Months before Madeline Kingsbury was last seen alive, she reportedly sent her friends text messages detailing a frightening comment her ex-boyfriend, who is now suspected in her murder, made, according to newly unsealed warrants in her murder case.
Days before her disappearance, she also visited a friend in the hospital and gave a telling message, the warrants reportedly revealed.
The warrants, reported by NBC affiliate station KARE 11, offer the first look inside the investigation that perplexed many for weeks as Kingsbury's death made national headlines.
Kingsbury, a 26-year-old mother of two, disappeared in March before her body was discovered 69 days later. Her ex-boyfriend, 29-year-old Adam Fravel, now faces charges in her murder.
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According to KARE 11, the recently unsealed warrants showed Kingsbury texted some friends in December saying that Fravel told her she would “end up like Gabby Petito” if she didn’t learn to “mind.”
Petito, an aspiring social media influencer, vanished on a cross-country trip with her fiancé Brian Laundrie in the summer of 2021. The search dominated headlines for weeks before Petito’s body was found on Sept. 19, 2021, in Wyoming. The cause of her death was later ruled a homicide as she died by “manual strangulation," a coroner said.
According to the report, Fravel told police when questioned about the text messages that he was infatuated with the Petito case, but added his comment was intended to be a joke.
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Just 30 days before Kingsbury's disappearance, she also visited a friend who was hospitalized at Mayo Clinic, where Kingsbury worked. While there, warrants reportedly showed Kingsbury told her friend "everything is bad with Adam at the house" and that he had been “beating the hell out of her for years." She then offered a warning.
“If anything happens to me, know that Adam did it. I would never leave my kids," she told the friend, according to the warrants.
KARE 11 reports the comments and texts were only part of the evidence reported in the unsealed warrants, which also included claims that Fravel had wiped his phone of location tracking and took down surveillance cameras one day before Kingsbury was last seen.
As for a potential motive, KARE 11 notes that police questioned Fravel's financial reliance on Kingsbury, who was possibly dating another man, but added the pair was also in couple's therapy.
“I committed to therapy and making it work so I’m doing my best,” Kingsbury wrote to her mother nine days before she disappeared.
Kingsbury, a 26-year-old clinical researcher at Mayo Clinic, had been missing since she dropped her children off at daycare on the morning of March 31 in Winona, sparking weeks of massive searches, a widespread investigation and nationwide headlines.
Police had long said they were unable to name a person of interest or a suspect in the case but said there was not believed to be a threat to the public. Authorities repeatedly said Kingsbury's disappearance was believed to be "involuntary" and "suspicious."
Kingsbury's remains were located 69 days after her disappearance off Highway 43 in north Mabel, Minnesota - located about 46 miles south of Winona - after police said "digital evidence collected by investigators" led Fillmore County deputies to the area.
Police could not release many details surrounding the tragic discovery, declining to say if Kingsbury's body had been moved, how many people were believed to be involved and the condition the remains were in.
They did, however, stress that her body was found off a public roadway, concealed and hidden. The Fravel family has property located "within several minutes" of where the body was found, police said.
Fravel was later charged with second-degree intentional murder and second-degree unintentional murder, prosecutors have said.
"Some of you may be wondering why my office did not charge first-degree murder against Mr. Fravel at this time," Winona County Attorney Karin Sonneman said at the time of his arrest. "Let me explain the law in Minnesota. In order to charge first-degree murder, a prosecutor must present the case before a grand jury and a grand jury decides whether there is probable cause to support an indictment for first-degree murder. Because this case remains an active and ongoing investigation we may seek additional charges in the future."
She noted that she charges are "based on the evidence we felt we could prove with some certainty from our perspective."
"She had a bright future and Mr. Fravel took that from her," Sonoman said. "By charging him today with her murder we intend to hold him accountable to the fullest extent of the law."
An attorney representing Fravel could not immediately be reached for comment.
Before being charged in her murder, Fravel had released a statement saying he "did not have anything to do with Maddi's disappearance."
"Over the course of the last 12 days, my family and I have been subject to a myriad of accusations regarding the disappearance of the mother of my children, Maddi Kingsbury," the statement read, according to NBC affiliate station KARE 11. "During these last 12 days, I have cooperated with law enforcement at every turn, including sitting down for multiple interviews with Winona County law enforcement. I did not have anything to do with Maddi’s disappearance. I want the mother of my 5-year-old and 2-year-old to be found and brought home safely. I want that more than anything. Law enforcement advised me on April 2nd that they would not recommend that I attend the press conferences or that I assist in the searches due to safety concerns. However, my non-attendance and silence has been inferred by many as a sign of apathy, or worse. That could not be further from the truth. I want Maddi home and for her to be able to be with our two children. God Bless the Kingsbury family and please bring her home safely."
