Hey, it's Nikki. We left on a pretty dramatic moment last time. We'll pick up where we left off, but first I wanted to let you know that while you'll hear from a group of women who found community and purpose in the process of rallying together, this episode will include stories about violence, murder, suicide, and sexual assault. Some of the victims are miners, and you'll hear quite a lot of strong language. 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. Kadij and I remember exactly where we were on September fifteenth, twenty twenty two. I think everyone in our community does.
I think I was sitting in the living room and I got a phone call.
I was in my bedroom. I got the text, and think got paced on my balcony, just back and forth.
Wait.
Yeah, I just couldn't sit I just couldn't sit down because I just couldn't believe. I couldn't believe it was actually.
Yeah, it was. It was surreal. I definitely had a feeling that God was on duty. No, I always say God to be patient. God is on duty that morning.
It really felt like he was because after years of campaigning, Roger Gallupski was finally in handcuffs. So George read him each of his charges, and in response, he seemed pretty animated, appearing shocked and surprise, raising his head and his eyebrows. Remember Ophelia Williams, the mother of twins who said Gallupski
assaulted her after arresting her sons. She and an anonymous woman who also claimed Gallupski had assaulted her had quietly spent years working with the FBI to share information about what had happened to them. That helped build a case that led to Gazupski being arrested on the charges of kidnap and sexual assault on September fifteenth, twenty twenty two. The documents filed for the case were damning. Ophilia and the anonymous woman who goes by s K described Glupski's
abuse in depth. I won't go into the details, but it was violent, not consensual, and left both women traumatized. Gallupski is taken to his first court appearance on the day of his arrest. He pleads not guilty, but that September arrest is just the start when it hits the news. Kadija and I spend hours on the phone talking to people who want to share their Glupski stories. We redirect them to lawyers and watch on in awe as we realize the work we've dedicated years of our lives too
is finally moving things in the right direction. It isn't all plane selling, though. Gallupski has a range of health issues, including kidney failure, which requires regular dialysis, so he's put on house arrests as he awaits trial. There is a lot of controversy surrounding that house arrest. Some of the victims are outraged that he's allowed to stay living at home, and in January twenty twenty four, someone takes a photo
that shows Gallupski out at a fast food place. Trips out to a burger joint were not included in the terms of a house arrest for a man accused of serious violent crimes, but we push all of that to the side and stay focused on our goal. Justice of philia in the anonymous victim's case meant a lot to us. It only involved two victims, but we knew that if Gulubski was found guilty, it could open the floodgates for
even more women to get their day in court. So we were hopeful, but that anticipation came with nerves.
I think for about a week straight. I went to bad crying, and I woke up crying. It's just like you could feel something in the air.
Emotions were running high. We were anxious and felt a little off balance, but we were determined to see it through because after years of investigating and fighting for justice, the first day of Roger Glubski's trial was finally here. On the morning of December second, twenty twenty four, a sharp, icy chill descends over Kansas City, Kansas. It's the first truly cold day of the winter, and if I didn't need to be out of the house by nine am,
I would stay inside. But this is the day we've all been waiting for, and no amount of ice, wind or snow can stop me from driving over to the Topeka courthouse. I get into my car, but the GPS is playing up. It keeps sending me to the wrong place. So I call Kadija and we agree to meet up just before the trial begins.
And in a car we talked about how luting of a day it was it was probably the worst day of the year, right now, Oh you know if that day was cold.
Kadizu arrives a little earlier than me. It's around nine to twenty five am when our taxi pulls up outside the courthouse. She steps into the courthouse to warm up, stands in the reception to shelter from the cold. But when she walks in, she's greeted by a staff member who tells her that things aren't going according to plan. The trial isn't going to start on time. Why go?
Lucie is missing, and I'm like, he's missing?
You know?
At this point my jaw is like what.
I'm Nikki Richardson from The Teams A novel and iHeart podcast. This is the Girlfriend's Untouchable, You big guy, Episode seven, The Reckoning. When I park outside the courthouse that morning, Kadija heads straight towards my car.
They can't find his ass.
What do you mean?
They can't find him?
Work? They can't find him. Stay about to issue a warrant and go look for this motherfucker? Are you safe? I'm serious? Have my whole mouth drop who.
Was supposed to be keeping hands on him? I don't fucking know Glupski was on house arrests with the understanding that he would make his own way to court. But his car isn't parked outside the courthouse and he's not picking up his phone, so the judge presiding over the trial puts out a warrant for his arrest. Kadiza tries to explain it to me, but it just doesn't make any sense.
NICKI all the shit I was not expected.
Keeping track of him he is. I'm so dumbfounded. This was just not what I expected. Kadija and I are at a complete standstill for a moment, trying to figure out what to do while we wait for Glupski to arrive. You hungry, No, damn, Nikki, I don't even I mean, my my brain was already prepared to go sit in court.
They said if they could find him about one o'clock.
Then they would they would try to continue on with the trial. Well, he's gonna have some explaining to do. I mean that already starts him off real bad. Even if they do find him.
I think this motherfucker's dog.
He had probably left the fucking guns me though she ain't coming. You know, Niko has a crazy ass sixth sense. But she kept saying it's gonna be shit. She kept saying it to me, And here where we are.
While Kadija and I sit in the car waiting for Gulupski to be found and brought to court, Nico is at home. She had been anxiously tossing and turning her way through the early morning.
The day before his trail that Sunday. I could not sleep, I couldn't I couldn't rest.
Nico desperately wanted justice for her younger self, her older sister Stacy, and all the women she loved and lost whose lives had crossed paths with Roger Gallupski. Gallupski going on trial felt like the first step towards that.
I had a feeling of like butterflies, all kind of emotions was going through me. I just was able to go to sleep. At about seven or eight that morning.
She can't fall into a deep sleep, so she glances over at her phone.
I had about twenty misco.
Kadija and I are still sitting in the car trying to figure out what's gone wrong. But then we get a call.
Nico called me cry and she said her, lay, You're told her he's dead.
It's nine to fifty five am. We're supposed to be sitting in court in five minutes, but according to Nico and her lawyer, Roger Gulupski is dead. Kadiji and I don't know what to do, so we just sit in the car, shell shocked as we try to wrap our minds around it. That must have been in shields I felt this morning. We sit on our phones desperately refreshing the news for an official statement, details or an explanation, and then I get a text. He was found dead in his home where you found out?
Guys might just message to me.
Details slowly begin to filter through. At six am that morning, Roger Gulubski wakes up to get ready for the first day of his trial. At seven oh three am, he calls up his son Matthew and tells him he is not strong enough to do this. Still, he gets dressed and prepares to head over to the courthouse. At around eight twenty am, he takes a call from his lawyer's office. It lasts one minute and eleven seconds. At eight thirty he leaves the house and gets into his twenty eleven
red fod Taurusts. He makes his way down Ninth Street to Edwardsville Drive, but doesn't reach the interstate. Instead, he hits around about and heads back home. At nine oh one, he calls his attorney again. They talk for a few minutes, the call ends. Glupski's lawyer's office tries to call him four more times, but he doesn't pick up. A few minutes later, a nine to one one call comes from the woman who's been living with Gallupski during his house arrest.
She tells the operator that she was inside when she heard a loud bang. She says she ran out of the house and onto the back porch. According to her, Roger Glubski is sitting on the floor, still holding a pistol. He was pronounced dead at nine to eighteen am, just forty two minutes before we thought we would be in court for jury selection. The cause of death suicide. Kadija and I sitting shock as we read the news.
Wow make you said, like you drop a motherfucker to kill yourself just a little bit, don't it Just it's it's not the best feeling in the world. It's a fucked up, fast feeling right now.
Yeah, because that's not the way I expected it to.
End on the day of motherfucker, are you fucking kidding me?
I mean, at least let them have their day in court, but he wasn't gonna let anybody have that satisfaction.
We didn't know what to do really from there. We kind of just sat with it on the side of the road for probably about five minutes. For we we did anything, just sitting there, like in Ah. It felt like life was sucked out of Topeka. It's probably on the news.
It's gotta be.
It's kind of work. What we doom?
Wow?
What the fuck we do? I don't know? Mm hm.
As soon as the news breaks that Roger Glupski is the conspiracy theories start coming out.
Is he really dead?
That's like one of the biggest questions to me, because he felt as though he was very untouchable.
That's Trina Cooper who we heard from last time. Her mother, Dorothy, was murdered in the eighties and Glupski was the officer she met while trying to reopen the investigation.
I have questions, That's why I ask, like, is.
He really dead? Trina isn't the only one who doubts the official statement about what happened that morning. We hear theories all day. Some people think Gallupski's hiding out in rural Kansas, living with distant relatives in Missouri. Others say he's taken a flight and fled to a country that doesn't have an extradition treaty with America. But there's another theory that starts to gain a lot of traction amongst the community.
If he is dead, someone took his life. Well, Gulupski taking his own life. No, you can't give me believe that. And I really feel as though it happened because everyone else was going to be exposed.
I'll be honest. It's a theory. I consider that morning, Glupski's trial had the potential to implicate and expose other people, potentially dangerous, powerful people. In the moment, Kadija and I can't help but wonder whether there was a person or group of people desperate enough to protect themselves that they would want Gallupski dead. But we never get evidence to give weight to any of those theories, so we sit with the official statement that Glupski's death was a suicide.
The rest of that morning is a whirlwind. We spend hours on the phone talking to the Department of Justice, who reached out to see how they could support us, and we spoke to lists looking for more information.
Hey, I don't know if you heard the news, but Roger Glusi didn't show off of court this morning and they found him dead in his home.
To clarify, Kadijia and I are not lawyers or public officials. Still, that morning, we find ourselves being called upon like unofficial spokeswomen, and I'll be honest, it's kind of stressful. By eleven am, the adrenaline rush is beginning to wear off, so we make an executive decision to drive across Topeka and get some lunch.
I'm just gonna go with the burger with cheese.
I'm trying to think how big my stomach is about to be. Let's just do a fullord of biscuits and gravy. It's one of the most disappointing days of our lives. But for most people in that diner, it's just a regular Monday. They're grabbing lunch, seeing friends and having casual conversations. Their indifference underscores how fucking surreal our day has been.
After a frantic morning outside the courthouse, things are finally beginning to slow down, and for the first time since hearing the news, we just sit down and eat and open up about how we're really feeling.
I couldn't find all this, and I think it's because my spirit kind of met could feel the intensity of it.
It's such a tragic ending, I mean, because if he wanted to end it, he could have ended in it.
It didn't have to be the day of the pluck and drown.
You just have so many questions, but that has been this entire process. Is just having so many questions, and it just feels so unresolved, you know, because there's no justice at this point, because at least they're able to at least it's suicide and the mission of guilt. No, no, unless he left the known with the confession.
I'm really worried about Nitho.
He too, worried about all of them.
Really, Niko, Yeah, Nico, Vones, matter of fact, Len he called.
Them n.
Hey, Nico, how are you feeling bad?
Hurt?
And I'm angry?
He said, your hurt and you're angry.
Yeah.
Gulupski's trial was supposed to last weeks and end on January fifteenth, twenty twenty five. One day before the twenty fifth anniversary of Nico's older sister Stacy's murder. Nico had thought the trial ending with Gulupski behind bars would give her a sense of closure, but him killing himself before he could face up to what he'd done devastated her.
I wanted to be able to face him and ask him why and why is he lying? Asking him, plead with him to tell the truth on up to what you've done. You have lived your life. I wanted an apology for everything that he's done.
The reality of the situation is beginning to sink in for Niko. There isn't going to be a trial. Glupski is never going to see his day in court, and after a lifetime of heurt, his victims still aren't going to get the justice they deserved. She isn't the only one feeling that way. LaMotte McIntyre spent twenty three years in prison after being arrested by Roger Glupski, who had
sexually assaulted his mother Rose. It was getting ready to drive over to Topeka in anticipation of the first day of the trial when he heard the news.
I just wanted to see him face his accusers. And face the people who he had wrong. That's what the just system is designed to do, to help the victims of society get justice by way of the people who wronged them. And I was expecting my mother to experience that. Yeah, I felt like I was robbed. I lost something. For a moment, I feel like share lots of opportunity to face my accuser or face this man who did this shit to my mom.
As Kadejah and I sit in the diner eating lunch, we get calls from victims, survivors, witnesses, and loved ones reaching out to us for answers, but we don't have them. For a while, we'd allowed ourselves to believe that if we worked hard enough, pushed the right people, and kept fighting, we could change things, prove that nobody, even a powerful police officer, was untouchable. But it doesn't feel true now.
I just wish I could go somewhere and just scream, Like if we could just go somewhere and just scream, just like over and over, just scream.
It's a tough morning, but as we work through our emotions, we come to some conclusions. It isn't our fault that Gelupski is dead or that the authority supervising his house arrest failed to find and confiscate his gun. The women of Kansas City, Kansas have been failed time and time again by the authorities meant to protect them. But we can't lose hope, even in the midst of what feels like an impossible situation. Because ksey K is our home.
We love it too much to give up. We have no tree choice but to channel our despair into determination. So we dry our tears, leave the diner, and get to work.
I got you, I Got You.
The months that followed Glupski's death were unsettling. The authorities didn't come forward with a solid explanation for how Glupski had been able to get and keep a gun on house arrest. Kadija and I kept rewinding the tape, playing the years leading up to his death back in our minds and trying to figure out what could have been done to get justice sooner. We hope that if we could trace things back to the start, we might be
able to figure out what to do next. So as we tried to make sense of Glupski's death and the questions that left us with, we turned to the only concrete thing. We had the dozens of interviews, folders worth of evidence, and numerous affidavits that had been collected over the years. We were looking for answers, or at least clues, anything we might have missed the first time around. We wanted to find something that might give the dozens of women whose stories we've heard some form of closure or
better yet, justice, whatever that might look like. Digging through the files, we came across the formal statement made by one of the police officers who worked with Glupski, Max Seifert. When we spoke to him, he confirmed that many people turned a blind eye to what Glupski was doing during his time working for the KCKPD. In his statement, Max go's so far as to say all of the detectives,
along with older officers and the commanders, all knew. No one in the department questioned Gulupski's conduct, No one raised any questions about whether it was proper or could cause a problem of any kind. This was not news to us, but still it was shocking to see it on paper, see a legal document that outlined how people and positions of power had seemingly allowed this to happen. There was something else in Max's declaration that jumped out to us.
He draws attention to the fact that these women were often poor and vulnerable, and that Gallupski would be seen in places like housing projects or while leaving cheap hotels where prostitutes were known to serve their customers housing projects. We knew he targeted vulnerable women, but how far did he take it? As we dug a little deeper, we came across the statement of someone we'd never heard of before. Yeah, have you seen this before? I think this is the first time I've seen this.
This is the first time I've seen it.
It was a six page affidavid signed by a woman named Tina Peterson. It formed part of the case Lamont's team brought a few years ago to sue the Unified government for their role in his false conviction. You reading it now, Yeah, I'm starting to make some connections that are made me very right. Tina's affidavid jumped out at us because her story takes us back to the mid nineteen eighties, right around the time that Gelupski was becoming a detective. Back then, Tina was working as a victim
advocate at an emergency refuge in Kansas City. It's now called the Dela Gill Joyce H. William Shelter for Survivors of domestic violence. Hundreds of women came through its doors looking for an empathetic ear and a safe place to sleep. Tina's words are read by an actor.
I generally worked the overnight shift. That shift tended to be pretty busy, as women seeking shelter often arrived late at night.
Tina saw women walking through the shelter in varying states of distress.
Then not only showed signs of physical abuse, they also showed signs of emotional or mental abuse. I listened for hours to these women, providing counseling and support. One name came up repeatedly, Roger Glubski. They would often be crying, shaking, or showing other intense emotions. During these emotional discussions, they would describe being sexually harassed, threatened, and coerced by Glubski.
Some described being humiliated when Gallupski dumped them back on the street, still undressed when he was done with them.
Heart Wren right on point with the way I've seen some of these victims display. Their insecurity is about this guy. Their fears about it. I mean the shaking, the quiverness in their voice, and how traumatized these women are because a lot of people can't I don't know if they don't want to deal with it in her head about the trauma that these women are faced. But it's horrific.
It really is a real life horror story. We knew about the abuse, we'd heard the stories from the cemeteries, So it wasn't what Tina saw at those shelters that jumped out of us. It was what she did. Next.
I called the police department so I could make a complain about Roger Glubski and told the person who answered that I worked at the battered women's shelter. The person on the phone said that someone at the department would get back with me, and as requested, I left my name and phone number. I waited a week and called the police department the second time. No one from the department ever called me back.
This is horrific. This is horrible.
Yeah, and I feel for Tina because I know you don't work at a batter women's shelter for no reason. That's not just a job that you just pick up on the side. You take on that job because you have a heart for people, or either you've been down that bread down that road. She was connected to these women, so I could only imagine Tina's frustration. They're coming to this shelter for help. This woman is there to help, and she's trying to help by going to the entity
that is they're doing the harm. But if so many people are given this same name over and over, over and over again, this person had no other choice but to go to the police department because that is where you go when there's a crime. But where do you go when the police is the person committing the crime? Where do you go? We tried to reach out to Tina directly. We haven't been able to track her down.
But if the events in Tina's affidavit are accurate and the other people's accounts we've read are true, the KSEYKPD either overlooked or ignored several complaints. Had they acted sooner, pulled Glupski from his duties and conducted a formal investigation, it's possible that they could have protected the women of Kansas City from decades worth of abuse. If Gulupski had been stopped in the mid eighties, he would have never been able to lure Nico's sister Stacy into his police
car and assault her. He wouldn't have been able to arrest LaMotte McIntyre or intimidate Nico into giving false testimony. And Ronda and Monique, Nico's friends who were murdered shortly after she saw them get into Glupski's car. Both of their lives ended in nineteen ninety eight. It was a devastating realization. So many people's lives would have turned out differently if Gallupski had been stopped sooner. But there's something else.
We were about to read the next part of Tina Zaffa David and discover even more about Glupski, that he may have been involved with something even darker than we could have possibly imagined.
It just wouldn't have never cross my mind in that manner.
I can't believe that.
That magnitude that is wow, that much explosive. They cover up everything, They won't tell you nothing. It angered me once I realized that I could have been one of them.
That's coming up on the final episode of 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 written and produced by Rufaro Masarua. The editor is Joe Wheeler. Our assistant producer is Mohammed Ahmed. The researcher is Zaiyana Yusef. Production management from Shuri Houston and Joe Savage. The fact
checker is Fendall Fulton. Sound design, mixing and scoring by Daniel Kimson with additional engineering by Nicholas Alexander. Music supervision by Rufaro Mazurura, Nicholas Alexander and Joe Wheeler. Original music by Amanda Jones. The Girlfriend's theme was composed by Amanda Jones and Louisa Gerstein. The voice of Tina Peterson was read by Ebanie Janelle. The series artwork was designed by Christina Limpool. Story development by Olivia Smart and Nel Gray Andrews.
Novel's director of development is Selena Metta. Willard Foxton is Novel's creative director of Development. Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan are executive producers for novel. Katrina Norvel and Nikki Etour are the executive producers for iHeart podcast, and the marketing lead is Alison Cantor. Special thanks to Will Pearson, and a special thanks to Carley Frankel and the whole team at w m E.
I watch you, and catch you and Got You