The Girlfriends S4/E6: What Would You Have Done?

Hey, it's Nikky. We're about to hear some deeply heartwarming moments of sisterhood, hope, and what can happen when people come together to fight for the city they love. But as with the rest of this series, there'll be stories about violence, murder, and sexual assault. So if you or someone you love has been affected by any of the themes in the show, we've left some links in the description that offer resources and support, take care of yourself.

I was a spoiled little girl, got everything I wanted with her. I didn't realize that she wasn't my mother until I was five six years old. Around that time, Trina's godmother was her biological uncle's wife and the only mother figure she had ever known. But Trina was a curious kid who wanted to know more about her birth.

Mom, uncles, and aunties.

Like as I'm growing up, they like, you look just like your mama, you act just like your mama. And then I started having questions like who is this lady? And all they can really tell me is she's you like you A split image of her.

Nobody told her stories about her mom, but Trina had an active imagination.

I used to always dream about this lady getting torture in an alley, like getting kidnapped in an alley.

It was a recurring dream. So at ten years old she opened up to someone about it.

I had came to my brother one day and I was like, I keep having this dream about this lady being attacked in an alley and he was like, that was probably mama, And I'm like mama, and he was like, yeah, our mama got killed when you was a baby.

He just left it at.

That, and you know, a little girl, I just went on about my life, didn't really ask too many questions.

As she got older and Hickey milestones without her mother, Trina's curiosity grew.

So sixteen seventeen, when I started having kids, I started having questions around that time, like what happened to her and where was she at? She reached out to her uncle, Oscar. Him and my mom was like best friends. They were really close.

If anybody could tell her more about her mother, it was Oscar, and after some convincing, he finally agreed to share the full story. As he knew it In nineteen eighty three. Dorothy Cooper, or as her loved ones liked to call her, died, was a twenty year old living in Kansas City.

She was a kring given person. She took care of a lot of people in the family.

Including her young son and baby girl, Trina. Dorothy had her issues, but she was a present mother, so when she didn't come home one night in April, the Cooper family began to worry. Her father went down to the police station to file a missing person's report for his daughter, but the police didn't take it seriously and didn't allow him to file the report. Hours turned to days, until

The news clipping had came across the TV one morning and they said that they had found a young black woman on six point thirty five in Turkey Creek, and my uncle and them said, instantly, you know, you had that gut feeling like that's her.

Their gut feeling was correct.

In April nineteen eighty three, Dorothy's body was found in the driveway of an abandoned nursing home. Trina's family went to a funeral home to identify her. It was a traumatic experience. Someone had brought her up on an elevator. Her face was disfigured from her injuries.

To where they couldn't really identify her just from the face.

Trina's uncle, Oscar, stared down. The body was unrecognizable. How could he possibly identify it as his sister? He paused for a moment as his memories took him back to the childhood they spent together in Kansas City. One moment stood out, an innocent summertime memory from when they were young kids. They were riding a bike and my uncle did something to my mom and she kicked them off the bike. They were just playing around, bickering like siblings.

He had ended up having a bruise on his arm, and he ended up doing her like that, and she had the same bruise on her arm. So they grew up with the same bruise on their arm because they both was ornery and couldn't get over, like this person did this to me, and things like that. It had been a funny story when they were kids, but faced with the dead body, it took on a darker purpose. My uncle said that he remembered the scar that they

The childhood scar was there. This was his younger sister. Oscar was devastated, but he also noticed something.

Else, and that's when he discovered that her left wrist was cut off. And my uncle's now was telling me like it seemed as though like they just did it, like her bones and stuff was fresh, like they had just cut her wrist off.

This detail stuck in Trina's mind. Why would someone cut her mother's wrist off if not to hide something?

Oh God, who got.

I?

God?

I'm Nikki Richardson And from the teams that novel and iHeart Podcast, this is the Girlfriend's Untouchable.

Episode six, What would you have done?

Trina Cooper didn't have the opportunity to get to know her mother, Dorothy, but according to her friends and family, they would have gotten along pretty well. She was a caring, given person. She was just that sister. Couldn't nobody tell nothing?

And me speaking about it is talking, I'm talking about me like this is me now, like I'm very outspoken, no one can really tell me too much.

Trina's also very determined, So despite her family's reluctance to tell her more about her mother and her murder, Trina kept on digging.

Probably like twenty three.

I had reconnected with my godmoa, the woman who had raised her, And then she's like, have anyone told you about your mom?

Like this is things that you need to know? And I was like no, So Trina went to her godmother's house to find out more.

She just pulled out her little box of pictures and she showed me old pictures of her and my mom and me as a baby, and we said and we talked, and she told me that my mom was a street walker. And she said that, you know, back then when everything happened far as her death, they always thought that like a police officer was involved because of how it's so covered up. It's like no one else can cover it up as much as it's covered up, but a police officer.

Trina went back to her family and prodded them for answers.

I started having questions like what happened? Like did y'all ask questions? The short answer was no, they hadn't. In fact, the more Trina heard about the investigation, the more disappointed she felt. They gave my uncle my mom's jean jacket from the crom scene, and my uncle actually took it, and I'm like, why did you take the jacket? It was supposed to be in evidence. And my uncle was

Trina thought that learning more about her mother Dorothy's death would help her move on, but hearing how lackluss the investigation had been left her feeling even further from the truth. I was getting irritated and I was just like, I just don't understand. I left it alone again.

I'm like, I don't want to hear no more because then, you know, me being a teenager, it's like it's hurting to hear this about your mom and you know already having the hurt in you that you grew.

Up without this lady.

So it was just a lot at that time, so I just stopped asking questions because it was too much to really take in.

But Trina wasn't the only person in her family with a connection to Dorothy Cooper.

My kids started asking questions like who's her grandma and what happened to her? And I was like, you know, I really don't have the answers, and I'm a person to wear. Okay, now my kids is asking about it. I have to get answers. I have to be able to come to my kids and tell my kids something about my mom.

So two thousand and seven, I took it to.

Where I'm like, I'm gonna go to the Wandatt Police Station and I'm gonna try to reopen up my mom's case to try to figure out what happened. So I pulled my uncle with me, like you're going with me. We're about to reopen up mama's case and we're about to get some answers.

She headed over to the CASEKPD station. I went over there.

I spoke to the clerk at the front desk and I said, you know, my mom got killed over here in nineteen eighty three, and I want to reopen her case because it's still an unsolved case and she looked it up. She was like, the only detective you can talk to about this case, it's Roger Glupski and me.

I'm not knowing anything about it. Roger Glupski.

She didn't know anything about the detective whose office she was being led up to, but she had her uncle by her side with no reason to be worried.

Once we went up in the office with Roger Gilupski, Roger Glupski then goes to ask me, why do I want to open back up this case.

I said, that's my mom. I want to know what happened to her.

You know, we never got an answer, so it's like, I just want to know what happened to my mom. He said, okay, we're going to look into it. In my mind, he's going to do some investigations. He's going to call me back and he's going to tell me what he come up with. Time passed as tRNA waited to hear the results of his investigation. Roger Glupski then goes to call me back for a second meeting, but.

He didn't have any news for her.

He then goes to tell me, like, no one's talkalk in he asked me, what did I want to do.

Trina thought it through until a potential clue came back to her the horrifying detail her uncle Oscar had told her about seeing her mother's wrist cut off. So she went back to Gulupski with another question, who's.

The medical examiner that actually examined her body? He told me it was a medical examiner by the name of Handcock, and so I was like, can I get his information because I have questions for him.

She got his details and gave him a call.

I asked him to send me the autopsy report, and I asked him what procedures did he take far as doing a full autopsy on my mom? I asked him, I said, what was the reason of you cutting off my mom's wrists?

And he said to identify her and I'm like, huh.

He was like, so when they brought her body in, her hand was so swollen to where he had to cut her wrists off to release some pressure in her hand to get her fingerprint.

Trina didn't think the story added up. According to the autopsy report, the medical examiner had included a note saying that there had been adhesions on Dorothy's wrists, the kind that made Trina wonder if her mother's hands had been tied together before her death, but her wrist had been cut off, meaning that that specific evidence, if it had existed, couldn't be used in her murder investigation.

I said, she had another hand, Why didn't you use her other hand to get her fingerprints? Like it's other ways to identify her other than cutting her wrist off. Once I started, you know, talking like that, he was really dismissive. He really didn't want it too much talk to me anymore. So then I called another meat and with Roger Glubski, and I asked Galubski, like, what procedures did y'all take? How long do you guys keep evidence? And he said, oh, we keep evidence until the case

At Gallupski's reply was, you know, I went.

And looked into evidence closet and her evidence is not in there. Trina knew there was more to the story, but nobody was telling her anything, so she thought back to her childhood nightmares. I told him, I said, you know, as a little girl, I've always had a dream that a police officer killed my mom. And when I tell you, he got so mad that I said that. He got so red and he asks, like, what makes you say that? I just sat back and I said, who else can

After that time, I never seen them no more.

I got really discouraged, like, Okay, I'm asking the right questions, but no one is really gonna be honest. I know I'm on the right track, but I'm not gonna get anywhere because it's just me.

But Trina wasn't the only one who had suspicions about Gallupski. There were families across Kansas City slowly beginning to ask themselves the same questions, parents, children, and sisters, re examining the stories the women in their life had told them and realizing that Gallupski had cast a dark shadow around

I had you and had you.

In the nineteen eighties, Alan Jenerch was an FBI agent working in the Public Corruption Unit, investigating departments across the.

Country, basically trying to find public officials, police officers, or others who walk corrupt, and somewhere around nineteen eighty eight or eighty nine started investigating the Kansas City Police Department.

Alan had heard about possible misconduct in the force and wanted to get to the bottom of it. He began by talking not to officers, but to those they had arrested.

I would go over and interview them in the jail and tell them we're not interested in them, We're not interested in their family, we're not interested in their friends. We're just interested if you have any information about corrupt cops. So a lot of these people interviewing in the jail were very cooperative and they were eager to tell what they knew. I think at the high point where it's fifteen cops who were titled subjects of the investigation, that's

But if a lot of people knew about it, how did Kulupski get away with it for so long. The police is an organization that is supposed to protect them, But Allan's years spent digging into police departments like the CASEYKPD made it clear to him that that wasn't always the case, and a lot of that was down to the Blue Code of Silence, an unspoken rule in which police officers decided not to report their corrupt and criminal colleagues.

I remember once this cop was on duty in the police car and he had some woman and he raped her in the police car. She went to the police department and complained that this cop had raped her. Well, the police didn't want to do anything about it. I remember one of the internal affairs cops said to me, you know, the purpose of the internal affairs unit is to protect the upper ranks, to protect the people running

It went further than just protecting their officers.

They wanted all internal affairs reports destroyed after three years. You can't go back three years before to see what complaints were made against him because it's all destroyed.

Alan doesn't know why those documents were destroyed, but he has his own theories.

There's only one reason why you do that, to protect corrupt cops.

It's not a theory we can be certain of, but it's one Alan believes based on his experience of investigating the police in his role at the FBI. He and the other FBI agents on the case, code named Operation Street Smart, had the support of Julie Robinson, a black assistant US attorney who was determined to get to the bottom of the alleged corruption in the KCKPD.

She gave me a grand jury subpoena every month where we subpoenaed all the Kansas City, Kansas internal affairs complaints that were made against the cops.

Subpoenas that helped them compile a folder of evidence about Roger Glupski.

I didn't care who liked me and who didn't like me, and Julie Robinson the prosecutor, she could give her rat's ass whether they liked her, and I had the same attitude. You can't be friends with people and investigate him.

At the same time, Julie and Allan dug Deeper conducted interviews with prisoners who told him stories about Galupski, built up a picture of how he operated, and investigated how the KCKPD had enabled him to carry on for so long.

Alan could feel himself beginning to close in on Glupski. But then in nineteen ninety four, Julie Robinson left the US Attorney's job. She moved on to become the US bankruptcy judge for the District of Kansas.

Once she left to become a judge, that was the end of it.

Alan felt that Julie's replacement wasn't quite as willing to help him and his team.

Were closed down the investigation because we didn't have anybody in the US Attorney's office who wanted to do it. It was worth it.

Dam Alan often wonders what would have happened if Julie had never left, or if the rest of the US Attorney's office had been as passionate as she'd been about fighting police corruption.

You know, we would have got him in the early nineties, maybe ninety three, ninety four, ninety five, we would have gotten him. And there's a lot of crimes that he committed after that that he never would have committed. And you know a lot of people whose lives he ruined, or his lives he tried to ruin. You know that we could have prevented by taking him out, removing him from his position.

It's hard to reckon with the realization that something could have been done back then, but wasn't. All the complaints in reports that led to nothing as Glupski rose up the ranks of the KCKPD and used the power of his position and police badge to abuse women and destroy lives. Roger Glupski spent thirty five years working for the KCKPD before retiring in twenty ten after decades of abuse that it seems like at least some of his colleagues and

Could you state your.

Full name for the writer thesar Roger Kolupski, Do you swear to.

Tell the truth of whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you God.

I do.

I got you, I got you, I got you.

It's November twenty twenty and Roger Glupski is sitting in an office on the twenty second floor of a law firm in Kansas City. His hair and beard are bright white, and he's wearing a lightly colored shirt and ki. He's older, now sixty eight. He doesn't look as powerful as he used to without his police badge and uniform. Instead, he sat before a microphone with a camera pointed at him.

You understand that we're accusing you of terrorizing black women in Kansas City, Kansas for decades, raping women and goercing women into giving false testimony.

Things start off pretty normally, but when Glupski fails to give adequate answers to questions, the prosecutor gets firmer, Sir.

You understand that if I ask you a question and you remember the answer, but you tell me you don't, that's a lot.

You understand that if I don't remember, I don't remember.

If you reverse my memory, then I admit my hearer and say you're correct, sir.

My question is simple of you.

As.

When she asks him direct questions about abusing black women and forcing them to become confidential informants, Gulupski has a simple response to her questions.

With all due respect on the advice on my afternity, I WoT get the moment constitutional rights.

It's not the first or last time he invokes his right to avoid self incrimination. It's his response to almost every question she asks him. In fact, that day, Gulupski pleads the fifth five hundred and fifty five times five hundred and fifty five.

Yeah, I WoT my get the moment constitutional rights.

Lamont eventually settles his lawsuit out of court. Glupski isn't put on trial. He's free to go, but Lamont's victory puts a spotlight on Gallupski and inspires even more victims to speak out. The stories are spreading across Kansas City, starting its whispers but soon swelling into a churuse too loud to ignore. It was enough to encourage people who'd lost hope to tack back in, including Trina Cooper. She'd been avoiding the KCKPD for twelve years after reaching a

I had took my youngest son on a trip, so we were out of town, and my daughter she just kept calling me, Mama, you really need to look into this.

Detective Trina's daughter told her that there was a scandal unfolding in Kansas City, rumors of violence and sexual misconduct that were being linked to a series of murders. Her daughter explained it all over the phone.

I'm reading all these articles and its other ladies, and I just really think that you probably need to go and open up Grandma's case again.

Trina drove as her daughter told her story after story about the unsolved murder cases of black women in Kansas City who'd been involved with a certain detective, Roger Glupski. There were often young mothers from low income areas of Kansas City who spent part of their lives as sex workers. The similarities between them and Trina's mother, Dorothy were startling.

And I was like, I'll talk about it when I come back. And then it was like she'll call me again, Like, Mama, it's getting serious. This police officer he was doing ex Y and Z to these ladies, and it was ladies that came up missing. Like it's like stories out here, Mama, you really need to look into it. So on our way back she called and I'm like, okay, see if we can find somebody and I'll look into it. When Trina got back home, she read through the articles. There

Far as that, Trina searched the name Cadiza Hardaway and found our organization Justice for Windett. She'd expected to just see a few social media posts an article or two, but Kadija and I had been working hard for months doing everything we could to bring the community together and demand that the authorities investigate Klupski's long history of abuse. One of the ways we did that was by organizing in person visuals and rallies to give survivors, victims, and

I reached out to Cadizia.

I had told her a little bit about my mom, and we talked a little bit and she was like, Yo, you need to come over to the rally.

Dozens of people showed up, friends, families, and neighbors of women who had been violently murdered. Some of them were carrying photos or wearing shirts with their loved ones faces. Others held signs with their names. All of them had been devastated by the murders, but being surrounded by other people who were just as desperate as she was for answers filled Trina with hope.

I went over to the rally and oh my god.

When I went over there, I'm like, this is unbelievable, because Sous, for all of these years, I've always thought it was just me. Trina stood at the rally and listened to the other people whose loved ones had been abused and still didn't have answers from the KCKPD. The sense of solidarity she found at that rally inspired her to start looking for answers again, especially now that she realized Gulupski might be the missing piece and the puzzle, so she went back to her investigation.

Until her mother's death.

No one can really give me answers but Kansas City, Kansas Police Department.

Trina and her uncle Oscar get into her car, drive to the kckpd's offices, and head over to the reception at the front desk. Trina is shown into her room with two detectives.

I sit down with them and I'm like, listen, I just want to know what happened.

To my mom.

She asked them why they didn't keep her mom's jacket in evidence, why her grandfather hadn't been able to follow missing persons report, and what they'd found over the course of their investigation. But they didn't have any answers.

So I'm already irritated with the whole situation because I feel as though they have the answers, but they're keeping the answers away from me.

She knows she isn't going to get anywhere with the police officers, so she changes tact.

I said, give me my mom's foul.

Let me do the investigation that y'all did not do on my mom's case. And he said, if I give this foul to you, you cannot sue us.

Why would you say something like that?

I had questions going through my head, like and but Dentley, it's something in this foul that's telling what happened to my mom, and it's gonna come straight back to y'all, because why would you even say something like that. They always think that we're young, we're black, we don't know anything.

No, I'm seeing what's going on.

And so I sit down with them and I'm like, listen, if it was your mom that got killed in the eighties and you did not grow up with no parents, what would you had have done?

They said, we would have left it alone.

Well, I'm not, y'all. I want to figure it out. And I said, if you are a damn lie, you would have done exactly what I'm doing right now. If you heard that some officers had something to do with your mom and they said back and oh god, when I tell you they got so rude with me. I'm talking about so rude to where they threw the picture in front of me of my mama land on the crime scene. He then goes to say, well, what are you trying to say, Roger Gluski killed your mom?

I said, I didn't say that. You said that.

We reached out to the KCKPD to ask them about Trina's interaction with the two detectives. They said that quote, statements made regarding interaction with our detectives and miss Cooper not accurate. We have specifically asked them what was inaccurate, but we have not heard back from them at the

Unquote.

It's important to say here that neither of the detectives Trina spoke to were accused of being involved in Glupski's crimes. Neither of them was charged with any wrongdoing, and there's no evidence they were in any way aware of what Glupski had done prior to stories about him breaking out into mainstream news. But Trina keeps asking questions and pushing them based on the fact that she didn't trust the authorities.

So now you're trying to defend him because you're thinking that I'm coming in here saying that Roger Glupski killed my mom, and he got so mad, and I was just like, Okay, I'm here in the right pins and the right people, and you guys are getting mad at me because I'm coming with the right questions and you guys don't have the right answers.

Trina leaves the police station without getting the answer she once But the stories keep piling up. Journalists are beginning to pay attention. The whispers are getting louder, and then get Kansas City, Kansas Tonight, the FBI today arrested former KCK police detective Roger Glubski that's coming up on The Girlfriends Untouchable. The Girlfriend's Untouchable is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio. The show is narrated by me Nicki Richardson. It was