Ex-KCK cop Roger Golubski found dead in apparent suicide on day of trial, case dismissed
Ex-Kansas City, Kansas, police detective Roger Golubski died in an apparent suicide Monday morning, the first day of his long-awaited trial, sources told The Star. The former officer was accused of using his badge as a shield to rape women and inflict broader terror in the city’s predominately Black neighborhoods.
Authorities on Monday confirmed the death but shared few other details, opening an investigation. Three sources familiar with the investigation spoke on the condition of anonymity before officials confirmed the death publicly, saying Golubski died by suicide. One said Golubski shot himself.
News of the death came after prosecutors requested an arrest warrant shortly after 9 a.m. as Golubski, 71, had not appeared in court with jury selection to begin. Two hours later, U.S. District Judge Toby Crouse dismissed the case as prosecutors confirmed Golubski had died.
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation launched a death investigation Monday. Agents found no immediate signs of foul play.
Golubski was to stand trial on six felony counts stemming from his conduct as a police officer during the 1990s and early 2000s. Prosecutors alleged the former cop raped two women, including one beginning when she was as young as 13 years old.
It was the first of two federal indictments brought against the ex-cop since 2022. A second case of longstanding misconduct centered on Golubski as a police protector of a feared drug kingpin running an underage sex-trafficking ring in Kansas City, Kansas.
Reached by The Star on Monday, Ophelia Williams, a victim referred to in court papers as O.W. and one of several expected to testify, said: “I guess that’s what happens to people who do all the wrong stuff they do.
“He didn’t want to face the facts, so he decided to kill himself,” she said.
Prosecutors were set to call to the stand as many as nine women who say Golubski raped, stalked or attempted to assault them. Now, those women will not get to tell their stories before the court.
“This matter involved extremely serious charges, and it is always difficult when a case is unable to be fully and fairly heard in a public trial and weighed and determined by a jury,” said Kristen Clarke and Kate E. Brubacher, prosecuting attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice, in a statement Monday.
“The proceedings in this case may be over, but its lasting impact on all the individuals and families involved remains. We wish them peace and the opportunity for healing as they come to terms with this development and ask that they all be treated with respect and their privacy respected.”
Police found Golubski dead of a gunshot wound on the back porch of his home, the KBI said in a Monday afternoon news release. Officers were summoned by a resident who called 911 to report the sound of gunfire in the 700 block of South 9th Street.
An autopsy was scheduled Monday, according to the KBI. The state agency declined to immediately offer further information at the outset of its investigation.
Earlier in the morning, as potential jurors were brought in from across Kansas, Crouse granted a warrant for failure to appear and anticipated court would resume later in the afternoon. A representative of the U.S. Marshals Service informed the court that Golubski had been inside his residence as of 8:57 a.m., according to his monitoring device.
As his whereabouts were discussed in court, defense attorney Chris Joseph told the judge Golubski had been “despondent about the media coverage.”
Allegations against Golubski
Golubski had maintained innocence. His defense was prepared to argue at trial that the claims against him were fabrications.
Meanwhile, both women allegedly abused in connection with the charges were expected to testify to instances of rape and sexual misconduct during the 1990s and early 2000s at the hands of Golubski. He is accused of repeatedly forcing himself on them, in his patrol vehicle or in the case of one, in her home, under the threat of death or retribution.
A police officer between 1975 and 2010, prosecutors allege Golubski routinely used his badge to shield himself from justice. Golubski, who is white, is accused of targeting vulnerable Black women and sexually exploiting several he encountered while on the job.
One of the victims, identified in court papers as S.K., claims the former detective first lured her into his patrol car by telling her she was a witness to a crime. He is accused of raping her on occasions between 1998 and 2001, and threatening to kill her or her grandmother if she failed to adhere to his demands.
The second victim, Williams, who has shared her allegations against Golubski publicly, said Golubski first raped her in 1999, beginning shortly after her teenage sons were arrested and charged in a homicide case that Golubski investigated.
The allegations raised by the women first came to light in civil court through a lawsuit brought by Lamonte McIntyre, who contended Golubski framed him for a 1994 double murder. Lawyers for McIntyre and his mother, Rose, said in court filings that Golubski victimized, assaulted or harassed more than 70 women. In 2017, McIntyre was exonerated and released from prison, following 23 years of wrongful incarceration.
“This is not justice,” said McIntyre, who had flown from Arizona to Kansas to see Golubski face trial in Topeka.
“Justice is facing your accusers. If you commit a crime against the society that you are a part of, justice is facing that society. Him killing himself is not justice. That’s him avoiding it.
Federal prosecutors allege Golubski also served as a protector of feared drug kingpin Cecil Brooks. The former detective is one of four — alongside Brooks and associates LeMark Roberson and Richard “Bone” Robinson — accused of running an underage sex trafficking ring out of an apartment complex at Delavan Avenue and 26th Street. Prosecutors allege the girls were held at the apartment complex “in a condition of involuntary sexual servitude” and used “like chattel.”
As a detective, Golubski allegedly protected Brooks and the others from police investigation as they trafficked and raped the girls.
Kansas City, Kansas, community leaders have long pointed to Golubski as evidence of deep-seated problems within the city’s police department, calling on the U.S. Justice Department to launch a pattern or practice investigation.
Faith leaders organized a bus trip from Kansas City, Kansas, to Topeka on Monday, rallying in front of the courthouse with prayer, chants and song. The group braved the cold for the rally and packed up before noon.
One of the organizers, Lora McDonald, executive director of social justice organization MORE2, was unsurprised by the death. She expressed disappointment that the trial would not take place.
“We knew he was a coward,” she said. “And when they said he didn’t show today, instantly, I said, he killed himself.”
“He’s probably the worst, but he’s not the only one. If he was, we wouldn’t be out here.”
Neighbors freaked out
Golubski’s Edwardsville home was cordoned off with crime scene tape Monday. There was a noticeable law enforcement presence on the residential block, including Edwardsville police officers and KBI special agents.
Neighbors were surprised when they learned of Golubski’s death.
Tom Ray, whose backyard looks into Golubski’s backyard, said he woke at approximately 10:15 a.m. and called a neighbor when he saw officers surrounding Golubski’s home. Ray said he thought he saw a trash bag leaning up against a rail on Golubski’s back porch.
It turned out to be Golubski’s body dressed with a coat, Ray said.
“That freaked me out,” Ray said. “Still freaks me out a little bit, thinking that he would do that.”
KBI officials questioned Ray 10 minutes later and asked for his back porch camera footage which Ray said only looks into his fenced backyard.
Ray said he first met the former detective more than 30 years ago at a homeowners association meeting. Golubski was always a nice guy, he said. Ray often played with Golubski’s son and hosted him and his friends as they played basketball in his driveway.
Until a few years ago, Ray talked to Golubski often when he saw him.
“He always talked to ask how everybody was doing,” Ray said.
Once Golubski’s allegations surfaced, he kept their conversations to a minimum.
“He’d wave. But I didn’t really want to say anything because I didn’t want to bring anything up,” Ray said. “I didn’t want to make it uncomfortable either, because I still had to live by him.”
Mark Wilson, who has lived on the next block from Golubski for 16 years, said he didn’t know Golubski but feels relieved that the case has been dismissed.
When Golubski was first arrested and charged, Wilson said the neighborhood marked Golubski’s home as a place to monitor for safety concerns.
“To pass his house was kind of like passing the devil’s den,” Wilson said. “It was creepy having him living right down the road.”
Ray said he had suspicions because there was always someone in Golubski’s home with him.
“He always had a new girlfriend all the time, it seemed like,” he said.
What would have happened in the trial?
The trial was expected to be as long as 17 courtroom days, including two for jury selection.
To secure a conviction, prosecutors would have needed to prove to jurors that Golubski abused his official authority as a police officer, committed sexual assaults that deprived the women of their right to bodily integrity, and did so willfully.
Both women Golubski allegedly abused in connection with the federal charges were set to testify to instances of rape and sexual misconduct during the 1990s and early 2000s at his hands.
Prosecutors had also planned to call on up to seven additional witnesses, called “Other Victims,” to show a pattern of abuse of power and sexual violence. Those witnesses would include accounts from five women who allege Golubski had sexually assaulted them, and two women who say he attempted to assault them.
Prosecutors had said the women’s accounts, spanning from 1983 to 2004, were “strikingly similar,” showing a pattern of Golubski allegedly targeting vulnerable Black women and girls.
One of the women met Golubski, who was a longtime detective, when he was assigned to investigate her husband’s murder, according to prosecutors. He then allegedly raped her on three occasions.
Another of the women alleges Golubksi threatened to arrest her sons around 2004 unless she had sex with him, which she refused. She is a former law enforcement officer, prosecutors disclosed in a previous filing. When she tried to report Golubski to KCKPD’s Internal Affairs Unit, she was told it was her word against his, the U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote.
“When he talked to me like that, and him being in law enforcement ... it was really insulting, degrading,” prosecutors quoted the woman as saying. “You feel helpless ... less than a woman or like you’re nothing.”
Prosecutors had wanted to call the seven other women to also “rebut a defense of fabrication or consent.”
“This trial will turn entirely on victim credibility,” prosecutors wrote in their motion, “and the defendant chose his victims because he was confident that they would never be believed.”
‘So many unanswered questions’
Lamonte McIntyre had hoped that Golubski’s trial would shed light on what he described as a corrupt system that had allowed Golubski to commit such abuses for so many years.
“The root of this whole thing is still here,” Lamonte McIntyre said. “We don’t know what happened, right? It never came out in court. This was the time for people to see the truth behind not just him as an individual, but as a system.
“We were expecting to see and hear about the other players, everybody else that was involved, because he didn’t do it alone. A lot of people feel like the real culprit, the real people (to be held culpable) are the people who allowed this to happen for so long and are still there.”
“I mean, there’s so many unanswered questions now.”
William Skepnek, an attorney for Ophelia Williams, one of the victims in the Topeka trial, said those questions run deep.
“Obviously justice can’t be served without a public hearing,” Skepnek said. “It’s frustrating for all of these women after all these years.
“I mean, I guess I’m not really surprised. I’ve been feeling this way for a while that, you know, there are too many people that would not want this thing to be publicly aired.”
Skepnek said, “For Roger Golubski to do what he did for 30 years, he wasn’t alone. He had enablers. How many were there? How many people either actively assisted him or put blinders on and just let him do whatever he wanted to do?
“And how many of those people are really happy right now about the fact that Roger Golubski’s case will not be aired publicly?”
The Star’s PJ Green and Eric Adler contributed reporting.
This story was originally published December 2, 2024 at 10:14 AM.
