at 0.17%, a Winona woman was booked for drunken driving. This was after being pulled over on the East Side. She was weaving in and out of her lane near Sanborn and Vine streets about 12:05 a.m., said the arresting officer. Alicia Elena Gauna, age 24, had typical signs of impairment, the officer said — bloodshot and watery eyes and slurred speech. She admitted to two contributing beverages, the officer said. A breath test at jail showed twice the legal impairment threshold.
Gauna. Post-midnight arrest on East Side
Minnesota prep
Baseball: Byron Bears 9, Winona Winhawks 6
Baseball: Winona Winhawks 8, Northfield Raiders 5
Baseball: Winona Winhawks 4, Kasson-Mantorville Komets 1
Baseball: Caledonia Warriors 5, Winona Cotter Ramblers 0
Court revises excessive force policing rule
WASHINGTON – The US. Supreme Court vacated a claim of excessive police force against a Minneapolis police officer who shot and permanently blinded a man during racial unrest following the 2020 murder of George Floyd. The Court ordered lower courts to reconsider their decisions against officer Benjamin Bauer. The Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association greeted the Supreme Court order as “a tremendous win.” The Court didn’t fault lower courts but directed them to look at the Bauer case anew and to consider its recent clarifications on how to consider excessive force cases. The issue is what’s called the Court’s new Moment of Threat Rule. The rule gives priority to the “totality of the circumstances” in police shootings. The new standard was articulated by the Court only 10 days earlier in the Barnes v. Felix case out of Texas. In the ruling, which was unanimous, Justice Elena Kagan, said: “To assess using force, a court must consider all the relevant circumstances, including facts and events leading up to the climactic moment.”
Minneapolis incident profile
Ethan Daniel Marks, age 19, was helping clean up the Longfellow neighborhood after the rioting and looting that followed George Floyd’s murder. A police SWAT team arrived after reports of a stabbing. The team’s van was pelted with rocks, frozen water bottles and glass by onlookers. In the shoving and confusion that followed, Marks stumbled. Bauer fired a 40-millimeter less-than-lethal projectile loaded with a chemical agent. The round hit Marks in the face, rupturing his right eyeball, detaching the retina, and fracturing the eye socket. There was traumatic brain injury. Bauer claimed he was trying to shoot Marks in the torso.
Marks. Had been awarded $2.4 million in earlier court decisions. Had sought $10 million.
LaCrosse meth kingpin to jail 7-1/2 years
MADISON, Wis. – A big-time LaCrosse-based drug trafficker, Toudeng Thao, was sentenced to 7-1/2 years in federal prison. Thao, now age 59, was arrested n 2024 in LaCrosse after arriving from Minnesota with 443 grams of methamphetamine. In the preceding six months, according to undercover agents, Thao had sold more than 12 pounds of meth. This March he pleaded guilty. At sentencing after Thau asked for leniency, Judge William Conley discounted Thao’s claim that he had that he had turned to the dark side only in recent times. Judge Conley pointed to Thau’s violent behavior against his former wife and to a long preoccupation with firearms. The judge called Thau a serious risk to the community. In separate proceedings in March, Thau’s former wife Joua Tha, pleaded guilty as assisting in transactions and was placed on five years probation.
Thau. Regional meth supplier to dealers.
LeRoy fire victim’s name released
LEROY, Minn. – The man who died Saturday in a rural house fire was 90-year-old Donald Anderson. His body was found inside. The woman who escaped, Elham Alayyou, age 46, jumped from a window. Fillmore County Sheriff John DeGeorge said the woman was treated at a Rochester hospital for an ankle injury. Two dogs perished in the house. The sheriff said investigators were still working to identify the cause of the fire.
Earlier: Man dies, woman saved in Fillmore County fire
Although stabilizing, Fastenal stock still off peak
Bolts, screws, what not. The home-grown Winona company Fastenal, now a global player for industrial and construction supplies, has 1,800 local employees and 23,700 worldwide.
Path ahead: Navigating Trump’s global trade mess
WINONA, Minn. – Investors have pretty much stuck with Fastenal, Winona’s largest employer, through the rocky two months since President Trump rattled global trade with massive new tariffs. Fastenal stock closed last week on the New York Exchange at $40.65 a share. That was off significantly from its 52-week high, but it wasn’t as badly damaged as some other publicly traded companies. Transactions in those hellish few days in April ranged from $11 million to $15 million a day. Stock – mostly sell-offs. Since then, trading has been in a more typical range of $3 million to $9 million a day. Some timeline comparisons are tricky because Fastenal went through a 2-for-1 stock split May 23. But looked at either way —before the split or after – there is no doubt about the major sell-off the days after the Trump announcement on April 2. But since then the stock found a new normal range at $39.01 to $40.65.
Still, however, questions remain about how well Fastenal can weather the new Trump tariffs, which have further complicated by the President’s erratic and unpredictable behavior. Trump levies changed radically day to day without any coherent strategy that economists could ascertain.
By some measures Fastenal has vulnerabilities still. Its traditional U.S. market relies heavily on fasteners and industrial products manufactured in China. These arrive mostly by ocean ships for transfer to 15 U.S. domestic distribution warehouses. But Fastenal also has cultivated local markets abroad. Those shipments don’t pass through U.S. ports and are shielded from Trump tariffs.
Fastenal, however, faces larger vulnerabilities. The new Trump tariffs have been stratospheric — a 125% in reciprocity for some countries, plus a 20% punitive surcharge on Chinese goods for fentanyl smuggling, plus an additional 75% to 100% on specific products. Economists see no rhyme nor reason to these levies and worry that they portend a global economic slowdown – a recession for sure, even a 1930s style depression. Few companies will escape the economic disaster. At worst, Fastenal’s industrial and construction customer base will wither next to nothing.
The Winona mother ship. The company has offices and sites all around town. The main site is the manufacturing and warehousing facility on Pelzer Street and stretching several blocks along Theurer Boulevard into the Goodview city limits.
Freghtliner electro-truck. At Winona loading dock. The company maintains a flashy state-of-art fleet for moving goods among distribution centers
Sex blackmailer Quintana briefly back
WINONA, Minn. – A Lewiston man serving 27 years in federal prison for sex crimes has been returned to Winona County custody, albeit only for a day or two. Valentin Silva Quintana, now 31, was booked into the local jail for a court hearing on a Lewiston rape charge. It was expected that a Winona County judge would dismiss the rape charge, allowing the presumptive penalties to be subsumed into the 27-year federal sentence. In February a federal jury convicted Quintana of soliciting 60 teen-age girls online for lewd self-photos and then blackmailing them.
Earlier: Lewiston sex creep to prison 27 years
Semi rolls on wet I-35; major injuries
SOMERSET, Minn. – A trucker was injured seriously when his 2016 Peterbilt semi ended up in the median ditch on Interstate 35. The rig overturnned. Roger Don Payne, 66, of Dodge Center, had been northbound toward Faribault. Payne was taken 50 miles to a Rochester hospital. The accident was about 4:30 a.m. The road surface was wet, Rice County deputies said.
Stockton Hill upgrade begins Monday
Advisory now. Barricades to come. Except for local access, the treacherous U.S. Highway 14 route over Stockton Hill will be closed through October. Traffic will be detoured on County Road 23 through Minnesota City. For hundreds of daily commuters, the water-level alternate route – no hills — will take an extra six to nine minutes. Stockton Hill is one of Minnesota’s most dangerous roads with two near-hairpin curves, nary any shoulders, narrow lanes and near vertical drops of several hundred feet through guardrails. Image: Steve Lunde
Minn-Southeast grad feted for fiddle craft
RED WING, Minn. – A 2000 graduate of Minnesota State Southeast in string-instrument repair, Brian Christianson, was named college’s outstanding alum this year from the Red Wing campus. Christianson has built a career in Nashville servicing violin-family instruments. He also performs on fiddle and mandolin with nationally known bluegrass groups. His Fiddle House is a full-service string shop and a gathering space for musicians. He has conducted workshops for the Southern Violin Association, the Luthier Conference, and the Learning Trade Secrets luthier conference. His restorations include historic instruments in American folk music. These include violins that belonged to Vassar Clements, Benny Martin, and Bill Monroe’s mentor, Pendleton Vandiver.
Verbatim
Christianson, speaking at Southeast’s commencement: “To our graduates, especially those emerging from the violin and guitar repair and building programs: Every instrument is a story waiting to be told. Today it continues with all Southeast graduates. Because you are also stories waiting to be told. Whether you go on to restore the past or build what’s next, know this: Your work matters — and the music it makes, both literal and metaphorical — can echo for a lifetime.”
Christianson. A Nashville luthier.
Cattle wander into Scottish Cemetery
UTICA, Minn. — Cattle from an adjoining farm grazed onto the Scottish Cemetery south of Fremont. The sexton called Winona County deputies about the damage. The oldest gravestone is that of Euphemia Porteous Rutherford, born 1781 and died 1856.
Galesville biker misses curve, injured
CALEDONIA, Minn. – Wisconsin biker was injured when she lost control on State Highway 76 on a curvy section north of Caledonia. Autumn Elizabeth Harle, 18, of Galesville, was taken 29 miles to a LaCrosse hospital. She was wearing a helmet, said Houston County deputies Her injuries were described as non-life-threatening. This was about 5:10 p.m. She was riding a 2025 Kawasaki EX650.
Murderer Fravel back in Winona for loose ends
WINONA, Minn. – Armed guards drove Winona murderer Adam Fravel 100 miles from the Stillwater state prison to Winona for a child custody hearing. During the investigation of the murder of the children’s mother Madelline Kingsbury, Fravel had sought custody. The children’s maternal grandparents objected to any Fravel contact with the children. Now the Kingsbury grandparents want to adopt them legally. The grandparents live in Farmington 100 miles from the children’s Winona birthplace. Fravel, meanwhile, is serving a life sentence for the murder.
Earlier: Judge: Life sentence to Fravel for murder
Earlier: Visitation battle ends for Kingsbury-Fravel children
New mug. Back in Winona jail temporarily.
Pilot: “Ladies, gentlemen. We have a wildlife situation”
MINNEAPOLIS — Unbeknown to pilot or crew, a pair of pigeons were hitching a ride in the cabin of Delta Flight 2348 from MSP to Madison. One pigeon made its presence known, pecking around under seats after the plane was sealed for takeoff. On the cockpit microphone the pilot alerted the 332 passengers to a “widlife situation.” A baggage handler came aboard and removed the bird. The plane was resealed and left the gate on schedule at 10:20 p.m. But as the plane taxied to a runway, a second bird fluttered out of no where and flew up the aisle in panic toward the now again-sealed cabin door. As passengers screeched, Tom Caw unbuckled and intercepted this second pigeon in his jacket and wrapped it inside. The baggage handler came back and took the bird. The plane, by now 20 minutes behind schedule, took off for an uneventful 65-minute flight to Madison.
Like a bullfigter’s muleta cape. In his jacket a passenger foils the second pigeon flying up aisle.
Airbus320-200. Arriving a little on MSP-MSN flight.
Masterpiece Hall: Glorious girders glisten
Atrium in the morning sun. Walls of glass at the grand entrance will welcome concert-goers into the 700-seat hall. Construction continues near downtown on Fifth Street. Image: Steve Lunde
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