Speaker 1: Hey, it's Nicky and you're listening to the final episode
Speaker 1: of The girlfriends Untouchable. Before we bring this story to
Speaker 1: a close, I wanted to give you a heads up
Speaker 1: that while this episode will include some touching moments of hope, sisterhood,
Speaker 1: and people coming together to fight for the city we love,
Speaker 1: we'll also discuss violence, murder, suicide, and sexual assault. Some
Speaker 1: of the victims are minors. There will also be some
Speaker 1: strong language. If you or someone you love has been
Speaker 1: affected by any of the themes in the show. We've
Speaker 1: left some links in the description that offer resources and
Speaker 1: support take care of yourself. All sorts of people roll
Speaker 1: into a service station at night, shift workers coming to
Speaker 1: fill up their tanks before long drive, teenagers trying to
Speaker 1: buy drinks on their way to a party, and parents
Speaker 1: looking for late night supplies. McCalls, a service station in Cuendero,
Speaker 1: saw many people from across the community pass through its
Speaker 1: stores in the nineties, including Tina Peterson, who started working
Speaker 1: there after leaving her job at the women's shelter. She
Speaker 1: described her time there in an Affidavid. Her words here
Speaker 1: are read by an actor.
Speaker 2: Initially, McColls was a good place to work and I
Speaker 2: enjoyed speaking with the people who came to the station.
Speaker 1: It was all going well intil the station was sold
Speaker 1: to a new owner, a guy named Cecil Brooks. According
Speaker 1: to a legal statement Tina gave years later, Cecil, a
Speaker 1: known drug dealer, was organizing what she thought were shady
Speaker 1: meetings and questionable transactions, and from her perspective, he didn't
Speaker 1: hide it.
Speaker 2: Whatever arrangement Cecil had, I observed that he never seemed
Speaker 2: to worry about getting caught or arrested. Despite this open
Speaker 2: and an illegal activity at McCall's, the station was never
Speaker 2: shut down or rated by the police. One of the
Speaker 2: most frequent visitors to McCall's was Roger Gelubski. I would
Speaker 2: see Gallupski almost every day, typically in the evening. He
Speaker 2: would often park his car right on the lot and
Speaker 2: Sae Seul will go out to speak privately with him.
Speaker 1: Gellupski's job as a police officer was to fight crime,
Speaker 1: including the illegal cell of drugs, but according to Tina's declaration,
Speaker 1: he saw exactly what was going on at McCall's and
Speaker 1: didn't do anything to try to stop it, and he
Speaker 1: wasn't just turning a blind eye.
Speaker 2: Gillupskey seemed to know everything that was going on at
Speaker 2: McColl's and had free run of the station.
Speaker 1: Hanging out with a criminal and seemingly protecting him was
Speaker 1: one thing, but Tina witnessed something else during her evenings
Speaker 1: at McCall's, something that made her wonder if there was
Speaker 1: more to the service station operation than she first thought.
Speaker 1: She was working a shift at the station one day
Speaker 1: when Tina witnessed an unusual transaction.
Speaker 2: I saw Cecil go to the cash register, pulled out
Speaker 2: some cash and give it to Glubski.
Speaker 1: It seemed as if Glubski wasn't just protecting the notorious dealer,
Speaker 1: but that he may have been a co conspirator and
Speaker 1: something much bigger, an underground operation that involved more than
Speaker 1: just drugs. What was really going on between the abuse
Speaker 1: of cop and this powerful dealer? We were going to
Speaker 1: have to find out?
Speaker 3: Oh God, who.
Speaker 1: I'm Nicki Richardson and from the teams at Novel and
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts, this is the Girlfriend's Untouchable.
Speaker 4: Big Guy.
Speaker 1: Episode eight. It could have been us. We still have
Speaker 1: so many unanswered questions. People we want to talk to,
Speaker 1: like Tina Peterson. We tried to get in touch, but
Speaker 1: we haven't been able to reach her yet, so we
Speaker 1: don't have the full story from her point of view.
Speaker 1: From what we found out, though, Tina tried to report
Speaker 1: Roger Glupski's abuse to the k c KPD when she
Speaker 1: was working at the women's shelter, she says the police
Speaker 1: never got back to her. Tina then worked at the
Speaker 1: service station owned by Cecil Brooks. She quickly realized that
Speaker 1: it operated like a drug house and was frequented by
Speaker 1: Roger Glupski, so she left because she no longer felt safe.
Speaker 1: But it seemed like no matter how far Tina went,
Speaker 1: Seesaw and Gelupski were always there. In the nineties, Tina's
Speaker 1: aunt lived in a housing project on the northwest side
Speaker 1: of Kansas City, a place called the Delevant Apartments. From
Speaker 1: the outside, the complex seems pretty ordinary now. It's a
Speaker 1: block of cream colored, three floor buildings. Each has their
Speaker 1: own patch of grass in front of the yard, and
Speaker 1: there are a few trees lining the road. But back
Speaker 1: in the nineties it was kind of rough.
Speaker 2: When I was there, I observed that the complex was
Speaker 2: overrun with illegal activity, including drugs.
Speaker 1: At the time, the Delevant Apartments were owned by Cecil Brooks,
Speaker 1: one of the kingpins oft the drug trade in the Northeast.
Speaker 1: Tina noticed a variety of men walking in and out
Speaker 1: of those apartments, but there was a frequent visitor who
Speaker 1: caught her eye. You've guessed it, Roger Glubski. It seemed
Speaker 1: like he was either involved with or protecting the men
Speaker 1: in the area involved with organized crime. Tina had seen
Speaker 1: and heard enough to know he messed around with dangerous men,
Speaker 1: and she wasn't surprised to see the apartment complex had
Speaker 1: become a hub of illegal activity either. But what did
Speaker 1: surprise her were the people she recalls hanging out there.
Speaker 2: I also noticed underaged girls there, which was very troubling.
Speaker 2: I also saw Gelupski there with Cecil and noticed that
Speaker 2: they seemed to socialize with the underaged girls.
Speaker 1: This is an allegation yet to be proven in court.
Speaker 1: Then Tina's affidavit, she says that she was unsettled by
Speaker 1: what she saw, but it would take years for us
Speaker 1: to put the pieces together. It makes sense of how
Speaker 1: those girls fit into the bigger picture of our story.
Speaker 1: We'd already heard of Cecil Brooks. He's the drug dealer
Speaker 1: Nico Quinn told us attacked her cousin Donielle in the
Speaker 1: days before he was murdered. Cecil was the guy Gelupski
Speaker 1: told Nico to stop mentioning. He's also the man Nico
Speaker 1: says knocked on her door to intimidate her, and Cecil
Speaker 1: himself signed an affidavid in twenty nineteen saying that he
Speaker 1: knew the identity of Donielle's ro killer, a guy named Monster,
Speaker 1: whom Nico said had beat her cousin up alongside Cecil.
Speaker 1: We thought cecil Brooks role in this story stopped there,
Speaker 1: but then a new federal case came up the USA
Speaker 1: versus four men, including Cecil Brooks and Roger Gallupski.
Speaker 5: Lelupski has been indicted by a federal grand juria charges
Speaker 5: of sex trafficking.
Speaker 1: When we first heard about the indictment back in November
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, we didn't think too much of it.
Speaker 1: He'd already been arrested for sexual assault, and at the time,
Speaker 1: it seemed like a new case came up against Gallupski
Speaker 1: every couple of months. But as we tried to figure
Speaker 1: out what justice looked like in the months after Gallupski's death,
Speaker 1: Kadijia and I decided to read more about this trafficking case.
Speaker 1: We wanted to understand just how connected Gallupski and Secil
Speaker 1: really were. The federal indictment claimed that Brooks and the
Speaker 1: other two defendants was quote protection and participation from then
Speaker 1: detective Gallupski, held young women and girls at an apartment
Speaker 1: complex owned by Brooks and forced the young women, through
Speaker 1: beatings and threats of force, to provide sexual services unquote.
Speaker 1: The defendants have said they were not trafficking women, but
Speaker 1: were running a drug operation that they say the authorities
Speaker 1: knew all about. The allegations yet to be proven in court,
Speaker 1: but the indictment alone was painful for me and Cathesia
Speaker 1: to read. Cecil Brooks and his associates had allegedly been
Speaker 1: running a sex trafficking operation in Kansas City, with protection
Speaker 1: from and participation by Roger Gulubski, a police detective. Assaulting
Speaker 1: women was a disgusting abuse of power, but actively aiding
Speaker 1: an alleged sex trafficking operation. The more we read, the
Speaker 1: worse it seems to get.
Speaker 6: Wait what, Wait a minute, read that again. Let me
Speaker 6: read that again.
Speaker 1: Here's the allegation that caught us off guard. It says,
Speaker 1: quote the girls held there arranged in the age from
Speaker 1: thirteen years old to seventeen years old. The defendants selected
Speaker 1: young girls who were runaways, who were recently released from
Speaker 1: Beloit Juvenile Correctional Facility, and or who came from broken
Speaker 1: homes and moved these girls into Delevan to use them
Speaker 1: in criminal activities, including sex trafficking. Unquote. The case alleges
Speaker 1: that girls were being funneled straight from the juvenile detention
Speaker 1: system or difficult family backgrounds into sex trafficking. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: we need to process this.
Speaker 6: Oh my god, it makes me so angry.
Speaker 1: They didn't have to scour the street.
Speaker 3: It seeks to the whole juvenile system and how they operate.
Speaker 3: How do fuck They cover shit up. They cover up everything.
Speaker 3: They won't tell you nothing when you have a loved one,
Speaker 3: they won't help you.
Speaker 1: As you can hear, processing those allegations was pretty overwhelming.
Speaker 3: They discusflect, they cuts you out, They do everything they can,
Speaker 3: and then they shift your kid own. I can't believe that.
Speaker 3: That is wow. And it just speaks to how tough
Speaker 3: this fight is all the time, all the time, because
Speaker 3: the corruption is so deep, so entrenched, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: The indictment paints a picture in which Gulupski was able
Speaker 1: to use his police credentials to allegedly access and abuse
Speaker 1: some of the most vulnerable children in Kansas City.
Speaker 7: Oh my god, that hurts.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to process that. We reached out
Speaker 1: to Cecil Brooks, the other two defendants, and their lawyers
Speaker 1: to ask about those allegations, but have not heard back
Speaker 1: from them at the time of this recording. As we
Speaker 1: tried to digest it all, we began to rifle through
Speaker 1: our own memories. Kadezu recalled a conversation she had with
Speaker 1: someone soon after Gallupski's death.
Speaker 6: The person that called me said that she quit that
Speaker 6: juvenile detention center because of what was going on behind
Speaker 6: the scenes, and she tried to speak out about it.
Speaker 1: There are a ton of people who allowed this to happen.
Speaker 1: Anytime that you have crimes like this that go on
Speaker 1: for years and decades, it is not done by just
Speaker 1: one person, and so it was an organized effort and
Speaker 1: they clearly had found a system that worked well for them.
Speaker 6: Is crazy to me that you will have a number
Speaker 6: of people that actually work in the juvenile detention center
Speaker 6: and watch this thing happen and follow through with it.
Speaker 1: We've heard so many stories of Roger Glupski targeting vulnerable
Speaker 1: black women from poorer areas of our city, the kind
Speaker 1: of women whose society is less likely to believe. But
Speaker 1: the allegations in those documents suggest that both Galupski and
Speaker 1: Cesel Brooks knew that young black girls were easier targets
Speaker 1: and because of the way that society treats us like
Speaker 1: adults when we're still children. It's called adultification bias, where
Speaker 1: black and brown kids are treated like they're older, less vulnerable,
Speaker 1: and more mature than they are. You see it all
Speaker 1: the time. Sixteen year old Black boys hanging out on
Speaker 1: the street like Lamt McIntyre are quick to being labeled
Speaker 1: intimidating or thuggish. Fifteen year old Black girls walking home
Speaker 1: from school like Stacy Quinn are quick to be labeled
Speaker 1: fast and approached by older men because they're seen as
Speaker 1: more mature. It's a cycle that leads them to be
Speaker 1: perceived and punished like adults. We couldn't help, but wonder
Speaker 1: if an organized operation like this would have been able
Speaker 1: to take place in plain sight if it wasn't happening
Speaker 1: to black girls. Kadijah and I didn't have perfect childhoods,
Speaker 1: and even if we had, we're aware that so many
Speaker 1: children are only ever just a few traumatic life events
Speaker 1: away from being caught up in the criminal justice system
Speaker 1: or having to flee a violent home. In short, those
Speaker 1: girls could have been us.
Speaker 6: When I was looking at the case, I felt naive.
Speaker 6: It opened my eyes. I think that's what really pushed
Speaker 6: me was the ideal that I was so close to
Speaker 6: danger and God protected me through all of the ideal
Speaker 6: of what danger really could have been like for me.
Speaker 6: And so I was one grateful that I was protected,
Speaker 6: but I was angry that so many people weren't, and
Speaker 6: that as easily as I can see myself in danger,
Speaker 6: that's how easy it was for them to allegedly do
Speaker 6: what they did to so many women.
Speaker 1: And it's just like I was just so close, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's not just and that it was happening right
Speaker 1: around me.
Speaker 6: Just wouldn't have never crossed my mind in that manner,
Speaker 6: that magnitude, that much explosiveness. It angered me. Once I
Speaker 6: realized that I could have been one of them, it just, yeah,
Speaker 6: it blows my mind.
Speaker 1: Leaving through the indictment made me feel sick. A part
Speaker 1: of me just wanted to put the documents down and
Speaker 1: walk away because the darkness was overwhelming. But Kadija and
Speaker 1: I were already into deep and we were about to
Speaker 1: put together the final pieces of the puzzle. We started
Speaker 1: this series with the story of a shooting Niko Quinn's cousins,
Speaker 1: how she was intimidated into bearing false witness, and how
Speaker 1: LaMonte McIntyre was sent to prison for a shooting he
Speaker 1: didn't do. We've learned a lot since then, but there's
Speaker 1: something we've been wondering ever since. Why was Roger Glupski
Speaker 1: so determined to frame an innocent boy for that particular murder.
Speaker 1: Reading the indictment felt like coming close to an answer.
Speaker 1: Since the beginning, Nico has been saying that she thinks
Speaker 1: Cecil the Monster were involved in her cousin's shooting. The
Speaker 1: men she alleges beat her cousins up and knocked her
Speaker 1: on her door to frighten her the men. Gelupski told
Speaker 1: her not to mention during her cousin's murder investigation. Neither
Speaker 1: Cecil or Monster have ever been formally accused of the
Speaker 1: shooting or charged with the crime. We reached out to
Speaker 1: them and their lawyers to ask about those allegations, but
Speaker 1: have not her back from them at the time of
Speaker 1: this recording. But if the story laid out in the
Speaker 1: indictment is true and Gallupski did work with Cecil Brooks
Speaker 1: throughout the nineties, this story takes on a whole new light.
Speaker 1: Why focus attention away from Cecil if not to avoid
Speaker 1: exposing his connection to Gallupski to keep prying eyes away
Speaker 1: from what was happening at the Delavan apartments.
Speaker 6: It speaks to motive and it gives credibility to many
Speaker 6: other stories.
Speaker 1: He saw an opportunity to hit two birds with one stone.
Speaker 1: He needs Cecil on the street so he can continue
Speaker 1: to conduct business and have the protections that he needed,
Speaker 1: and so it just makes sense for him to continually
Speaker 1: wrongfully convict other people so he can continue that business relationship.
Speaker 1: Gallupski is dead, But because there are several other defendants
Speaker 1: in the sex trafficking case, they have all pled not guilty,
Speaker 1: and the case is going to trial. In fact, by
Speaker 1: the time you hear this, it might have already happened.
Speaker 1: We reached out to the people involved, but neither the
Speaker 1: lawyers or the people in the FBI who investigated it
Speaker 1: are able to talk about an ongoing case, and to
Speaker 1: our knowledge, all of the victims have made the decision
Speaker 1: to remain anonymous. So the two of us talked about
Speaker 1: what we hoped the trial might bring to light.
Speaker 6: My hope is that the prosecution closely looks at testimony
Speaker 6: and the implications of other officers, because we know that
Speaker 6: Roger Lucy did not act along. I would like to
Speaker 6: see karma hit each and every one of these individuals
Speaker 6: that saw it, knew what was going on, and actively
Speaker 6: participated in harming people in Wyandot County.
Speaker 1: For information to just come out. I think now that
Speaker 1: Glupski is no longer here, Cecil Brooks may be more
Speaker 1: compelled to just lay it all out. I don't think
Speaker 1: he has anything to lose at this point in his
Speaker 1: life of just being honest and being truthful. So I'm
Speaker 1: really hoping that that's what happens. You never want to
Speaker 1: hear these stories, but you know that they have to
Speaker 1: come to light. Our community deserves that light, it deserves
Speaker 1: the truth. It's very easy for that to happen again
Speaker 1: within Wandte County. The way our systems are set up
Speaker 1: are still set up that way. Our housing authority has
Speaker 1: a relationship with our police department, which has a relationship
Speaker 1: with our juvenile correctional facility, And so if someone wanted
Speaker 1: to get into the system and organize that same type
Speaker 1: of sex trafficking pipeline, they very well could do that.
Speaker 1: And so I really just want to to understand exactly
Speaker 1: what happened so we can then start doing the work
Speaker 1: to break that system down wherever it may still be standing.
Speaker 1: We need the information so we can make sure that
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen again. Glupski's victims and their families are
Speaker 1: hoping the trial can bring about justice, give them some
Speaker 1: sense of closure by proving he did what they say
Speaker 1: he did. But we're all still reckoning with what comes
Speaker 1: next now that Gallupski is dead. Lamont McIntyre got a settlement,
Speaker 1: but he'll never get back the twenty three years of
Speaker 1: his life that he lost in prison after he was
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted of murdering Niko's cousin.
Speaker 8: I can't change what happened with Gallupski now, no matter
Speaker 8: how much anger, how much energy I give to it.
Speaker 8: That's a final that's happened, right, So now I gotta
Speaker 8: move on Courtly, I can't dwell on it no more.
Speaker 8: I gotta just keep moving.
Speaker 1: We also asked Trina Cooper, who reinvestigated her mother's murder,
Speaker 1: about how she was feeling in the wake of Gallupski's death.
Speaker 5: Justice would have looked like Klupski going to jail for me.
Speaker 5: That would have been the biggest justice ever for me.
Speaker 5: But of course that didn't happen, So now I really
Speaker 5: don't know what justice will look like for me going forward.
Speaker 1: But she does want the community and authorities to focus
Speaker 1: their attention back to the institution that allowed Gallupski to
Speaker 1: operate the way he did. My hope is they shut
Speaker 1: WANDOT down, shut the police department down.
Speaker 5: If it don't shut down, they clean it up. Clean
Speaker 5: up all the corruption that's happening right up under y'all
Speaker 5: knows that y'all know about.
Speaker 1: That's my biggest hope. In twenty twenty two, the current
Speaker 1: Chief of Police, Carl Oakman, spoke out in a press conference.
Speaker 1: Here's what he said.
Speaker 9: Roger Galuski has been charged with deplorable crimes. Although the
Speaker 9: crimes date back twenty to twenty five years ago. He
Speaker 9: did wear the uniform and calls pain to members of
Speaker 9: this community and shame to the badge based on these charges,
Speaker 9: Luski's tenure in law enforcement was a moral, ethical and
Speaker 9: legal failure. Roger Glupski does not represent the culture, vision,
Speaker 9: our mission of the current Kansas City, Kansas Police Department.
Speaker 9: I would like to make it clear corruption in any
Speaker 9: farm will not be tolerated on kck PD.
Speaker 1: It's good to hear that the KCKPD acknowledge the pain
Speaker 1: Roger Gulupski caused and are taking the matter of corruption seriously.
Speaker 1: But it's clear the story is not over. Remember why
Speaker 1: a tribute Nico Quinn's friend who was last seen getting
Speaker 1: into a car with Gazupski before being murdered. The investigation
Speaker 1: into our murder has been reopened. The FBI are actively
Speaker 1: following new leads and seeking out information for her case.
Speaker 1: But Ronda is just one of the many murdered women
Speaker 1: linked to Gulubski. There are so many other grieving family
Speaker 1: members unsure if they'll ever get answers or any form
Speaker 1: of justice. So how do you even end a story
Speaker 1: like this? Kadejia and I are still trying to figure
Speaker 1: that out. It's a conversation we had with our producer Rafio.
Speaker 7: We sometimes like to tell stories, podcasts, documentaries that end
Speaker 7: with a happy ending, like justice happens as a resolution,
Speaker 7: the bad guy gets caught. But this story doesn't tie
Speaker 7: together as neatly, and the outcome hasn't been as satisfying
Speaker 7: for you all, for the victims and survivors. So if
Speaker 7: you were telling the story, how would you end up.
Speaker 1: In a way that's happy, in any way, in a
Speaker 1: way that feels true.
Speaker 6: I often do fantasize a little bit, imagine what would
Speaker 6: happen when this podcast comes out. And so when I imagine,
Speaker 6: I imagine that we evoke something in the hearts of
Speaker 6: people in Windotte County, and not just Windot County, but
Speaker 6: across the world that evokes that Windotte County deserves this
Speaker 6: type of change and it deserves the help of the
Speaker 6: people to do that. And so I would hope that
Speaker 6: this would be the next chapter in what we do
Speaker 6: to make a difference, and that we produce great things
Speaker 6: for the community that centers around healing, some form that
Speaker 6: is community wide would break out from telling this story.
Speaker 6: Even though we don't have the outcome we were looking for,
Speaker 6: I just don't have hope.
Speaker 1: But one thing we've learned through this process is that
Speaker 1: you don't always get justice through the legal system. Sometimes
Speaker 1: the most important thing that can come out of a
Speaker 1: story like this is culture change, a community coming together
Speaker 1: to demand that something like this can never happen again.
Speaker 1: Abuse thrives in silence, so we have to keep speaking out.
Speaker 1: I think it would be a lie to sit up
Speaker 1: there and say that this story is over it because
Speaker 1: it's it's not. I believe the chapter of Glupski maybe
Speaker 1: is over, but the story isn't. The work isn't. So
Speaker 1: for us here in Wandette County, I believe it's to
Speaker 1: be continued.
Speaker 5: I got you, I got you.
Speaker 1: It's been over forty years since Roger Glupski first assaulted
Speaker 1: Nico's older sister, Stacy. Nico knows Gallupski will never face trial,
Speaker 1: but she's determined to make sure that nobody forgets what
Speaker 1: he did. She refuses to let the memory of women
Speaker 1: who lost their lives fade away.
Speaker 4: I want these women to be remembered in a positive way,
Speaker 4: not of what they were prostitutes or crackheads. And they're
Speaker 4: not a homicide victim. These women had names. Let's say
Speaker 4: they name and continue to say it, because they had
Speaker 4: a hard life in life, Let's honor them in death.
Speaker 1: Nico's still trying to figure out what justice looks like
Speaker 1: for her.
Speaker 4: I'm praying that everybody that was murdered, they're homicide be solved,
Speaker 4: whether the person that did is deceased or whatever. And
Speaker 4: I'm wanting these families to get closure. That's all I'm
Speaker 4: asking for is closure, a sense of peace.
Speaker 1: She's been trying her best to live the kind of
Speaker 1: life her older sister would be proud of by looking
Speaker 1: out for her family, especially her nephew, Stacy's son Janelle.
Speaker 4: That is my baby. I love him to pieces. He'd
Speaker 4: have made three babies, Finna be four. So I think
Speaker 4: I did my part, and I'm still trying to protect them.
Speaker 1: They're close, but Nico often thinks about the families of
Speaker 1: murdered women in her community who don't have someone looking
Speaker 1: out for them. When she was younger, she used to
Speaker 1: open her home up to women who needed her help.
Speaker 1: Now she wants to extend that safe place out to
Speaker 1: their families and loved ones by starting a support group
Speaker 1: she calls the Spiritual Sister Circle.
Speaker 4: To help the victims their children to learn how to
Speaker 4: cope or live with the traumatizing things that happen in
Speaker 4: their life, and to try to move in a positive direction,
Speaker 4: help and get them work ready and ready to change
Speaker 4: their lives.
Speaker 1: Niko's been a professional truck driver for over twenty years now.
Speaker 1: She loves her life on the open road, but it's
Speaker 1: not the life she originally planned out.
Speaker 4: I was going to get my nursing license.
Speaker 1: She wanted to fulfill the dream her older sister Stacy
Speaker 1: wasn't able to. But she needed to make some extra
Speaker 1: money to support her kids while she did it.
Speaker 4: So I started looking into the trucking and then I
Speaker 4: went in to get my trucking license. My kid is
Speaker 4: always Mammy, were never home. You always worked two jobs,
Speaker 4: and I said, I had to provide for y'all.
Speaker 1: But there was more to it than just money.
Speaker 4: My thought process was what's the best thing to do
Speaker 4: to get away from this man? Then to hide over
Speaker 4: the road. I wanted a truck in because I just
Speaker 4: wanted to get away from everybody, and mainly to get
Speaker 4: away from him.
Speaker 1: Nico spent long days on the road trying to outrun
Speaker 1: her memories of Roger Glupski and the shadow he cast
Speaker 1: over her hometown.
Speaker 4: I was able to clear my mind. I was able
Speaker 4: to forget about what I was going through. It stayed
Speaker 4: in the back of my mind, but I knew I
Speaker 4: was safe on the highway. I didn't too much have
Speaker 4: to look over my shoulder or worry about somebody following
Speaker 4: me or things of that nature.
Speaker 1: It's been almost a year since Gallupski died, but Nico
Speaker 1: hasn't moved back to Kansas City, Kansas. She lives on
Speaker 1: the Missouri side now because while she's come a long way,
Speaker 1: the grief of knowing what Gelupski did to her sister
Speaker 1: and so many of the other women she loved hasn't
Speaker 1: left her. She's not sure if it ever will.
Speaker 4: Now a lot of people ask me, well, how do
Speaker 4: you feel? So, I don't know if you're familiar with
Speaker 4: solanch the song She Got Cranes in the Sky.
Speaker 1: It's a song about heartbreak and all the things you
Speaker 1: can do to try to numb, avoid and navigate pain.
Speaker 4: It's just there until somebody remove it. So how do
Speaker 4: we get rid of the pain? You dance, you sing,
Speaker 4: you change your hair, you change your style of dress.
Speaker 1: In the song, Solon sings about how you can try
Speaker 1: to drink the pain away, run it away, write it away,
Speaker 1: or even drive around seventy states in hopes that moving
Speaker 1: around might make you feel better. But in reality, the
Speaker 1: pain doesn't ever truly leave. You just learn to live
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 4: I try so many things to get rid of the pain,
Speaker 4: and the pain is still here. But a lot of
Speaker 4: people say, how do I feel about her being gone?
Speaker 4: First of all, I know where she is. Second of all,
Speaker 4: she's not cold, she ain't hungry, she ain't hurt no more.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty five marks the twenty fifth anniversary of Stacy's death.
Speaker 1: Nico recently got a new headstone to mark Stacy's grave,
Speaker 1: and she and Joanelle went to plan a celebration to
Speaker 1: honor Stacy's life.
Speaker 4: I want to throw her big party. I just want
Speaker 4: to get the family together, and because a lot of
Speaker 4: them haven't seen the headstone, so I want them all
Speaker 4: to go out and look at it and take pictures
Speaker 4: and put some flowers down, have a few family and
Speaker 4: friends there, do a big dinner, a prayer, another balloon release,
Speaker 4: and let her go. The spirit is already telling me
Speaker 4: that's going to be a nice day.
Speaker 1: Nico's not sure how to navigate the lasting pain of
Speaker 1: her grief, or how to reckon with the justice she
Speaker 1: and her sister won't get. But once the memorial has
Speaker 1: taken place, she wants to finally move on.
Speaker 4: I was talking to my nephew and he said, Anie,
Speaker 4: I'm tired. I'm tired of keeping on reliving this. So
Speaker 4: because of his wishes, and I think everybody wishes, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna let my sister go ahead and be peaceful, give
Speaker 4: her that piece that she needs, because I think every
Speaker 4: time we talk about it, we're not doing number digging
Speaker 4: these people up.
Speaker 1: It hasn't been easy for her, but Nico wanted this
Speaker 1: story to be told. She wanted you to know what
Speaker 1: happened to her, her cousins, her friends, and her sister
Speaker 1: in her own words, so they would never be forgotten.
Speaker 1: But the time for grueling legal investigations, depositions, and podcast
Speaker 1: interviews is over. After thirty years of rewinding the tape
Speaker 1: back to nineteen ninety four, Nico has made the decision
Speaker 1: to close the chapter.
Speaker 4: After all this is said and done, and we get
Speaker 4: done with what we're doing, I'm gonna give my sister
Speaker 4: a sense of peace. She didn't hunt it Gluski enough.
Speaker 4: She didn't time to him enough. It's time for her
Speaker 4: to sleep and have some type of peace because she
Speaker 4: needs it. Because if she had a rough life in life,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna let her rest in death, close that casket.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna let her wrist because it's time.
Speaker 1: The series may be over, but there's more to come.
Speaker 1: Next time. In the first of our bonus episodes, I'll
Speaker 1: be taking a deep dive into the area where this
Speaker 1: story takes place, Quindero, and looking at its unique and
Speaker 1: remarkable history and the fight for freedom.
Speaker 10: There were a bunch of families seeking freedom in Kansas,
Speaker 10: and there was talks of an underground railroad through that area,
Speaker 10: and they were able to just walk across that river
Speaker 10: to safety. And then they had to be hitting when Daryl,
Speaker 10: it means bundle of sticks. One stick by itself is
Speaker 10: easy to break, But you put a bundle of sticks together,
Speaker 10: and that's harder to break. If we stick together, it's
Speaker 10: harder to separate us.
Speaker 1: The Girlfriend's Untouchable is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: For more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio. The show
Speaker 1: is narrated by me Nicki Richardson. It was written and
Speaker 1: produced by Rufao Mazarua. The editor is Joe Wheeler. Our
Speaker 1: assistant producer is Mohammed Ahmed. The researcher is Zaiyana Yusef.
Speaker 1: Production management from Shari Houston and Joe Savage. The fact
Speaker 1: checker is Fendell Fulton. Sound design, mixing and scoring by
Speaker 1: Daniel Kimpson with additional engineering by Nicholas Alexander. Music supervision
Speaker 1: by Rufaro Mazurura, 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. The voice of Tina Peterson was read by
Speaker 1: Ebanie Janelle. 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 Carley Frankel and the whole team
Speaker 1: at w M E