One of his victims is still scared to go to Kansas City, Kansas.
Women who had been willing to come forward with their stories are now silent again.
And they don’t believe the law enforcement line that he died by suicide.
In the year since disgraced Kansas City, Kansas, Police Detective Roger Golubski killed himself on Dec. 2, 2024, his victims and others in the community say nothing has changed. When Golubski, 71, dodged his federal trial on the day it was to begin, it denied any chance of accountability for his victims and the community he abused, they say.
“They won again,” said Star Cooper, one of the group of women who advocated for Golubski’s victims. “That’s what it feels like: They won again.”
A dawn vigil called “The Women Who Wait On Justice” in front of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, building was canceled late Monday because of a snowstorm. But the women and social justice advocates say they will continue to speak up.
“How and when does the statute of limitations run out on justice?” said Mae Henderson, who had a run-in with Golubski when he was a rookie in the mid-1970s.
Ophelia Williams, who lives in Kansas City, Missouri, was one of the women named in the federal indictment against Golubski in September 2022. He was charged with violating the civil rights of two women — and possibly seven more — by raping and kidnapping them. Golubski pleaded not guilty.
Williams attended a Nov. 20 event organized by MORE2, a Kansas City, Kansas, social justice group, despite her fear.
“When I come over here, it’s scary,” Williams said. “I come over here, do what I got to do and take the highway right back home.”
Still, Williams said she wants the women to keep fighting for accountability. She is one of five Black women who filed a federal civil rights lawsuit — which has since been dismissed — in November 2023. It accused the Unified Government of allowing “dirty cops” like Golubski to sexually exploit them, run a “police protection racket” and subject the Black community to “regular acts of humiliation and exploitation.” The women are appealing the dismissal.
Despite an announcement by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, which ruled Golubski died by suicide, Williams and others refuse to believe it. KCUR obtained KBI’s records, which portrayed a despondent Golubski fearing his trial and telling others he would “just eat my gun” if he was sent to prison.
“I didn’t believe a word they said,” said Cooper, who believes Golubski had a role in her mother’s 1983 murder. “I don’t believe he committed suicide. If he’s deceased, someone killed him.”
Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree has said he saw Golubski’s body the day he killed himself and that the “evidence is clear” that the former detective died by his own hand.
With Golubski’s death, and the end of the federal case, Cooper said the women who had been willing to come forward now feel that they are not safe because other officers will retaliate.
While there is no current federal case surrounding Golubski’s actions or that of the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department, some hang their hopes on a vow by Dupree and his Community Integrity Unit to look at cases where Golubski was involved. Dupree got $1.7 million from the Unified Government to digitize the old case files.
Dupree defended the unit in an August interview with KCUR. He said he has gone back 60 years and there are more than 19 cases that he’s interested in as part of his look at Golubski’s work.
Violet Martin, whose brother, Brian Betts, said Golubski set him up for a 1997 wrongful conviction, wondered about those files and whether more men may be exonerated.
“It’s more families that have been affected by this, it’s more young men and women who have been affected by this,” Martin said. “When you open those files, yes, you open wounds. But you also allow the families to heal and move forward with their lives.”
Golubski’s history is the subject of KCUR's Overlooked podcast, which investigated decades of corruption in the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department and the exoneration of Lamonte McIntyre, a Kansas City, Kansas, man who said Golubski set him up to spend 23 years in prison on a wrongful conviction. He was freed in 2017.
