231. What Happened to Maddi Kingsbury?
49:21 Share

Life doesn't happen bi-weekly, so why should payday? The money you earn can be in your hands today with Earnin'. Earnin' is an app that gives you access to your pay as you work, up to $100 per day or up to $750 per pay period. Just download the Earnin' app and verify your paycheck, then access up to $100 a day as you work and leave an optional tip.

Any money you access plus tips are automatically repaid from your next paycheck. And I know I would for sure use earn in if I had to take Daisy to the vet unexpectedly. I mean, those things pop up all the time. And if you don't have your paycheck in time, you're

That is stressful. So make earning a part of your financial routine and join earnings over three and a half million customers who say things like, when I think about earning, I think about financial stability, security. It gives me a lot of peace of mind. Download earning today spelled E-A-R-N-I-N in the Google player, Apple app store.

When you download the Earning app, type in Murder With My Husband under Podcast when you sign up. It really helps the show. Murder With My Husband under Podcast, please. Earning is a financial technology company, not a bank, subject to your available earnings, daily max, pay period max, and location. See earning.com slash TOS for details. Bank products are issued by Evolve Bank and Trust, member FDIC.

And with Monday.com, work is just easier.

Monday.com, for whatever you run. Go to Monday.com to learn more. You're listening to an Ono Media podcast. Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. Okay, if you are watching on YouTube, our outfits are going to change in like two minutes after the intro because our intro got corrupted. So hi, we are doing this intro for the second time. So...

I need to tell you something. We have merch available right now. It is our basics line. It is monochrome. We changed the fit. It's a little bit more boxy, a little bit more loose fit. The highest quality shirts we have ever done. So if you've gotten our merch before, these don't even compare. They are monochrome. Like I said, with stitching, you can wear it out. It does not say murder on it. Just MWMH.

So you can wear this out and people aren't going to be like, oh, that's obviously merch. They're going to be like, oh, that's a sick shirt. Where did you get that? Quality is, like I said, it's very high quality. The shirt, the weight of the shirt is heavier. So it just feels good. Doesn't feel cheap. You can wash it over and over again. It is 100%. I don't care what anyone says. It is 100% my favorite merch.

that we've launched up into the state as far as like quality and just everything together. I actually wore my shirt to the gym last night. Just saying. And if I'm correct, price point didn't change. Correct. Quality has gone up, but prices remain the same. Just on our end. Because we do not inflate during inflation. Okay.

I'm just kidding. But okay, merch is available now. So go check it out. And my next announcement is a reminder that we stream on Twitch every single Thursday, 530 PT. We hang out. We talk with chat. It literally is such a vibe. It feels like an exclusive murder with my husband club over there at this point. We are so close with chat. We watch true crime. We watch body cam footage. We react to police videos or just like spooky videos. Last stream, we watched the six-inch

scariest encounters in the woods that have ever been caught on camera. It was so fun. It was creepy. It was really fun. And just a heads up. We are going to start posting our full live long, like our entire VODs, the entire Twitch streams on Patreon. If you're an Apple subscriber or a Spotify subscriber and you want to get access to those, because right now you can only see them if you come to our lives.

But if you want to get access to those and you're not a Patreon user, shoot us an email or shoot us a DM. We'll make it work for you no matter what. We do have a separate YouTube channel called Peyton and Garrett where we are posting shorts right now from those lives. And we will be posting like five to seven minute videos from those lives. Super fun. Come check it out. That's what we got for announcements. Kind of a lot today, but we wanted to fill everybody in.

All right. And I think that leads us into your 10 seconds for this episode. Well, if you follow us on social media, you probably already know this, but we were going through Dutch Bros the other day. By the way, real quick, if someone at corporate at Dutch Bros is listening to this, can we have like a drink? It doesn't even need to be everywhere. Just in like one city, just for a week where Peyton and I can get it every single day. Or just a sticker. You don't even have to pay me. Like everything, please.

please we like that we go there every single day and it would just be fun and i'm not gonna lie you have two stores where every single employee listens to murder with my husband also everyone known the podcast knows about dutch bros that we get dutch bros anyone someone at corporate please help we just want a sticker we just want something actually we don't want anything we just really like you guys we actually guess we do want something to be honest

Anyways, I was at Dutch Bros and it wasn't the employee's fault. It's 100% Garrett's fault. We were getting our drinks and I was bringing Peyton's drink, which by the way is a medium blended Kokomo with chocolate drizzle. I was bringing it through the window and as I was bringing it, it was pouring rain outside. So I had the window like barely open because it was pouring and we were getting soaked. I grabbed the drink.

bringing the drink inside. The lid hit the top of the window as I was bringing it inside and my momentum continued to carry the drink inside and splash. Not a splash. Splash. Full spill.

All over. I was soaked. Like completely soaked. There is coffee all over the car. There is coffee all over the window. Right now there's still coffee all over the car because we haven't got it cleaned yet. There's coffee inside the little parking button to where we can't even push it because it gets stuck and our car starts freaking out. Yeah.

Yeah. Coffee everywhere. So what happened next, babe? So the worker looks at us and is like, do you guys need napkins? Because, you know, I don't think he could see how bad it had spilled. And Garrett's in total shock. And he looks at him and goes, no. And I said, no.

From the passenger seat. Yes. Yes, sir. We do need napkins. They give us some. It is not going to help. Like, it is not going to help. We pull forward. It's still pouring rain. I said, Garrett, step foot out of this car and take all of your clothes off. Because literally his entire shirt and pants.

soaked in coffee. Let's be honest. Peyton just wanted to see me with my clothes off. I crawl through to the back seat to see if we have anything. I grab Daisy's blanket that we use at the park and a plastic bag that I somehow had back there. Bring it back up. Garrett takes everything off till he's

butt naked he wraps up in the blanket and we take his clothes and put it in the trash bag and drive home and drive home drove home butt naked thank you dutch bros one way to get somebody naked but no so it was crazy um it was funny i don't get mad about that stuff it was just it was just funny it was a good time and yeah so that's what happened that's my 10 seconds kind of all i got for everybody know how it takes this week i'll kind of save it for next week since we've

a lot of announcements and a lot of stuff and on that note let's hop into today's case all right our sources for this episode are ab6 news nbc chicago care11.com kvrr local news cnn.com abc5news mprnews.org fox 9 news intouchweekly.com and cbsnews.com okay so there's no denying that in this day and age social media plays a major role in our daily lives

But it also plays a huge role in the true crime space as well. There's been plenty of cases that have gained global attention thanks to Instagram and TikTok. And a lot of good does come from that. Decades old cases have been reopened because of it. New clues and witnesses have been uncovered. Some cases even see justice after a few viral posts. But with the good, as we know, comes the bad. There will always be people out there who hear about these cases online and then use them as a blueprint for their own

crime, much like the villain in today's case. Not only did they become obsessed with a famous viral murder case, they actually tried to recreate it. And when it came time for justice, they complained in the same way social media and inspired them to commit this crime. It was now the reason that they would never get a fair trial.

Which, how ironic is that? It is ironic. Okay, let's get into it. So, we're headed to a little town in Minnesota called Winona. Always little towns, man. We're always starting in these little towns, and that's when you know everything's going to go south. No offense to anyone who lives in a little town, but watch out. And?

And if you're wondering, yes, the actress, Winona Ryder, was named after the town since she grew up only a few dozen miles away. But when it comes to this town, Winona has this relaxed and really friendly charm about it. With a relatively small population of about 27,000 people, it allows for this tight-knit community, but it's also big enough to reap the benefits of restaurants, shopping, maybe some more urban amenities.

Winona also just so happens to be the place that 26-year-old Madeline Kingsbury, or as her friends called her, Maddie, this is where she calls home. And Maddie is very much your girl next door. She's sweet, intelligent, a sorority girl who'd been an undergrad at Winona State University. And in March of 2023, she was in her first semester of a master's program at this college. At the same time, Maddie was juggling a full-time job as a clinical psychologist

research coordinator at the Mayo Clinic, which was definitely a lot of pressure for the 26-year-old because she also had two young children at home, both of whom were fathered by Maddie's long-term on-again, off-again boyfriend. So she's really doing the whole thing. She's in a master's program. She has a job as a clinical research coordinator, and she has two kids.

Now this guy, this on again off again boyfriend who is also the children's father is a guy that she met back in college in her earlier days. He was a computer science major named Adam Fravel. Now Adam seemed smitten with Maddie practically since the moment he met her and Maddie was taken by his charm. He was outgoing, seemingly ambitious. Plus he really took an interest in Maddie's life and getting to know her family. But while the two were still at Winona State University,

Maddie learned that she was pregnant with her first child. And apparently Adam did step up to the plate. He quit school, he got a job and he began doing what he needed to support Maddie and their new baby. And he and Maddie got a place and started living together. And then at that point, things did seem to be going okay for the couple, but then COVID hit. And then during the pandemic, Adam got laid off from his job, which made things difficult for the couple as Maddie was still finishing getting her degree.

Even after she began working for the Mayo Clinic, things were tight for the family as Adam struggled to find another job, find some steady work. And it only got harder when the couple learned that they were pregnant with their second kid. And by 2023, the 29-year-old Adam had set aside any plans to use his degree and instead had been taking flying lessons with a new dream of just becoming a pilot. And this is how he would provide.

And Maddie did everything she could to be supportive of that, even if it meant being the sole breadwinner for the family while also attending school. So on March 31st, 2023, Maddie and Adam woke up in the morning and got their five-year-old daughter and two-year-old son ready for daycare, just as they did every single day. They drove together and dropped them off together a little after 8 a.m. When they got there,

got there, Maddie apologized to the daycare worker for being late, but she didn't offer up a reason. And then Adam and Maddie hugged their kids goodbye. They got back into Maddie's 2014 blue Chrysler town and country van and drove back home so Maddie could then get ready for work.

Now at 8.15 a.m., Maddie remembered a text that she'd gotten from her sister Megan the night before. It was a funny photo from a trip they took the summer before to Rhode Island. She'd forgotten to respond, so she just opened it up and sent back a quick LOL.

Megan texted her back after that with another unimportant question, but Maddie didn't reply. And Megan honestly doesn't think much of it. She knows that Maddie's busy working full time. She's a mom. And typically Maddie's also the one who picks the kids up from daycare on her way home from work. Only this day, not only does she not text Megan back, when it's time to pick the kids up, she doesn't show up. In fact, her coworkers say she never actually made it into work that morning either. Okay.

So a no call, no show, which is wildly unlike Maddie. Now by that evening, both Megan and her mother knew that this isn't like Maddie to go all day without responding. And when she sends a few more texts and calls with no answer, Megan reaches out to Adam. She's very concerned. And Adam answers and says, yeah, I'm panicking too. When I got home this afternoon, Maddie was gone. So Adam had to be the one to go pick up the kids from daycare at around 4.30 p.m.

So after hanging up with Adam, Megan calls one of Maddie's best friends. It's a woman named Katie who lives just down the street from the couple. And Megan asks Katie, can you just pop over to the house, maybe see what's going on? So Katie wastes no time. She throws on her shoes, heads over and knocks on the door. But the house is eerily dark and silent. There is no one home.

So it turns out Adam at this point had taken the kids and gone to his parents' house in Maybel about an hour drive south that evening, which is strange, especially if his girlfriend has been missing all day. He's going to waste an hour to go drop his kids off at his parents' house. Yeah.

And so this is probably why Katie gets this weird sinking feeling that something is really wrong with this whole situation because you think Adam would want to be in the place that they knew she last was and like trying to figure everything out. I know this is kind of off topic, but on topic. The other day I was in the gym. I was working out. I texted Peyton and said, hey, are you live? Just because we hadn't talked for a second.

and i kid you not when i texted her i thought okay she's inside our house right now like the cameras are watching me like am i acting weird am i acting normal like you know i'm at the gym and i'm just sitting there and i'm like okay like what a normal person do

So I just started laughing. You went there? You were pretending? I'm not pretending, but that sounds almost like an OCD thought. Yeah, it was. Where it's like you convinced yourself you had murdered me? Yeah, so I just started bobbing my head back and forth like, oh, I'm just listening to music. I'm just dancing. Everything's okay. What an intrusive thought. So I was like, okay. And then you didn't respond. And I was like, oh, shit. Then I was like, okay, I'm going to look at my phone and act like, oh, sad. Like, oh, everything's okay. Curious.

- What? This is psychotic. - I know it was, it was a little weird. - But you just couldn't control it. It was just impulsive? - It was impulsive. It's because the podcast. - Yeah. - It's because of the podcast. - You think all the time that we are watching these people's behavior. - It gave me like OCD. Like, I don't know. It gave me intrusive thoughts. I've never had that happen before. And I was like- - I can't believe you were actually following through on the thoughts though. - I was like, I'm broken. I broke.

Four and a half years into this, I broke. Yeah. No, but it wasn't that bad. It was just like little. And then you responded and I was like, ah, okay, everything's fine. Well, you sent me another text. Yeah. I sent you a question mark. I was cleaning my makeup brushes and trying to find content for Twitch. Yeah. And so I was like looking down. I didn't see you text me. And then I saw the second text of just question marks. I was like, I swear. I was like, wait, did he text me something else? So then I looked. Yeah. I was like.

And then once you respond that I was like, ah, okay, everything's okay. - Yeah, I sent you a picture proof I was alive. - I literally was like, the cameras are watching me. I need to hire an attorney.

Because I was just thinking, like, if I came back. I'm sad that you're thinking I'm dead right now. And the only thing you're thinking about is hiring an attorney and how you're acting and not, is she dead? Because I've seen so many of these cases where I don't want to get wrongfully convicted. Yeah. I was freaking out. Everyone just hones in on the husband's behavior. And I was like, also, we were just at the house together. We were just hanging out. And then I left to the gym. So it's like, I was the last one who saw you. I was the last one that was with you.

You could have killed me before. I could have killed you. That's what I'm saying. Like, my thoughts were like, they're going to think this, they're going to think this, but Peyton's alive and everything's okay. That scares me a little. Why? I'm just sad you weren't actually thinking about me being dead. Well, because I think I knew you weren't actually dead. It was more just like your mind went there? Yeah, I knew you weren't actually dead. It was more just like, oh, shoot.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Exhausted brain. Yeah. The search for truth never ends. Introducing June's Journey, a hidden object mobile game with a captivating story. Connect with friends, explore the roaring 20s, and enjoy thrilling activities and challenges while supporting environmental causes.

After seven years, the adventure continues with our immersive travels feature. Explore distant cultures and engage in exciting experiences. There's always something new to discover. Are you ready? Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. OK, a lot of the things we talk about on this show are disturbing precisely because they happen to everyday people.

What exactly does everyday people mean though? We don't know, but we know we've kind of become everyday people now that we're starting every day with supplements from Thorne. Thorne's wide range of highly effective nutritional supplements are made to promote and maintain our health goals and yours. And here's what we love about Thorne. It is backed by science.

Thorne takes a personalized approach to optimizing your health and wellness, teaming up with leading medical professionals to develop their products. I have really gravitated towards the Daily Greens Plus, which promotes physical endurance, cognitive performance, and cellular energy production. It's the perfect way to start your day, get some antioxidants, and just feel your strongest mentally and physically. Honestly, I've been taking the Thorne Magnesium Supplement every single day. Payne has two.

And we've seen a big difference. Yeah, didn't realize how important magnesium was. So it's been amazing to do that. They employ such a clean manufacturing process. It's even earned them some of the highest certifications in the industry. Again, we are taking magnesium and the Daily Greens Plus. I actually have also taken their Collagen Plus.

really just, I had no idea how different I would feel. So become a healthier everyday person. Start your health and wellness journey today at thorne.com. That's T-H-O-R-N-E.com. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Okay, so the following morning, April 1st, is a Saturday. And with Maddie now missing for 24 hours, the family goes to the police to file a report. And by 2.25 that afternoon, the Winona police publicly declared this is a missing person investigation and they are dispatching sources to try and locate Maddie Kingsbury. Now, meanwhile, her family and friends are doing their own dissection

diligence to try and locate her. Adam takes to Facebook for help posting, if anybody has seen Maddie, please contact the Winona PD, me, or any of her family members. Please help me find the mom to our two beautiful kids.

Now, meanwhile, Megan, her sister, flocks to TikTok to spread the word about her missing sister. But that same day, police actually find the first real clue in Maddie's case. So they discovered that the day prior, between 10 a.m. and 1.30 p.m.,

They had footage of Maddie's blue van driving on a country road and then heading southbound on Highway 43. So they're just checking all the cameras, seeing if they can spot her anywhere, and this is where they find her car. Then the van traveled back toward Winona, northbound on 43, and was parked back in the driveway at her house around 1:30. - Okay.

What they don't have is any footage of who was actually driving that van. So they begin knocking on doors along that country road to see if anyone has any of their own security footage where they can get a clear view of who was in the vehicle, but it gets them nowhere. Now, of course, the first person police want to speak to is Adam, especially considering he was the last person that they know of to see his girlfriend on the day she disappeared. And Adam,

And Adam seems more than willing to cooperate. He tells them that he and Maddie dropped off the kids at daycare, which they then confirm via the video footage. And they then returned home by 8:15. According to him,

Maddie went into her home office to get a little work done before she left for her actual office at the Mayo Clinic, during which Adam says he had some boxes he had to move to his parents' house. So he explains that the couple had been in the process of moving out of that house and in with his parents so they could save a little bit of money. So that day he actually took Maddie's van, which had plenty more space to move things, and he left Maddie his car to drive to work.

He says that around 10 a.m., he left home and headed down Highway 43, which was on the way to his parents' house, and it also kind of explained who was driving the car. But he says that halfway there, he had made a mistake. He tells police that that's when he realized the boxes he packed were actually ones that he wanted to put in storage, not take to his parents.

So he turned around and he drove back to the house that he shared with Maddie, which is why the van was back in the driveway by 1.30 p.m. He says when he got there, he noticed his car was also still at the house. But he says he didn't worry because he figured Maddie had just maybe got a ride with her friend to work. He said it wasn't until he began texting her and receiving no response that he really started to panic.

And then when there was still no word from Maddie at 4.30 and he was the one who had to go pick up the kids from daycare, he really got worried. So after this, police decided to search the house that Maddie and Adam share. It sounds, I mean...

Yeah. That sounds pretty reasonable to me. And while they don't find any signs of a struggle, they do discover that Maddie's cell phone, wallet, and jacket that she was wearing earlier that day when they dropped the kids off are still inside the house. Yeah, now that part's weird. That's not a good sign. Uh-uh.

They also notice these naked spots on the walls inside. It looks like security cameras were once installed on the inside of this house, but had since been taken down. Now, Adam defends this. He tells police, guys, I told you we're in the process of moving. Like I packed the cameras. One of they were one of the first things that I packed up. I'm just saying right now, this is exactly why I was thinking I need to get an attorney.

And you start doing this stuff, but I'm going to be honest. I'm not feeling very hopeful for Adam here. But, but he says, he's like, like, we're going to have people walking through this house. Like I can't have cameras up in it, but this isn't the only red flag.

when adam and the police first talk police notice that adam has pretty bad scratches on his face um bad enough that they were noticeable which he says were caused by can you guess a friend's dog which if this is the case it is just very unfortunate for adam that he has scratches on his face

the same day that his wife goes missing and it happened to be from a dog. - Was it real? - I'm not sure if police ever went and checked. I'm sure they did, but they never just announced that to the public. So none of these things are obviously enough to arrest Adam.

After all, Maddie's only been missing for about 30 hours now. But by the evening of April 2nd, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension knows that this is not looking good. So they issue an endangered missing persons alert for Maddie statewide. And meanwhile, Megan's still hitting the social media circuit hard.

After posting her first video about her missing sister, it gets half a million views. Holy crap. And every day she posts new updates about the case, hoping to reach anyone who might be able to help them find her. Surprised we didn't see this. And then about two weeks into the investigation, police uncover an unexpected twist in Maddie's story.

She had been having a secret relationship with a man named Spencer Sullivan. Okay. And I mean, when someone goes missing and then you find out that there's a love triangle, it's starting to get messy. Yeah. So Spencer was an army veteran. Maddie had met back at Winona State. Yeah.

He also happened to be one of Adam's fraternity brothers. So her long-term boyfriend, the father of her children's fraternity brothers. Now, Maddie and Spencer didn't know each other all that well, but Maddie had recently started a Tinder account. And when the two matched on the app, they decided to reconnect.

And Maddie told Spencer her situation. She and Adam were still together. They just weren't in the best of places. Adam wasn't pulling his weight as a father. And this was frustrating Maddie, who was bearing the weight as the breadwinner of the family. Maddie and Adam had been in couples therapy, but it wasn't seeming to do them any good. Surprising to me that she was on Tinder in a small town. Right. And he didn't find out. Well, we don't know that.

Okay, I guess that's true. All right, let's keep going. So she tells her lover that they were arguing a lot and Maddie was looking for ways to get out of the relationship and just move on with her life. Now, Spencer was sympathetic and he liked Maddie enough to keep their relationship a secret for the time being. But police also had to rule him out as a potential suspect once they learned about him. And luckily for Spencer, he had a solid alibi. He was actually at work during the time of Maddie's disappearance. But

But that doesn't mean that the secret relationship doesn't somehow play a part in what happened. So by this point, police have a strong suspicion that Adam is involved in Maddie's disappearance. There's just like the whole, well, I had the wrong boxes. So then I had to turn around and then the, well, I have the scratches on my face. And now there's a love affair that happens to be one of his fraternity brothers. So it concerns them that as soon as Maddie went missing, he scooped the kids up and raced them to his parents.

So they send social workers over to his parents' house to try and meet with the kids. They're like, maybe the kids know something, which is why he got rid of them so fast and sent them away. They want to make sure everything's okay. But Adam and his parents are not cooperative when police get there. At one point, Adam actually grabs his two-year-old son and locks the door and begins shouting curse words at the police from inside the house.

Now, eventually, authorities do remove the kids from the home, but Adam refuses to pack them a bag. And after this, the kids are placed in a 72-hour hold by the county before being turned over to Maddie's parents for temporary custody. Okay. Which...

It's a hard situation, but also I don't know. Yeah, I don't even want to. Yeah, it's tricky. So meanwhile, police ramp up their efforts to try and find Maddie using aircraft and boats to search nearby waterways. The Winona police even issue statements to the public asking for their help in searching wooded areas outside of people's homes, as well as vehicles, trailers, outbuildings, any place where someone could have hidden a body.

The weekend after her disappearance, more than 2,600 people show up to help in a massive search along country roads and out in the farmland surrounding Winona. Still, zero signs of Maddie. Now, by April 12th, this is 13 days after Maddie went missing, the police remained steadfast in believing her disappearance was involuntary and suspicious. They were, quote, extremely concerned for her safety.

By then, they had also taken her van in for evidence processing, but from what I can find in my research, they determined nothing out of the ordinary with her van. What was suspicious, however, was the anonymous tip that they received two days before this. Apparently, a neighbor of Adam's parents saw him on the afternoon of Maddie's disappearance. He was riding around the area in a utility vehicle with a shovel.

so the police send a team i mean imagine a neighbor calling him being that's insane so the day she disappeared i saw her husband driving around with a shovel it's game over police send a team of cadaver dogs to the fravel property in maybel so they're like let's go search this property and they get a hit with the cadaver dogs on the utility vehicle you know what i'm never buying a shovel i'm never ever buying a shovel ever

So the Fravels have an explanation for this, though, and they're like, hey, the dogs are like hitting on this vehicle that he was said to have been seen in. They say the previous weekend there was a dead raccoon on the property and they use that vehicle and the shovel in it to pick it up. Here's the problem, though.

The dogs are specifically trained to pick up on a human's scent and the parents didn't know that. So not animal scent, human scent. So this definitely adds to the growing mound of suspicion against Adam.

But two days after that search, he puts out a statement insisting he has cooperated with law enforcement. He has nothing to do with Maddie's disappearance. He also said, quote, I want the mother of my five-year-old and two-year-old to be found and brought home safely. I want that more than anything.

So on May 5th, 2023, with still no sign of Maddie, the family decides to hold a vigil to offer their prayers. More than 200 people in the Winona area come out to pay their respects. It's unclear if Adam shows up. June 1st, Maddie's 27th birthday comes and goes with no sign of her.

and police are no closer to figuring out what happened to her. Megan, once again, goes to TikTok to spread awareness about her sister's disappearance, hoping someone on there might have details that could move the needle. On June 5th, Adam files a petition with the court to have sole custody of the couple's two children. He's like, hey, give me back my kids. His petition is denied, which means Maddie's two-year-old son and five-year-old daughter remain in the care of her parents.

This is actually a blessing considering everything in this case was about to change just two days later. So it was June 7th, 2023 when police received an important clue.

Digital evidence connected to Maddie Kingsbury had been found 46 miles south of Winona near the town of Maybel, which is where his parents live. Now, I'm not sure what the digital evidence was, but I know it was a good tip because around 1.30 p.m. that afternoon, a Fillmore County deputy follows up on the lead.

This lead takes him down Highway 43 to a gravel road and then to a more wooded area just off of that. And sure enough, lying in the brush where this tip had led them, wrapped in a gray fitted bed sheet with black duct tape, is the body of Maddie Kingsbury. The most incriminating part?

It's literally steps away from Adam's parents' property. Like where her body is found, steps away. What's crazy too is his parents know. And his parents are hiding everything. Those mother effers, dude. So two hours later, police arrested the 29-year-old Adam on suspicion of murder. Because at this point...

I mean, her body was found on his parents' property, essentially. The utility vehicle, someone saw him. And we still don't know this tip, right? Like this will probably come out at trial. They didn't feel the need to publish it, but.

So for those who knew Maddie and Adam, his arrest was hardly a surprise because many had been suspecting Adam from day one, considering the relationship between him and Maddie had kind of been on the rocks and she wasn't really secretive about it. Apparently,

Apparently, there was a lot more going on than just the fighting and the infidelity. According to Maddie's family, there were plenty of times when Maddie would call them sobbing about the way Adam was treating her. One of Maddie's friends, Haley Scott, said she witnessed Adam screaming at Maddie during a FaceTime call. He yelled about how dirty the house was. And when Maddie told him maybe he could clean the house, he walked over and slapped her across the face. Holy shit.

I was going to say, I mean, it doesn't sound like there's... Keep in mind, she's the breadwinner and going to school. I was going to say, it doesn't sound like there's any physical abuse, but...

There was physical abuse. Well, this was supposedly just one instance of physical abuse. I mean, we also don't know what was going on behind closed doors. Right, that Maddie sustained. In September of 2021, he began doing something that terrified her more than ever. This was 18 months before Maddie disappeared. She called that same friend, Haley Scott, who she kind of confided in. And I know Haley Scott, Nathan Scott, okay, it's a one tree hill thing, but it's a little, okay, I just had to point it out. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, you guys, let me guess. Your medicine cabinet is crammed with stuff that does not work. You still aren't sleeping. You still hurt. You're stressed out. Same. That was how it was for me. So I cleared out my cabinet and reset my health with CBD from CB Distillery. And it...

honestly has been a real change. CB distilleries target formulations are made from the highest quality clean ingredients, no fluff, no fillers, just pure effective CBD solutions designed to help support your health. I did just get some sleepy time CBD gummies from CB distillery that have honestly helped a ton. I do have a problem falling asleep. I get a Sonia sometimes.

And these, they just help me relax. They help take off the edge. They help me calm down. And I promise from my experience that they work. So if you struggle with a health concern and haven't found relief, make the change like we did to CB Distillery. And with over 2 million customers and a solid 100% money back guarantee, CB Distillery is the source to trust. I actually have a 20% discount to get you started.

So visit cbdistillery.com and use code husband for 20% off. Don't forget code husband for 20% off. That's cbdistillery.com code husband, cbdistillery.com. All right, you guys, we are going to jump into a sponsor real quick. And today's episode of Murder With My Husband is sponsored by BetterHelp.

Something that has always scared me, obviously, is serial killers. I mean, I have an entire podcast discussing them. Halloween lets us have fun with what scares us, but what about those fears that don't involve zombies or ghosts or serial killers? Therapy is a great tool for facing your fears and finding ways to overcome them because sometimes the scariest thing is not facing our fears in the first place and holding ourselves back. Peyton and I honestly are both huge advocates of therapy. If you need someone to talk to,

Talk to a therapist. We both believe in it. We both think it is helpful to talk about our feelings. We do. We're just, we're honestly are both really big advocates and getting your feelings out, talking about them and getting another opinion, getting more advice. It's really important.

So if you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Overcome your fears with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash husband today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash husband.

Maddie calls Haley to say that Adam had been weirdly obsessing over the Gabby Petito case. Remember?

Hey, you guys all know the Gabby Petito case. He wasn't the only one weirdly obsessing over it, I will say. But this like Maddie calls her friend and is weirded out. He was like psychotically obsessing over it. So quick rundown. That makes sense. Gabby was 22 years old. She went on a cross-country road trip with her fiance, Brian. And when he came home to Florida without Gabby, it sparked this massive search. It went completely viral.

on social media and it going viral on social media is actually what led to her case being solved or her body being found in wyoming it's because there was another youtuber i think couple if i remember correctly you heard about the case they were going through their footage and they saw his car their car driving yes in the and the only reason they went back through their footage was because they were like well we were in

an area that they're saying maybe possibly they had been so they literally caught his car and camera and then that just sparked a search and they found her body there yep so i mean it literally without social media i'm not sure her body would have ever been found because no one actually knew their whereabouts it was like they could have been here they could have been here they could have been here it was also probably i would say dare say the first case

in a long time or the first case on TikTok that really, it was different. It was different than other true crime cases. I get when we say blew up, it blew up. It was interestingly blew up so big. You have cases like Lacey Peterson, the Menendez brothers. You have cases that true crime people are obsessed with, right? Like we're like what we need to know.

Then you have Gabby Petito, who people who didn't even like true crime were obsessed with. Like anybody and everybody, like your normal, even people who didn't really like true crime, like everybody was talking about it. Yes. People in my life who never talked to me about the podcast or true crime were talking about it. And that was when I was like, okay, this is different. So I need to mention that Gabby Petito's cause of death was manual strangulation by Brian. So now...

Adam Fravel was not only pouring over this case on social media, he was talking about it to Maddie. And she told Haley that one night, Adam actually grabbed Maddie by the throat and pinned her down and told her that if she wasn't careful, she was going to end up just like Gabby Petito. Holy hell. So Maddie's like, hey, we got in this fight and he choked me and held me down and said, if I'm not careful...

That's insane. But I think it's important to tell you that Haley was not the only person that Maddie disclosed this to. Apparently, she also sent in a text to her other friend, Katie. This is the one who showed up on the night that Maddie disappeared looking for her, which meant there was cold, hard evidence in writing that Maddie was feeling threatened by Adam. Oh, she texted her? Yes, and texted her and told her that he manually strangled her.

Now, Katie, of course, panicked after she heard this from her friend and she begged Maddie to get out of the house with the kids. Like, hey, it's not just you. You have kids there. You need to get help.

But Maddie never reported any of these things to police, and she told Katie she was afraid of Adam getting arrested. Eventually, though, she did tell her parents about what happened and about the Gabby Petito threats. So they went to the house, helped her pack her things, and she and the kids went to stay with her parents for a couple days. Less than a week later, Maddie moved back in with Adam. Her parents tried to stop her, but like

I mean, this is the father of her children. Even when they told her if she didn't get out for good, it was possible that Adam would kill her.

They told her that. Yeah. So just a month before Maddie disappeared, she told a friend at the Mayo Clinic that everything is bad with Adam at the house. She confessed that he had been physically abusive towards her for years. So she's telling another person about what's going on and that she would never leave her kids under any circumstance. So if she ever disappeared, it was definitely Adam's fault. So this is the first person she tells at work. Hey, if I go missing, it's on Adam.

Eventually, Maddie also worked up the courage to tell Adam that she'd met someone else, that she was looking for an apartment to take the kids to. She was leaving him for good. So she confronts Adam with, I've met somebody. I am moving out and I'm taking the kids. This is six days before she disappeared. Obviously, when Maddie went missing, Maddie's friends and family go to the police and they're like, here you go. She literally told someone if she goes missing, it was him.

But now, with her body being found, the evidence against Adam was finally being put to use. Amongst it was a screenshot of a text message between Maddie and Adam. Maddie told him, you know I'm not really okay with or over the fact that you put your hand around my neck and pushed me down in front of the kids earlier, so don't. Not okay with it at all, but especially with them there. To which Adam texted back, you'll adjust.

So she basically said, I'm not okay with you putting your hand around my throat, but especially in front of the kids. And he said, like, you'll get used to it. You'll change your mind. You'll learn to be okay with it is basically what he told her. Dude. Scary. That's, that's, I don't really have many words because that is, that's a killer.

So along with those incriminating texts were the facts that Adam had wiped his location tracking from his phone the day that Maddie went missing and that those cameras removed from the house were, of course, not done because the couple was moving. We know that it was Maddie moving. Police also knew there was a 25-minute gap from March 31st where Maddie's van was not picked up on any camera footage. They believe that 25-minute gap was when Adam was at the

the dump location, disposing of Maddie's body. Now, two days after his arrest on June 9th, 2024, Adam Fravel was officially charged with four counts of murder in varying degrees and a judge set his bail at $1 million. Again, I'm just going to say it. Did we not learn from the Susan Powell case? If a husband has already killed his wife and his two kids are still out there, why is he getting out on bail? Yeah. I mean, he probably won't. $1 million. $1 million.

I just, why is it even an option? No, it shouldn't be an option. It should not. If you are charged, oh gosh, it's hard. Cause I want to say if you're charged for murder, you shouldn't get bail. I want to say maybe if you have, I guess it's case by case.

I just like how many times have we seen family annihilators? All the time. All the freaking time. It's not that uncommon for a father figure in a family to annihilate Chris Watts, Josh Powell, to annihilate the whole family when the actual victim, when the actual target of his rage was the wife. Or if they get out on bail, like they should have zero access to the kids. Even then, I mean, Josh Powell was supposed to have supervised access and

- Got those kids to run inside. - Honestly, there just needs to be stricter laws. There needs to be more strict regulations and laws around this. - That's so hard. - I know it's case by case, but honestly, if you're charged, 99% of people who are charged for a murder

usually there's something wrong with them. Obviously you have your 1%, 2% who are convicted, sorry, who are wrongfully convicted and so on and so forth. But if the rule is the same across the board, it would just save so many lives and so much trouble.

So after an autopsy was performed on Maddie, the medical examiner determined her manner and cause of death as homicide and homicidal violence. But I couldn't get, get like more detail than that. Again, trial will help with all of that. The only other thing I found was that a towel had been knotted around Maddie's

Maddie's head and neck, which likely made her cause of death strangulation or asphyxiation, which is a lot like the way Gabby Petito died. Police also learned that Maddie had a $170,000 death benefit through her work that Adam was probably aware of. But what he clearly didn't realize was that she had not listed anyone as her beneficiary, especially not him.

So on June 12th, 2023, just a few days after his arrest, Maddie's parents filed a motion with the court to ensure that Adam doesn't have contact with his children while he awaits his trial, which is what Garrett said. And from what I can tell,

He is currently allowed to have supervised visits if he is out on bail, but I'm not sure if Adam was ever able to post it. I do know, however, that the bail was raised to $3 million with no conditions or $2 million with conditions a few months later, so it seems unlikely that he'll get it. Now, Adam's trial is set for the fall of this year, 2024, so this case is still ongoing. Here's the ironic part. Adam and his attorneys are currently pushing for the trial to be moved out of Winona County.

Why? Because of all the media coverage on the case. Adam doesn't feel he'll get a fair trial with a jury from Winona.

According to the motion, 98% of people surveyed in a local poll said they had interacted with a news story about Adam's case and had already formed an opinion on the outcome. Which brings up an interesting point. How do you, in an age of social media, keep a jury from forming an opinion about a highly publicized case?

I think this is something that we're going to find getting more and more complicated as social media becomes a bigger part of everyone's life, especially as people take an interest in true crime. It is hard because...

What are you supposed to do about that? Because at this point, it's impossible. People are going to hear about these big cases, and they're going to be on the jury. So do you just trust that people don't form opinions? You can't because people are going to have preconceived ideas. I don't know how you do that. And then it also is hard because it gives more power to...

Like the people who are being convicted. Right. Because they can say, well, I didn't get a fair trial. I didn't get a fair trial. I mean, if we're going to be honest, though, we form opinions on people like within seconds of meeting them. So many times a juror does have their mind made up the moment they step into the box. Which is kind of insane. It's not like just because they've heard of the case. I mean, a lot of times jurors will get in and be like, seems like it was him. I swear, if you ever want to just convict someone guilty, just hire me.

Just put me on the jury. Put me in, coach. I'm 99%. I'm going to say guilty. You can pay me off a little bit if you want. So will a change of venue make it so Adam gets a fair trial? I don't know. I guess time will tell. He's guilty. That's crap. So while the outcome of this case is still unclear, there is one thing that's crystal clear. Adam was set off by losing Maddie forever.

Not only was he at risk of losing his kids and his girlfriend, he was at risk of losing his free meal ticket with Maddie. She was cleaning the house. She was keeping him happy. She was paying their bills, which was probably the majority of his concern.

The devastating thing is just four days before she died, Maddie had sent a text to their landlord saying she was ending her lease and finding her own place. She'd finally worked up the courage to leave her abusive partner. Something that we know from doing this show for so long is not easy. It takes a lot of guts. And many people stay in abusive relationships because they are terrified if they leave, they will end up like Maddie. Yeah.

But if you or someone you know is in the same situation, please know that there are resources. There is a way to get out safely. If you're in the U.S., you can contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233. You can also visit the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence website.

their website at ncadv.org or you can find a local shelter through resources like the National Network to End Domestic Violence at nnedv.org and that is the story of Maddie Kingsbury. I'm surprised being on social media. I mean, I guess I'm not nearly on social media as much as I used to be, but...

I was getting tagged. I was seeing. Oh, you were getting tagged quite a bit? I'm surprised I didn't see it. I probably did and just didn't realize that's what her name was. Yeah. Just because around that. We do get tagged in a lot of. We get tagged in a lot of different cases. And around that time, honestly, there was a couple years there where, I mean, TikTok was going crazy with how many cases. It was, it's sad. It's sad how many cases there are there.

O'Reilly! Need a little help? O'Reilly Auto Parts can help. Need advice? We've got advice. No matter what you need, we have thousands of professional parts people doing their part to make sure you have it. Exceptional customer service. Just one part that makes O'Reilly stand apart. The professional parts people. O-O-O-O'Reilly! Auto Parts! Woo!