White ex-detective accused of kidnapping and raping Black women dies morning of trial

A disgraced former police detective accused of terrorizing Black women in the Kansas town he patrolled for decades has been found dead as his federal civil rights trial was set to kick off Monday morning.

Roger Golubski, 71, was found with a fatal gunshot wound on his back porch in Edwardsville, Kansas, about 14 miles west of downtown Kansas City, after a neighbor called 911 to report a gunshot, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation said in a statement.

Investigators did not say Golubski died by suicide but added in the statement there are currently “no indications of foul play.” The investigation is ongoing and “a thorough investigation will be conducted,” the KBI said.

The discovery came moments after the federal judge presiding over Golubski's civil rights case issued a warrant for his arrest and delayed the start of the trial when he failed to appear, NPR station KCUR reported. The station noted that Golubski had been confined to house arrest over the last two years, which among other conditions, prohibited him from having a “firearm, destructive device or other weapon.”

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Federal prosecutors handed down a three-county indictment against Golubski, an ex-Kansas City Police Department detective, and three other men in November 2022. It charged them with “conspiring, decades ago, to hold young women in a condition of involuntary sexual servitude,” prosecutors said.

He was also charged in a separate case in September 2022 “with violating the civil rights of two women — and possibly seven more — by raping and kidnapping them,” according to KCUR. “One of his victims, identified only as S.K. in court documents, was just 13 when she says Golubski started abusing her,” the station added.

Golubski faced up to life in prison.

“This matter involved extremely serious charges, and it is always difficult when a case is unable to be fully and fairly heard in a public trial and weighed and determined by a jury,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Civil Rights Division and U.S. Attorney Kate E. Brubacher for the District of Kansas said in a statement Monday. “The proceedings in this case may be over, but its lasting impact on all the individuals and families involved remains.”