Hundreds mourn Winona woman, whose disappearance brought thousands together

WINONA – Madeline Kingsbury's sister felt like stained glass, she told a crowd of mourners.

The young mother's disappearance and death left a family of "stained-glass people" — shattered by her loss, ready to be put back together, Megan Kingsbury said.

"There will be visible cracks and imperfections but something beautiful and new is

created," Megan Kingsbury said. "Maddi saw beauty in all of us and wouldn't want us to remain broken."

Hundreds of family, friends and supporters came to Winona on Sunday to celebrate Madeline Kingsbury, who vanished at the end of March. Her case united the Winona community and thousands more across the U.S. as the search for her continued for almost 10 weeks.

Kingsbury was last seen on March 31 taking her children to day care. She was supposed to come to work in Rochester as a clinical research coordinator for Mayo Clinic, but she never showed up.

Her former boyfriend, Adam Fravel, is accused of killing her after an on-again, off-again relationship. He is in jail facing second-degree murder charges.

Now her family and friends are left to publicly reckon with her life and the circumstances behind her death. Kingsbury's life and death drew people to Winona State University, her alma mater, where mourners covered the floor and one side of bleachers inside McCown Gymnasium for her funeral.

Many wore blue, Kingsbury's favorite color and the color of lights her family asked residents to keep burning for her at night as the search wore on. After a Fillmore County deputy found her remains earlier this month, some residents continued to keep the blue lights turned on at night in support of her family.

"We're behind them," Diane Vaujin of Winona said. "We grieve with them."

Thousands of volunteers — from the Winona area, the Twin Cities metro, Iowa, Wisconsin and even farther away — searched for Kingsbury shortly after she went missing.

Kelly Kruger of Oronoco, Minn., took part in the organized searches for Kingsbury in the spring. Kruger came to Kingsbury's memorial service hoping to learn more about the single mother of a 5- and 2-year-old and a woman that family and friends say loved to talk to people and help others.

"That's why her story touched a lot of people," Kruger said.

Kruger said she was shocked to see how many people had heard about Kingsbury's disappearance. Others were saddened to see a tragedy in the community involve people they knew.

Lizzie Hershberger, an advocate for domestic violence survivors, volunteered for several searches even as she dreaded the worst-case scenario — that the longer Kingsbury was missing, the less likely it was she would be found alive.

Hershberger, of Mabel, Minn., said she wanted to come to Kingsbury's memorial to support her loved ones, whom she hopes find closure in knowing Kingsbury's fate.

"I don't know how you could live without knowing where your loved one, your family member is at," Hershberger said. "At least they're able to have a celebration (of her life) today."

Yet those people didn't know Kingsbury's bubbly, outgoing nature.

They didn't know about her childhood when, at 6 or 7 years old, she spontaneously broke into song at a high school football game and earned a dollar from an older couple amused by her antics. They didn't know about her habit of sucking her thumb far later than she should have. They didn't know about the kindness she shared, the struggles and doubts she overcame, the master's degree she was pursuing at the time she went missing.

As Kingsbury's family shared entries from her diary or memories she shared about her children, they also mourned what could have been.

Kingsbury's brother Steven said he had trouble seeing her, a 26-year-old at the time of her death, as more than his little sister. However, Steven Kingsbury said that he had no trouble seeing the amazing woman she had become.

"Who knows what she would have accomplished?" he said. "So much realized, but also unrealized potential."