Speaker 1: Hey, it's Nikky. We're about to hear some deeply heartwarming
Speaker 1: moments of sisterhood, hope, and what can happen when people
Speaker 1: come together to fight for the city they love. But
Speaker 1: as with the rest of this series, there'll be stories
Speaker 1: about violence, murder, and sexual assault. So if you or
Speaker 1: someone you love has been affected by any of the
Speaker 1: themes in the show, we've left some links in the
Speaker 1: description that offer resources and support, take care of yourself.
Speaker 1: Trina Cooper's childhood wasn't perfect, but the woman who raised
Speaker 1: her did her best to fill her life with love.
Speaker 2: I was a spoiled little girl, got everything I wanted
Speaker 2: with her. I didn't realize that she wasn't my mother
Speaker 2: until I was five six years old. Around that time,
Speaker 2: Trina's godmother was her biological uncle's wife and the only
Speaker 2: mother figure she had ever known. But Trina was a
Speaker 2: curious kid who wanted to know more about her birth.
Speaker 3: Mom, uncles, and aunties.
Speaker 2: Like as I'm growing up, they like, you look just
Speaker 2: like your mama, you act just like your mama. And
Speaker 2: then I started having questions like who is this lady?
Speaker 2: And all they can really tell me is she's you
Speaker 2: like you A split image of her.
Speaker 1: Nobody told her stories about her mom, but Trina had
Speaker 1: an active imagination.
Speaker 2: I used to always dream about this lady getting torture
Speaker 2: in an alley, like getting kidnapped in an alley.
Speaker 1: It was a recurring dream. So at ten years old
Speaker 1: she opened up to someone about it.
Speaker 2: I had came to my brother one day and I
Speaker 2: was like, I keep having this dream about this lady
Speaker 2: being attacked in an alley and he was like, that
Speaker 2: was probably mama, And I'm like mama, and he was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: our mama got killed when you was a baby.
Speaker 3: He just left it at.
Speaker 2: That, and you know, a little girl, I just went
Speaker 2: on about my life, didn't really ask too many questions.
Speaker 1: As she got older and Hickey milestones without her mother,
Speaker 1: Trina's curiosity grew.
Speaker 2: So sixteen seventeen, when I started having kids, I started
Speaker 2: having questions around that time, like what happened to her
Speaker 2: and where was she at? She reached out to her uncle, Oscar.
Speaker 2: Him and my mom was like best friends. They were
Speaker 2: really close.
Speaker 1: If anybody could tell her more about her mother, it
Speaker 1: was Oscar, and after some convincing, he finally agreed to
Speaker 1: share the full story. As he knew it In nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty three. Dorothy Cooper, or as her loved ones liked
Speaker 1: to call her, died, was a twenty year old living
Speaker 1: in Kansas City.
Speaker 2: She was a kring given person. She took care of
Speaker 2: a lot of people in the family.
Speaker 1: Including her young son and baby girl, Trina. Dorothy had
Speaker 1: her issues, but she was a present mother, so when
Speaker 1: she didn't come home one night in April, the Cooper
Speaker 1: family began to worry. Her father went down to the
Speaker 1: police station to file a missing person's report for his daughter,
Speaker 1: but the police didn't take it seriously and didn't allow
Speaker 1: him to file the report. Hours turned to days, until
Speaker 1: it had been three weeks since Dorothy's disappearance. Our focus
Speaker 1: one day, the Coopers were sitting at home watching TV.
Speaker 2: The news clipping had came across the TV one morning
Speaker 2: and they said that they had found a young black
Speaker 2: woman on six point thirty five in Turkey Creek, and
Speaker 2: my uncle and them said, instantly, you know, you had
Speaker 2: that gut feeling like that's her.
Speaker 3: Their gut feeling was correct.
Speaker 1: In April nineteen eighty three, Dorothy's body was found in
Speaker 1: the driveway of an abandoned nursing home. Trina's family went
Speaker 1: to a funeral home to identify her. It was a
Speaker 1: traumatic experience. Someone had brought her up on an elevator.
Speaker 1: Her face was disfigured from her injuries.
Speaker 2: To where they couldn't really identify her just from the face.
Speaker 1: Trina's uncle, Oscar, stared down. The body was unrecognizable. How
Speaker 1: could he possibly identify it as his sister? He paused
Speaker 1: for a moment as his memories took him back to
Speaker 1: the childhood they spent together in Kansas City. One moment
Speaker 1: stood out, an innocent summertime memory from when they were
Speaker 1: young kids. They were riding a bike and my uncle
Speaker 1: did something to my mom and she kicked them off
Speaker 1: the bike. They were just playing around, bickering like siblings.
Speaker 2: He had ended up having a bruise on his arm,
Speaker 2: and he ended up doing her like that, and she
Speaker 2: had the same bruise on her arm. So they grew
Speaker 2: up with the same bruise on their arm because they
Speaker 2: both was ornery and couldn't get over, like this person
Speaker 2: did this to me, and things like that. It had
Speaker 2: been a funny story when they were kids, but faced
Speaker 2: with the dead body, it took on a darker purpose.
Speaker 2: My uncle said that he remembered the scar that they
Speaker 2: had had alike. In a rage, he went over and
Speaker 2: he pulled her arm from up under to see if
Speaker 2: it was heard by the bruise that they had alike.
Speaker 1: The childhood scar was there. This was his younger sister.
Speaker 1: Oscar was devastated, but he also noticed something.
Speaker 2: Else, and that's when he discovered that her left wrist
Speaker 2: was cut off. And my uncle's now was telling me
Speaker 2: like it seemed as though like they just did it,
Speaker 2: like her bones and stuff was fresh, like they had
Speaker 2: just cut her wrist off.
Speaker 1: This detail stuck in Trina's mind. Why would someone cut
Speaker 1: her mother's wrist off if not to hide something?
Speaker 4: Oh God, who got.
Speaker 2: I?
Speaker 5: God?
Speaker 1: I'm Nikki Richardson And from the teams that novel and
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcast, this is the Girlfriend's Untouchable.
Speaker 5: Episode six, What would you have done?
Speaker 1: Trina Cooper didn't have the opportunity to get to know
Speaker 1: her mother, Dorothy, but according to her friends and family,
Speaker 1: they would have gotten along pretty well. She was a caring,
Speaker 1: given person. She was just that sister. Couldn't nobody tell nothing?
Speaker 2: And me speaking about it is talking, I'm talking about
Speaker 2: me like this is me now, like I'm very outspoken,
Speaker 2: no one can really tell me too much.
Speaker 1: Trina's also very determined, So despite her family's reluctance to
Speaker 1: tell her more about her mother and her murder, Trina
Speaker 1: kept on digging.
Speaker 3: Probably like twenty three.
Speaker 2: I had reconnected with my godmoa, the woman who had
Speaker 2: raised her, And then she's like, have anyone told you
Speaker 2: about your mom?
Speaker 1: Like this is things that you need to know? And
Speaker 1: I was like no, So Trina went to her godmother's
Speaker 1: house to find out more.
Speaker 2: She just pulled out her little box of pictures and
Speaker 2: she showed me old pictures of her and my mom
Speaker 2: and me as a baby, and we said and we talked,
Speaker 2: and she told me that my mom was a street walker.
Speaker 2: And she said that, you know, back then when everything
Speaker 2: happened far as her death, they always thought that like
Speaker 2: a police officer was involved because of how it's so
Speaker 2: covered up. It's like no one else can cover it
Speaker 2: up as much as it's covered up, but a police officer.
Speaker 1: Trina went back to her family and prodded them for answers.
Speaker 2: I started having questions like what happened? Like did y'all
Speaker 2: ask questions? The short answer was no, they hadn't. In fact,
Speaker 2: the more Trina heard about the investigation, the more disappointed
Speaker 2: she felt. They gave my uncle my mom's jean jacket
Speaker 2: from the crom scene, and my uncle actually took it,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, why did you take the jacket? It
Speaker 2: was supposed to be in evidence. And my uncle was
Speaker 2: just like, well, you know, we didn't know anything. We
Speaker 2: just wanted something that belonged to her because we had
Speaker 2: already lost her. So it was just like he just
Speaker 2: felt as though that was something to keep him connected
Speaker 2: to her, and they were just like, no, no, that
Speaker 2: was supposed to stay in evidence.
Speaker 1: Trina thought that learning more about her mother Dorothy's death
Speaker 1: would help her move on, but hearing how lackluss the
Speaker 1: investigation had been left her feeling even further from the truth.
Speaker 1: I was getting irritated and I was just like, I
Speaker 1: just don't understand. I left it alone again.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't want to hear no more because then,
Speaker 2: you know, me being a teenager, it's like it's hurting
Speaker 2: to hear this about your mom and you know already
Speaker 2: having the hurt in you that you grew.
Speaker 3: Up without this lady.
Speaker 2: So it was just a lot at that time, so
Speaker 2: I just stopped asking questions because it was too much
Speaker 2: to really take in.
Speaker 1: But Trina wasn't the only person in her family with
Speaker 1: a connection to Dorothy Cooper.
Speaker 2: My kids started asking questions like who's her grandma and
Speaker 2: what happened to her? And I was like, you know,
Speaker 2: I really don't have the answers, and I'm a person
Speaker 2: to wear. Okay, now my kids is asking about it.
Speaker 2: I have to get answers. I have to be able
Speaker 2: to come to my kids and tell my kids something
Speaker 2: about my mom.
Speaker 3: So two thousand and seven, I took it to.
Speaker 2: Where I'm like, I'm gonna go to the Wandatt Police
Speaker 2: Station and I'm gonna try to reopen up my mom's
Speaker 2: case to try to figure out what happened. So I
Speaker 2: pulled my uncle with me, like you're going with me.
Speaker 2: We're about to reopen up mama's case and we're about
Speaker 2: to get some answers.
Speaker 3: She headed over to the CASEKPD station. I went over there.
Speaker 2: I spoke to the clerk at the front desk and
Speaker 2: I said, you know, my mom got killed over here
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty three, and I want to reopen her
Speaker 2: case because it's still an unsolved case and she looked
Speaker 2: it up. She was like, the only detective you can
Speaker 2: talk to about this case, it's Roger Glupski and me.
Speaker 3: I'm not knowing anything about it. Roger Glupski.
Speaker 1: She didn't know anything about the detective whose office she
Speaker 1: was being led up to, but she had her uncle
Speaker 1: by her side with no reason to be worried.
Speaker 2: Once we went up in the office with Roger Gilupski,
Speaker 2: Roger Glupski then goes to ask me, why do I
Speaker 2: want to open back up this case.
Speaker 3: I said, that's my mom. I want to know what
Speaker 3: happened to her.
Speaker 2: You know, we never got an answer, so it's like,
Speaker 2: I just want to know what happened to my mom.
Speaker 2: He said, okay, we're going to look into it. In
Speaker 2: my mind, he's going to do some investigations. He's going
Speaker 2: to call me back and he's going to tell me
Speaker 2: what he come up with. Time passed as tRNA waited
Speaker 2: to hear the results of his investigation. Roger Glupski then
Speaker 2: goes to call me back for a second meeting, but.
Speaker 3: He didn't have any news for her.
Speaker 2: He then goes to tell me, like, no one's talkalk
Speaker 2: in he asked me, what did I want to do.
Speaker 1: Trina thought it through until a potential clue came back
Speaker 1: to her the horrifying detail her uncle Oscar had told
Speaker 1: her about seeing her mother's wrist cut off. So she
Speaker 1: went back to Gulupski with another question, who's.
Speaker 2: The medical examiner that actually examined her body? He told
Speaker 2: me it was a medical examiner by the name of Handcock,
Speaker 2: and so I was like, can I get his information
Speaker 2: because I have questions for him.
Speaker 3: She got his details and gave him a call.
Speaker 2: I asked him to send me the autopsy report, and
Speaker 2: I asked him what procedures did he take far as
Speaker 2: doing a full autopsy on my mom? I asked him,
Speaker 2: I said, what was the reason of you cutting off
Speaker 2: my mom's wrists?
Speaker 3: And he said to identify her and I'm like, huh.
Speaker 2: He was like, so when they brought her body in,
Speaker 2: her hand was so swollen to where he had to
Speaker 2: cut her wrists off to release some pressure in her
Speaker 2: hand to get her fingerprint.
Speaker 1: Trina didn't think the story added up. According to the
Speaker 1: autopsy report, the medical examiner had included a note saying
Speaker 1: that there had been adhesions on Dorothy's wrists, the kind
Speaker 1: that made Trina wonder if her mother's hands had been
Speaker 1: tied together before her death, but her wrist had been
Speaker 1: cut off, meaning that that specific evidence, if it had existed,
Speaker 1: couldn't be used in her murder investigation.
Speaker 2: I said, she had another hand, Why didn't you use
Speaker 2: her other hand to get her fingerprints? Like it's other
Speaker 2: ways to identify her other than cutting her wrist off.
Speaker 2: Once I started, you know, talking like that, he was
Speaker 2: really dismissive. He really didn't want it too much talk
Speaker 2: to me anymore. So then I called another meat and
Speaker 2: with Roger Glubski, and I asked Galubski, like, what procedures
Speaker 2: did y'all take? How long do you guys keep evidence?
Speaker 2: And he said, oh, we keep evidence until the case
Speaker 2: is solved. And I said, okay, so my mom's case
Speaker 2: is still unsolved, so where's her evidence?
Speaker 3: At Gallupski's reply was, you know, I went.
Speaker 2: And looked into evidence closet and her evidence is not
Speaker 2: in there. Trina knew there was more to the story,
Speaker 2: but nobody was telling her anything, so she thought back
Speaker 2: to her childhood nightmares. I told him, I said, you know,
Speaker 2: as a little girl, I've always had a dream that
Speaker 2: a police officer killed my mom. And when I tell you,
Speaker 2: he got so mad that I said that. He got
Speaker 2: so red and he asks, like, what makes you say that?
Speaker 2: I just sat back and I said, who else can
Speaker 2: get back in you guys's evidence closet? Nobody but a
Speaker 2: police officer. At that Gallupski shut down and asked her
Speaker 2: to leave.
Speaker 3: After that time, I never seen them no more.
Speaker 2: I got really discouraged, like, Okay, I'm asking the right questions,
Speaker 2: but no one is really gonna be honest. I know
Speaker 2: I'm on the right track, but I'm not gonna get
Speaker 2: anywhere because it's just me.
Speaker 1: But Trina wasn't the only one who had suspicions about Gallupski.
Speaker 1: There were families across Kansas City slowly beginning to ask
Speaker 1: themselves the same questions, parents, children, and sisters, re examining
Speaker 1: the stories the women in their life had told them
Speaker 1: and realizing that Gallupski had cast a dark shadow around
Speaker 1: the circumstances of their deaths. They were ordinary people doing
Speaker 1: what they could to try and piece things together, but
Speaker 1: a powerful agency was working behind the scenes, one that
Speaker 1: had spent years circling Gallupski and was about to center
Speaker 1: in the FBI.
Speaker 4: I had you and had you.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen eighties, Alan Jenerch was an FBI agent
Speaker 1: working in the Public Corruption Unit, investigating departments across the.
Speaker 6: Country, basically trying to find public officials, police officers, or
Speaker 6: others who walk corrupt, and somewhere around nineteen eighty eight
Speaker 6: or eighty nine started investigating the Kansas City Police Department.
Speaker 1: Alan had heard about possible misconduct in the force and
Speaker 1: wanted to get to the bottom of it. He began
Speaker 1: by talking not to officers, but to those they had arrested.
Speaker 6: I would go over and interview them in the jail
Speaker 6: and tell them we're not interested in them, We're not
Speaker 6: interested in their family, we're not interested in their friends.
Speaker 6: We're just interested if you have any information about corrupt cops.
Speaker 6: So a lot of these people interviewing in the jail
Speaker 6: were very cooperative and they were eager to tell what
Speaker 6: they knew. I think at the high point where it's
Speaker 6: fifteen cops who were titled subjects of the investigation, that's
Speaker 6: a lot and one of those people was Kallupski. Talking
Speaker 6: to people, you developed information that Kaulupski had a thing
Speaker 6: for black women, he would extort them into having sex
Speaker 6: with him. I think a lot of people knew what
Speaker 6: Kalyupski was doing.
Speaker 1: But if a lot of people knew about it, how
Speaker 1: did Kulupski get away with it for so long. The
Speaker 1: police is an organization that is supposed to protect them,
Speaker 1: But Allan's years spent digging into police departments like the
Speaker 1: CASEYKPD made it clear to him that that wasn't always
Speaker 1: the case, and a lot of that was down to
Speaker 1: the Blue Code of Silence, an unspoken rule in which
Speaker 1: police officers decided not to report their corrupt and criminal colleagues.
Speaker 6: I remember once this cop was on duty in the
Speaker 6: police car and he had some woman and he raped
Speaker 6: her in the police car. She went to the police
Speaker 6: department and complained that this cop had raped her. Well,
Speaker 6: the police didn't want to do anything about it. I
Speaker 6: remember one of the internal affairs cops said to me,
Speaker 6: you know, the purpose of the internal affairs unit is
Speaker 6: to protect the upper ranks, to protect the people running
Speaker 6: the police department. I think CASEYK had over two hundred cops,
Speaker 6: and the whole time I was in Kansas City, I'm
Speaker 6: not aware of one case brought by the Kansas City,
Speaker 6: Kansas Police internal affairs unit against any cop.
Speaker 1: It went further than just protecting their officers.
Speaker 6: They wanted all internal affairs reports destroyed after three years.
Speaker 6: You can't go back three years before to see what
Speaker 6: complaints were made against him because it's all destroyed.
Speaker 1: Alan doesn't know why those documents were destroyed, but he
Speaker 1: has his own theories.
Speaker 6: There's only one reason why you do that, to protect
Speaker 6: corrupt cops.
Speaker 1: It's not a theory we can be certain of, but
Speaker 1: it's one Alan believes based on his experience of investigating
Speaker 1: the police in his role at the FBI. He and
Speaker 1: the other FBI agents on the case, code named Operation
Speaker 1: Street Smart, had the support of Julie Robinson, a black
Speaker 1: assistant US attorney who was determined to get to the
Speaker 1: bottom of the alleged corruption in the KCKPD.
Speaker 6: She gave me a grand jury subpoena every month where
Speaker 6: we subpoenaed all the Kansas City, Kansas internal affairs complaints
Speaker 6: that were made against the cops.
Speaker 1: Subpoenas that helped them compile a folder of evidence about
Speaker 1: Roger Glupski.
Speaker 6: I didn't care who liked me and who didn't like me,
Speaker 6: and Julie Robinson the prosecutor, she could give her rat's
Speaker 6: ass whether they liked her, and I had the same attitude.
Speaker 6: You can't be friends with people and investigate him.
Speaker 2: At the same time, Julie and Allan dug Deeper conducted
Speaker 2: interviews with prisoners who told him stories about Galupski, built
Speaker 2: up a picture of how he operated, and investigated how
Speaker 2: the KCKPD had enabled him to carry on for so long.
Speaker 1: Alan could feel himself beginning to close in on Glupski.
Speaker 1: But then in nineteen ninety four, Julie Robinson left the
Speaker 1: US Attorney's job. She moved on to become the US
Speaker 1: bankruptcy judge for the District of Kansas.
Speaker 6: Once she left to become a judge, that was the
Speaker 6: end of it.
Speaker 1: Alan felt that Julie's replacement wasn't quite as willing to
Speaker 1: help him and his team.
Speaker 6: Were closed down the investigation because we didn't have anybody
Speaker 6: in the US Attorney's office who wanted to do it. It
Speaker 6: was worth it.
Speaker 1: Dam Alan often wonders what would have happened if Julie
Speaker 1: had never left, or if the rest of the US
Speaker 1: Attorney's office had been as passionate as she'd been about
Speaker 1: fighting police corruption.
Speaker 6: You know, we would have got him in the early nineties,
Speaker 6: maybe ninety three, ninety four, ninety five, we would have
Speaker 6: gotten him. And there's a lot of crimes that he
Speaker 6: committed after that that he never would have committed. And
Speaker 6: you know a lot of people whose lives he ruined,
Speaker 6: or his lives he tried to ruin. You know that
Speaker 6: we could have prevented by taking him out, removing him
Speaker 6: from his position.
Speaker 1: It's hard to reckon with the realization that something could
Speaker 1: have been done back then, but wasn't. All the complaints
Speaker 1: in reports that led to nothing as Glupski rose up
Speaker 1: the ranks of the KCKPD and used the power of
Speaker 1: his position and police badge to abuse women and destroy lives.
Speaker 1: Roger Glupski spent thirty five years working for the KCKPD
Speaker 1: before retiring in twenty ten after decades of abuse that
Speaker 1: it seems like at least some of his colleagues and
Speaker 1: superiors knew about. He settled into a comfortable retirement on
Speaker 1: a full police pension, but something was coming to disturb
Speaker 1: his peace.
Speaker 4: Could you state your.
Speaker 7: Full name for the writer thesar Roger Kolupski, Do you
Speaker 7: swear to.
Speaker 4: Tell the truth of whole truth and nothing but the
Speaker 4: truth to help you God.
Speaker 8: I do.
Speaker 4: I got you, I got you, I got you.
Speaker 1: It's November twenty twenty and Roger Glupski is sitting in
Speaker 1: an office on the twenty second floor of a law
Speaker 1: firm in Kansas City. His hair and beard are bright white,
Speaker 1: and he's wearing a lightly colored shirt and ki. He's older,
Speaker 1: now sixty eight. He doesn't look as powerful as he
Speaker 1: used to without his police badge and uniform. Instead, he
Speaker 1: sat before a microphone with a camera pointed at him.
Speaker 1: After his exoneration, La Motte McIntyre decided to sue the
Speaker 1: Unified Government of Wandot County, ksey k for his wrongful conviction,
Speaker 1: a lawsuit that has finally led Glupski to be subpoenaed
Speaker 1: and questioned about the harms he inflicted on the women
Speaker 1: and men of Kansas City, Kansas. Glupski looks despondent as
Speaker 1: the prosecutor, Emma Freudenberger questions him.
Speaker 8: You understand that we're accusing you of terrorizing black women
Speaker 8: in Kansas City, Kansas for decades, raping women and goercing
Speaker 8: women into giving false testimony.
Speaker 1: Things start off pretty normally, but when Glupski fails to
Speaker 1: give adequate answers to questions, the prosecutor gets firmer, Sir.
Speaker 7: You understand that if I ask you a question and
Speaker 7: you remember the answer, but you tell me you don't,
Speaker 7: that's a lot.
Speaker 2: You understand that if I don't remember, I don't remember.
Speaker 1: If you reverse my memory, then I admit my hearer
Speaker 1: and say you're correct, sir.
Speaker 6: My question is simple of you.
Speaker 7: As.
Speaker 1: When she asks him direct questions about abusing black women
Speaker 1: and forcing them to become confidential informants, Gulupski has a
Speaker 1: simple response to her questions.
Speaker 6: With all due respect on the advice on my afternity,
Speaker 6: I WoT get the moment constitutional rights.
Speaker 1: It's not the first or last time he invokes his
Speaker 1: right to avoid self incrimination. It's his response to almost
Speaker 1: every question she asks him. In fact, that day, Gulupski
Speaker 1: pleads the fifth five hundred and fifty five times five
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty five.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I WoT my get the moment constitutional rights.
Speaker 1: Lamont eventually settles his lawsuit out of court. Glupski isn't
Speaker 1: put on trial. He's free to go, but Lamont's victory
Speaker 1: puts a spotlight on Gallupski and inspires even more victims
Speaker 1: to speak out. The stories are spreading across Kansas City,
Speaker 1: starting its whispers but soon swelling into a churuse too
Speaker 1: loud to ignore. It was enough to encourage people who'd
Speaker 1: lost hope to tack back in, including Trina Cooper. She'd
Speaker 1: been avoiding the KCKPD for twelve years after reaching a
Speaker 1: dead end while investigating her mother, Dorothy's unsolved murder. She'd
Speaker 1: tried to put the investigation behind her, but that was
Speaker 1: all about to change.
Speaker 2: I had took my youngest son on a trip, so
Speaker 2: we were out of town, and my daughter she just
Speaker 2: kept calling me, Mama, you really need to look into this.
Speaker 1: Detective Trina's daughter told her that there was a scandal
Speaker 1: unfolding in Kansas City, rumors of violence and sexual misconduct
Speaker 1: that were being linked to a series of murders. Her
Speaker 1: daughter explained it all over the phone.
Speaker 2: I'm reading all these articles and its other ladies, and
Speaker 2: I just really think that you probably need to go
Speaker 2: and open up Grandma's case again.
Speaker 1: Trina drove as her daughter told her story after story
Speaker 1: about the unsolved murder cases of black women in Kansas
Speaker 1: City who'd been involved with a certain detective, Roger Glupski.
Speaker 1: There were often young mothers from low income areas of
Speaker 1: Kansas City who spent part of their lives as sex workers.
Speaker 1: The similarities between them and Trina's mother, Dorothy were startling.
Speaker 2: And I was like, I'll talk about it when I
Speaker 2: come back. And then it was like she'll call me again, Like, Mama,
Speaker 2: it's getting serious. This police officer he was doing ex
Speaker 2: Y and Z to these ladies, and it was ladies
Speaker 2: that came up missing. Like it's like stories out here, Mama,
Speaker 2: you really need to look into it. So on our
Speaker 2: way back she called and I'm like, okay, see if
Speaker 2: we can find somebody and I'll look into it. When
Speaker 2: Trina got back home, she read through the articles. There
Speaker 2: was one in particular that caught her eye. It was
Speaker 2: two ladies that had done an article, Cadiza Heartaway and
Speaker 2: Nico Quinn, And I told my daughter, I said, okay,
Speaker 2: reach out to Nico and I'll reach out to Cadiza
Speaker 2: on Facebook and see what we could come up with.
Speaker 1: Far as that, Trina searched the name Cadiza Hardaway and
Speaker 1: found our organization Justice for Windett. She'd expected to just
Speaker 1: see a few social media posts an article or two,
Speaker 1: but Kadija and I had been working hard for months
Speaker 1: doing everything we could to bring the community together and
Speaker 1: demand that the authorities investigate Klupski's long history of abuse.
Speaker 1: One of the ways we did that was by organizing
Speaker 1: in person visuals and rallies to give survivors, victims, and
Speaker 1: their families a platform to share their stories. It was
Speaker 1: something we encouraged a lot of the women we met
Speaker 1: to show up for.
Speaker 3: I reached out to Cadizia.
Speaker 2: I had told her a little bit about my mom,
Speaker 2: and we talked a little bit and she was like, Yo,
Speaker 2: you need to come over to the rally.
Speaker 1: Dozens of people showed up, friends, families, and neighbors of
Speaker 1: women who had been violently murdered. Some of them were
Speaker 1: carrying photos or wearing shirts with their loved ones faces.
Speaker 1: Others held signs with their names. All of them had
Speaker 1: been devastated by the murders, but being surrounded by other
Speaker 1: people who were just as desperate as she was for
Speaker 1: answers filled Trina with hope.
Speaker 3: I went over to the rally and oh my god.
Speaker 2: When I went over there, I'm like, this is unbelievable,
Speaker 2: because Sous, for all of these years, I've always thought
Speaker 2: it was just me. Trina stood at the rally and
Speaker 2: listened to the other people whose loved ones had been
Speaker 2: abused and still didn't have answers from the KCKPD. The
Speaker 2: sense of solidarity she found at that rally inspired her
Speaker 2: to start looking for answers again, especially now that she
Speaker 2: realized Gulupski might be the missing piece and the puzzle,
Speaker 2: so she went back to her investigation.
Speaker 3: Until her mother's death.
Speaker 2: No one can really give me answers but Kansas City,
Speaker 2: Kansas Police Department.
Speaker 1: Trina and her uncle Oscar get into her car, drive
Speaker 1: to the kckpd's offices, and head over to the reception
Speaker 1: at the front desk. Trina is shown into her room
Speaker 1: with two detectives.
Speaker 2: I sit down with them and I'm like, listen, I
Speaker 2: just want to know what happened.
Speaker 3: To my mom.
Speaker 1: She asked them why they didn't keep her mom's jacket
Speaker 1: in evidence, why her grandfather hadn't been able to follow
Speaker 1: missing persons report, and what they'd found over the course
Speaker 1: of their investigation. But they didn't have any answers.
Speaker 2: So I'm already irritated with the whole situation because I
Speaker 2: feel as though they have the answers, but they're keeping
Speaker 2: the answers away from me.
Speaker 1: She knows she isn't going to get anywhere with the
Speaker 1: police officers, so she changes tact.
Speaker 3: I said, give me my mom's foul.
Speaker 2: Let me do the investigation that y'all did not do
Speaker 2: on my mom's case. And he said, if I give
Speaker 2: this foul to you, you cannot sue us.
Speaker 3: Why would you say something like that?
Speaker 2: I had questions going through my head, like and but Dentley,
Speaker 2: it's something in this foul that's telling what happened to
Speaker 2: my mom, and it's gonna come straight back to y'all,
Speaker 2: because why would you even say something like that. They
Speaker 2: always think that we're young, we're black, we don't know anything.
Speaker 3: No, I'm seeing what's going on.
Speaker 2: And so I sit down with them and I'm like, listen,
Speaker 2: if it was your mom that got killed in the
Speaker 2: eighties and you did not grow up with no parents,
Speaker 2: what would you had have done?
Speaker 3: They said, we would have left it alone.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not, y'all. I want to figure it out.
Speaker 2: And I said, if you are a damn lie, you
Speaker 2: would have done exactly what I'm doing right now. If
Speaker 2: you heard that some officers had something to do with
Speaker 2: your mom and they said back and oh god, when
Speaker 2: I tell you they got so rude with me. I'm
Speaker 2: talking about so rude to where they threw the picture
Speaker 2: in front of me of my mama land on the
Speaker 2: crime scene. He then goes to say, well, what are
Speaker 2: you trying to say, Roger Gluski killed your mom?
Speaker 3: I said, I didn't say that. You said that.
Speaker 1: We reached out to the KCKPD to ask them about
Speaker 1: Trina's interaction with the two detectives. They said that quote,
Speaker 1: statements made regarding interaction with our detectives and miss Cooper
Speaker 1: not accurate. We have specifically asked them what was inaccurate,
Speaker 1: but we have not heard back from them at the
Speaker 1: time of recording. Trina stands by her recollection of events
Speaker 1: the casey KPD also said, quote, we have the utmost
Speaker 1: empathy from miss Cooper and understand her desire to find
Speaker 1: who killed her mother, as well as frustrations that have
Speaker 1: built up over the years. Our cold case detectives continue
Speaker 1: to actively investigate the case and hope that their efforts,
Speaker 1: combined with new technology, will allow them to finally solve
Speaker 1: this case.
Speaker 3: Unquote.
Speaker 1: It's important to say here that neither of the detectives
Speaker 1: Trina spoke to were accused of being involved in Glupski's crimes.
Speaker 1: Neither of them was charged with any wrongdoing, and there's
Speaker 1: no evidence they were in any way aware of what
Speaker 1: Glupski had done prior to stories about him breaking out
Speaker 1: into mainstream news. But Trina keeps asking questions and pushing
Speaker 1: them based on the fact that she didn't trust the authorities.
Speaker 2: So now you're trying to defend him because you're thinking
Speaker 2: that I'm coming in here saying that Roger Glupski killed
Speaker 2: my mom, and he got so mad, and I was
Speaker 2: just like, Okay, I'm here in the right pins and
Speaker 2: the right people, and you guys are getting mad at
Speaker 2: me because I'm coming with the right questions and you
Speaker 2: guys don't have the right answers.
Speaker 1: Trina leaves the police station without getting the answer she
Speaker 1: once But the stories keep piling up. Journalists are beginning
Speaker 1: to pay attention. The whispers are getting louder, and then
Speaker 1: get Kansas City, Kansas Tonight, the FBI today arrested former
Speaker 1: KCK police detective Roger Glubski that's coming up on The
Speaker 1: Girlfriends Untouchable. The Girlfriend's Untouchable is produced by Novel for
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio.
Speaker 1: The show is narrated by me Nicki Richardson. It was
Speaker 1: written and produced by Rufaro Masarua. The editor is Joe Wheeler.
Speaker 1: Our assistant producer is Mohammed Ahmed. The researcher is Zayana Yusef.
Speaker 1: Production management from Shuri Houston and Joe Savage. The fact
Speaker 1: checker is Vindall Fulton. Sound design, mixing and scoring by
Speaker 1: Nicholas Alexander, with thetional engineering by Daniel Kimson. Music supervision
Speaker 1: by Rufaro Masarua, Nicholas Alexander, and Joe Wheeler. Original music
Speaker 1: by Amanda Jones. The Girlfriend's theme was composed by Amanda
Speaker 1: Jones and Louisa Gerstein. The series artwork was designed by
Speaker 1: Christina Limcool. Story development by Olivia Smart and Nel Gray Andrews.
Speaker 1: Novel's Director of development is Selena Metta. Willard Foxton is
Speaker 1: Novel's creative director of Development. Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan
Speaker 1: are executive producers for novel. Katrina Norvel and Nikki Etour
Speaker 1: are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts, and the marketing
Speaker 1: lead is Alison Cantor. Special thanks to Will Pearson and
Speaker 1: his special thanks to Carle Frankel and the whole team
Speaker 1: at w me E.