Ex-Cop Dies By Suicide Ahead Of Trial For Abusing Black Women and Girls

Now these women will never get their day in court....

Former Kansas City, Kansas, detective Roger Golubski was found dead in his home of apparent suicide on the day his sexual assault trial was set to begin, The Associated Press reported.

Police found Golubski on the back porch of his home outside Kansas City on Dec. 2 after a neighbor heard a gunshot. While local authorities were investigating the 71-year-old’s death, prosecutors and Golubski’s attorneys were preparing for day one of his trial where the ex-detective was facing six felony counts of violating women’s civil rights. Prosecutors allege Golubski sexually assaulted Black women and girls for decades and terrorized those who tried to fight back.

Golubski pleaded not guilty but was accused of preying on female residents in poor neighborhoods and demanding sexual favors. In some instances, victims claim he threatened to harm them or place their loved ones in jail if he didn’t get what he wanted.

The Edwardsville Police Department have not confirmed that Golubski’s death has been ruled a suicide but did add there were no indications of foul play, according to KCTV 5. Prior to his death, the former police officer, who served for more than 30 years on the force, was under house arrest awaiting trial. The Department of Justice alleged Golubski assaulted two teenage victims for years between the late 1990s and the 2000s. One of the victims, Ophelia Williams, was scheduled to testify at trial.

Williams accused Golubski of sexually assaulting her repeatedly and still has nightmares about the encounter more than 25 years later. “He didn’t come back one time to rape me. He came back and back,” Williams once said. She recalled her abuser being unfazed when she threatened to call the police. “He said, ‘I am the police,’ What good would it do?,” she remembered.

“It would be a long time before anybody found me.”

After hearing of his death, U.S. District Judge Toby Crouse dismissed the charges through prosecutors’ request, however, charges from a second criminal case involving three other co-defendants will continue to go through due process. Officials from the DOJ labeled cases like this as “difficult” since it can’t “be fully and fairly heard in a public trial.” But advocates for Golubski’s victims and others alike are still pushing for justice, feeling the community, which has heightened disdain for law enforcement following the case’s popularity, was denied justice. “The community had an enormous interest in seeing this trial go forward,” Cheryl Pilate, an attorney representing some of the women, said.

“Now, the victims, the community and justice itself have been cheated.”

Anita Randle-Stanley, who said Golubski harassed her when she was a teenager after denying his advances, shared similar thoughts saying, “there is no justice for the victims.”

Some advocates and victims were angry over Golubski being under house arrest due to kidney dialysis treatments. Things took a turn when he failed to appear in court on Monday. His attorney, Christopher Joseph, said his client “was despondent about the media coverage” but spoke regularly — including on the morning of his death. Pilate questioned how well the government was monitoring Golubski.

Regardless of the sad turn of events, abusers and advocates like Starr Cooper, who says Golubski targeted her mother before she died in 1983, claim the fight for justice isn’t over. “We have to keep fighting,” she said.