Feds think KCK cop, ‘a player in a much bigger operation,’ killed Rhonda Tribue himself
Someone with official, firsthand knowledge of the federal investigation into former Kansas City, Kansas, police detective Roger Golubski recently filled me in on a few things.
▪ The FBI tried to get the U.S. Attorney’s office in Kansas to start an investigation into the much-accused former captain back in 2014, but then-U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom refused to take the case. (“Nothing like that ever happened,” Grissom insists. “Never, never, never. I have no recollection, and I think that would be something I’d recall.”)
▪ Grissom’s successor, Trump-appointed Stephen McAllister, launched the investigation five years later, in 2019.
▪ The civil rights division of the Department of Justice has been involved since the beginning.
▪ They are building a racketeering case, with the help of a team headed by a RICO expert from Boston.
▪ Investigators believe that Golubski killed Rhonda Easley Tribue himself in 1998. She is one of at least six murdered Black women who all had a close connection to Golubski. “That’s one they think they can pin on him directly.”
▪ Other former police officers under investigation include former KCKPD Chief Terry Zeigler, Golubski’s former partner, who retired in 2019. Zeigler has repeatedly said he knows nothing about any wrongdoing and never even heard anything about any allegations against his partner. Another former officer investigators are looking at is William “Ed” Saunders, who has been accused of raping Natasha Hodge and attempting to assault a female colleague at the KCKPD.
▪ Because of potential conflicts of interest, the FBI investigation is not being run out of the Kansas City field office. Prosecutors are out of Topeka, and don’t know any of those under investigation. Agents in the KC field office aren’t from here, either.
Most of the above is encouraging news. Yes, the source had reason to want to allay my concerns about the investigation, and those won’t necessarily end here.
But it has dragged on for so long already that even this person said that the big concern is that 69-year-old Golubski, who is not in good health, will die before he and others can be brought to justice. (In a deposition in a civil case just over a year ago, Golubski invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 555 times.)
Some of the rapes that the former detective has been accused of will be hard to prosecute because of the statute of limitations, though even those may still be taken to court as civil rights violations.
But “one of the beauties of RICO is you won’t have any statute of limitations with murders, and rapes can be alleged as part of the racketeering pattern of activity.”
Of Golubski’s known accusers, “there’s a huge list of women who’ve died or we can’t find them,” this person said, while some who have come forward “can’t remember a date, or even an approximate date” they were attacked.
A handful of victims have come forward with accounts that have been corroborated, though, “and those are still probable charges.”
“We even talked about getting DNA from (Golubski’s unacknowledged) children,” including some whose mothers were his victims, but that hasn’t happened because it was thought to be too traumatic for those offspring and their families.
The RICO case is going forward “because he was a player in a much bigger operation. He was making money from drugs, and cleaning up their messes.”
Another important impetus is that “some guys in prison are starting to talk. They’re resentful that here they sit and Golubski has never been touched.”
The COVID-related “compassionate release” of convicted KCK drug kingpin Cecil Brooks more than a year ago complicated the investigation, this person said, because “with him out, others won’t talk.”
Still, “there is a lot of evidence Golubski was helpful in taking care of murder situations, making sure investigations went in certain directions and didn’t go in other directions.”
And he didn’t do that alone? “Not completely. A lot of people knew what he was up to. I know they’re looking at Zeigler. The timing of his retirement was interesting. That was just as we were cranking up on the investigation.”
Theoretically speaking, this person said, even those going before the grand jury and denying all knowledge of anything “can be useful, too,” because perjury charges are always possible.
The probe is still moving slowly, “but when it comes, it will be perfect.” Not might be, but will be? Yes, and in all likelihood before the end of 2022.
Meanwhile, someone I know the FBI wants to interview, who worked with Golubski for years, says the former detective is still collecting “residual income” from protection, prostitution and drug debts, and that he has let all current and former associates know that if he goes down, they all will.
Which, as I might have mentioned, can’t happen soon enough.
This story was originally published February 2, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
