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Exhibits released from Adam Fravel murder

The jury poured through more than 300 exhibits, from videos and photos to maps and cell phone logs, in convicting Fravel for the murder of Maddi Kingsbury.

WINONA, Minn. — On March 31, 2023, after Maddi Kingsbury's friends and family called 911 to report they couldn't reach or or find her, a Winona Police officer calls Adam Fravel -- her ex-boyfriend and father of Maddi's two children.

At the end of the conversation with police about his missing ex-partner, Fravel said, "I don't know if I should be worried, or what?"

The seeming lack of concern shown by Fravel in the hours and days that followed the disappearance of Maddi Kingsbury bothered police from the beginning.

The jury that convicted Fravel on all murder counts sifted through more than 300 exhibits present in trial. On Friday those exhibits, including the initial phone call with police and a later sit-down interrogation with investigators, were released to KARE 11 News with a data practices request.

"She probably would have been home all day. And, um, yeah. Nothing special about that day I guess," Fravel told investigators when they tried to ask where Maddi might have gone the day she disappeared.

Police photos taken inside the Winona home Maddi shared with Fravel, police found Maddi's coat with her cell phone in the pocket along with her backpack and laptops.

In the garage police found disconnected video cameras and on the walls -- spots where they clearly had been torn down.

On Fravel's phone -- a series of expository messages he sent Maddi that day -- saying he left with her van, came back and couldn't find her, then left to pick up the kids wondering where she was.

"They almost seem like they're breadcrumbs that you knew the police would pick up," investigators told Fravel, after revealing they thought he staged the texts.

In Fravel's trial at the Blue Earth County Courthouse, the jury also saw evidence of abuse and control.

In one text exchange, after Maddi asked Fravel to never again put his hands around her neck. Fravel responds: "You'll adjust" ... "You got it mother" and "Then mind."

"She also said that you made a comment to her that if she doesn't listen, that she's gonna end up like Gabby Petito," investigators say to Fravel, who visibly grows uncomfortable talking about the young woman killed by her boyfriend in a high-profile national case.

In his explanation, Fravel explains that he was "infatuated" with coverage of the case.

"My biggest fear right now is that this is mimicking that case. And the guy that's infatuated with that case is sitting right in front of me," the investigator says.

"I was just trying to make a joke!" Fravel responds.

At the end of that interrogation, police let Fravel know they didn't believe his stories. 

"So, I think something happened in that apartment," the investigator says.

"From your guys' perspective, why would I hurt the mother of my children?" Fravel responds.

Police photographed what they thought were light scratches on his face and bruises on his arms and chest, as if Maddi hit or grabbed him during a struggle. 

As the investigation expanded, police tracked Fravel's movements that day, driving Maddi's van with the license plate swapped toward his parent's rural home near Mable.

There, police found computers trashed and burned up.

Then an eerie piece of evidence on Easter, nine days after Maddi's disappearance. A trail camera captured Fravel driving a UTV on someone else's property with what looks like shovel in the back.

Police investigated whether Fravel went back to the spot he hid the body to either try to move it or conceal it better. 

And evidence photos showed the jury how many branches and tree limbs concealed Maddi's body wrapped in a sheet -- eventually found on this remote property that Fravel's family had access to.

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