An ex-Kansas detective accused of terrorizing women died in an apparent suicide as his trial began

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A white ex-Kansas police detective died Monday in an apparent suicide just before the start of his criminal trial over allegations that he sexually assaulted Black women and terrorized those who tried fight back.

Local police found Roger Golubski dead of a gunshot wound on the back porch of his split-level home outside Kansas City, Kansas. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation, called in to help, said "there are no indications of foul play" in the 71-year-old's death, discovered after a neighbor heard a gunshot.

Fifty miles (80 kilometers) to the west, federal prosecutors and Golubski's attorneys were inside the federal courthouse in Topeka for the start of jury selection with Golubski facing six felony counts of violating women's civil rights. Prosecutors say that, for years, female residents of poor neighborhoods in Kansas City feared that if they crossed paths with Golubski, he’d demand sexual favors and threaten to harm or jail their relatives. He had pleaded not guilty.

His death led U.S. District Judge Toby Crouse to dismiss the charges at prosecutors' request, though a second criminal case involving three other co-defendants remains. U.S. Department of Justice officials said it's “difficult” when a case cannot “be fully and fairly heard in a public trial,” but advocates for the women who accused Golubski of abusing them were angry, feeling that they and the community were denied a reckoning.

“There is no justice for the victims,” said Anita Randel-Stanley, who came to Topeka from the Kansas City area to watch jury selection and added that Golubski began harassing her when she was a teenager decades ago.

Allegations at the heart of the case — that Golubski preyed on women for decades with seeming impunity — outraged the community and deepened its historical distrust of law enforcement. The prosecution followed earlier reports of similar abuse allegations across the country where hundreds of officers have lost their badges after allegations of sexual assaults.

Some of the women and their advocates were upset that Golubski was under house arrest while he underwent kidney dialysis treatments three times a week. Cheryl Pilate, an attorney representing some of the women, said she has questions about how well the government was monitoring Golubski.

“The community had an enormous interest in seeing this trial go forward,” she added. “Now, the victims, the community and justice itself have been cheated.”

Ex-detective described as ‘despondent’ over coverage

After Golubski failed to appear in court Monday, his lead attorney, Christopher Joseph, said his client “was despondent about the media coverage.”

Joseph said he had talked to Golubski regularly, including Monday morning, and he was shocked to hear that his client had apparently killed himself.

As for Golubski’s death, he said, “I don’t know the details.”

Golubski was accused of sexually assaulting one woman starting when she was barely a teenager and another after her twin sons were arrested.

The case against Golubski was part of a string of lawsuits and criminal allegations that has led the county prosecutor's office to begin a $1.7 million effort to reexamine cases Golubski worked on during his 35 years on the force. One double murder case Golubski investigated already has resulted in an exoneration, and an organization run by rapper Jay-Z is suing to obtain police records.

Joseph had said lawsuits over the allegations were an “inspiration for fabrication” by his accusers. But prosecutors said that, along with the two women whose accounts are the heart of the criminal case, seven others were going to testify that Golubski abused or harassed them.

“We have to keep fighting,” said Starr Cooper, who was in the courthouse Monday to watch jury selection and said Golubski victimized her mother before her death in 1983.

Advocates for women rally, lament lack of trial

About 50 people had a short rally Monday morning in sub-freezing temperatures outside the federal courthouse in Topeka to show their support for the women accusing Golubski of abusing them. They held signs with slogans such as, “Justice Now!”

Lora McDonald, executive director of MORE2, a Kansas City-area social justice group, said participants learned that Golubski didn’t show up in court just as a rally began in Topeka. They dispersed before prosecutors announced his death in court.

They later joined Pilate in calling for an independent, outside investigation into Golubski's death.

“Golubski terrorized an entire community and co-conspired with dangerous people,” McDonald said. “Our rally today was not just about Roger Golubski. Rather, it was about the department in which his criminal activity flourished."

Pilate lamented that without a trial for Golubski, "In the eyes of the law he died an innocent man.”

Max Seifert, a former Kansas City police officer who graduated from the police academy with Golubski in 1975, said Golubski's supporters will treat him as a martyred victim of unfair pretrial publicity. He contends the department condoned misconduct.

“I feel that there is always going to be a cloud of mystery about this,” he added.

Decades of whispered allegations

Stories about Golubski remained just whispers in the neighborhoods near Kansas City’s former cattle stockyards partly because of the extreme poverty of a place where crime was abundant and some homes are boarded up. One neighborhood where Golubski worked is part of Kansas’ second-poorest zip code.

Fellow officers once revered Golubski for his ability to clear cases, and he rose to the rank of captain in Kansas City before retiring there in 2010 and then working on a suburban police force for six more years. His former partner served a stint as police chief.

The inquiry into Golubski stems from the case of Lamonte McIntyre, who started writing to McCloskey’s nonprofit nearly two decades ago.

McIntyre was just 17 in 1994 when he was arrested and charged in connection with a double homicide, within hours of the crimes. He had an alibi; no physical evidence linked him to the killings; and an eyewitness believed the killer was an underling of a local drug dealer.

In the other federal criminal case involving Golubski, that drug dealer also was charged with him, accused of running a violent sex trafficking operation.

McIntyre's mother said in a 2014 affidavit that she wonders whether her refusal to grant regular sexual favors to Golubski prompted him to retaliate against her son.

In 2022, the local government agreed to pay $12.5 million to McIntyre and his mother to settle a lawsuit after a deposition in which Golubski invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent 555 times. The state also paid McIntyre $1.5 million.

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Hollingsworth and Ingram reported from Edwardsville, Kansas.