WEBVTT - The Girlfriends S4/E8: It Could Have Been Us 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:03.800 Hey, it's Nicky and you're listening to the final episode 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:08.160 of The girlfriends Untouchable. Before we bring this story to 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:10.680 a close, I wanted to give you a heads up 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:15.760 that while this episode will include some touching moments of hope, sisterhood, 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:19.079 and people coming together to fight for the city we love, 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:27.240 we'll also discuss violence, murder, suicide, and sexual assault. Some 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:31.120 of the victims are minors. There will also be some 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:35.519 strong language. If you or someone you love has been 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.600 affected by any of the themes in the show. We've 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:41.839 left some links in the description that offer resources and 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:53.599 support take care of yourself. All sorts of people roll 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:56.640 into a service station at night, shift workers coming to 0:00:56.640 --> 0:00:59.800 fill up their tanks before long drive, teenagers trying to 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:02.800 buy drinks on their way to a party, and parents 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:08.240 looking for late night supplies. McCalls, a service station in Cuendero, 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.720 saw many people from across the community pass through its 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:16.600 stores in the nineties, including Tina Peterson, who started working 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:19.959 there after leaving her job at the women's shelter. She 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:23.920 described her time there in an Affidavid. Her words here 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:25.000 are read by an actor. 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:28.800 Initially, McColls was a good place to work and I 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:30.880 enjoyed speaking with the people who came to the station. 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:34.160 It was all going well intil the station was sold 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:38.160 to a new owner, a guy named Cecil Brooks. According 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:42.160 to a legal statement Tina gave years later, Cecil, a 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:46.440 known drug dealer, was organizing what she thought were shady 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:52.160 meetings and questionable transactions, and from her perspective, he didn't 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:52.640 hide it. 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:56.760 Whatever arrangement Cecil had, I observed that he never seemed 0:01:56.760 --> 0:02:00.000 to worry about getting caught or arrested. Despite this open 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:02.920 and an illegal activity at McCall's, the station was never 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.120 shut down or rated by the police. One of the 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:11.480 most frequent visitors to McCall's was Roger Gelubski. I would 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:16.920 see Gallupski almost every day, typically in the evening. He 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:19.440 would often park his car right on the lot and 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:21.639 Sae Seul will go out to speak privately with him. 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:25.760 Gellupski's job as a police officer was to fight crime, 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:30.800 including the illegal cell of drugs, but according to Tina's declaration, 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.080 he saw exactly what was going on at McCall's and 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:36.960 didn't do anything to try to stop it, and he 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:38.600 wasn't just turning a blind eye. 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:41.720 Gillupskey seemed to know everything that was going on at 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:43.440 McColl's and had free run of the station. 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:47.079 Hanging out with a criminal and seemingly protecting him was 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:50.600 one thing, but Tina witnessed something else during her evenings 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:54.120 at McCall's, something that made her wonder if there was 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:57.040 more to the service station operation than she first thought. 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:00.320 She was working a shift at the station one day 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:04.440 when Tina witnessed an unusual transaction. 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:08.280 I saw Cecil go to the cash register, pulled out 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:10.639 some cash and give it to Glubski. 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:16.000 It seemed as if Glubski wasn't just protecting the notorious dealer, 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:20.560 but that he may have been a co conspirator and 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:27.840 something much bigger, an underground operation that involved more than 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:32.400 just drugs. What was really going on between the abuse 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:36.920 of cop and this powerful dealer? We were going to 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:37.760 have to find out? 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:43.480 Oh God, who. 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.520 I'm Nicki Richardson and from the teams at Novel and 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:58.040 iHeart Podcasts, this is the Girlfriend's Untouchable. 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:05.080 Big Guy. 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:33.359 Episode eight. It could have been us. We still have 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:36.599 so many unanswered questions. People we want to talk to, 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:40.719 like Tina Peterson. We tried to get in touch, but 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:42.839 we haven't been able to reach her yet, so we 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:45.040 don't have the full story from her point of view. 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.680 From what we found out, though, Tina tried to report 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:51.599 Roger Glupski's abuse to the k c KPD when she 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.680 was working at the women's shelter, she says the police 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:57.560 never got back to her. Tina then worked at the 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:01.640 service station owned by Cecil Brooks. She quickly realized that 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.680 it operated like a drug house and was frequented by 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:09.440 Roger Glupski, so she left because she no longer felt safe. 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.159 But it seemed like no matter how far Tina went, 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:22.080 Seesaw and Gelupski were always there. In the nineties, Tina's 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:24.760 aunt lived in a housing project on the northwest side 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:29.920 of Kansas City, a place called the Delevant Apartments. From 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:34.359 the outside, the complex seems pretty ordinary now. It's a 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:38.160 block of cream colored, three floor buildings. Each has their 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:40.599 own patch of grass in front of the yard, and 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:44.200 there are a few trees lining the road. But back 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:46.680 in the nineties it was kind of rough. 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:53.160 When I was there, I observed that the complex was 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:56.240 overrun with illegal activity, including drugs. 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:59.679 At the time, the Delevant Apartments were owned by Cecil Brooks, 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:02.920 one of the kingpins oft the drug trade in the Northeast. 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:06.880 Tina noticed a variety of men walking in and out 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:10.080 of those apartments, but there was a frequent visitor who 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:17.159 caught her eye. You've guessed it, Roger Glubski. It seemed 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.000 like he was either involved with or protecting the men 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.719 in the area involved with organized crime. Tina had seen 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:27.120 and heard enough to know he messed around with dangerous men, 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:30.240 and she wasn't surprised to see the apartment complex had 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.839 become a hub of illegal activity either. But what did 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.920 surprise her were the people she recalls hanging out there. 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:41.680 I also noticed underaged girls there, which was very troubling. 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:44.960 I also saw Gelupski there with Cecil and noticed that 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:47.120 they seemed to socialize with the underaged girls. 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:50.839 This is an allegation yet to be proven in court. 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:55.360 Then Tina's affidavit, she says that she was unsettled by 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:58.520 what she saw, but it would take years for us 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.000 to put the pieces together. It makes sense of how 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:04.560 those girls fit into the bigger picture of our story. 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:09.680 We'd already heard of Cecil Brooks. He's the drug dealer 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:12.160 Nico Quinn told us attacked her cousin Donielle in the 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:15.360 days before he was murdered. Cecil was the guy Gelupski 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:18.560 told Nico to stop mentioning. He's also the man Nico 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.679 says knocked on her door to intimidate her, and Cecil 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:25.360 himself signed an affidavid in twenty nineteen saying that he 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:29.360 knew the identity of Donielle's ro killer, a guy named Monster, 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.040 whom Nico said had beat her cousin up alongside Cecil. 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:41.440 We thought cecil Brooks role in this story stopped there, 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:46.920 but then a new federal case came up the USA 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:51.960 versus four men, including Cecil Brooks and Roger Gallupski. 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:56.040 Lelupski has been indicted by a federal grand juria charges 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:57.120 of sex trafficking. 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:00.720 When we first heard about the indictment back in November 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:03.560 twenty twenty two, we didn't think too much of it. 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:07.320 He'd already been arrested for sexual assault, and at the time, 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:10.600 it seemed like a new case came up against Gallupski 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:14.400 every couple of months. But as we tried to figure 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:18.040 out what justice looked like in the months after Gallupski's death, 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:22.120 Kadijia and I decided to read more about this trafficking case. 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:26.560 We wanted to understand just how connected Gallupski and Secil 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:34.440 really were. The federal indictment claimed that Brooks and the 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:39.720 other two defendants was quote protection and participation from then 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:44.520 detective Gallupski, held young women and girls at an apartment 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:48.920 complex owned by Brooks and forced the young women, through 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:55.319 beatings and threats of force, to provide sexual services unquote. 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:01.520 The defendants have said they were not trafficking women, but 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:04.800 were running a drug operation that they say the authorities 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:08.920 knew all about. The allegations yet to be proven in court, 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:12.400 but the indictment alone was painful for me and Cathesia 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:16.080 to read. Cecil Brooks and his associates had allegedly been 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.880 running a sex trafficking operation in Kansas City, with protection 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:27.239 from and participation by Roger Gulubski, a police detective. Assaulting 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:32.439 women was a disgusting abuse of power, but actively aiding 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:38.400 an alleged sex trafficking operation. The more we read, the 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:39.520 worse it seems to get. 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:45.680 Wait what, Wait a minute, read that again. Let me 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:46.400 read that again. 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:51.439 Here's the allegation that caught us off guard. It says, 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:55.559 quote the girls held there arranged in the age from 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:59.760 thirteen years old to seventeen years old. The defendants selected 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:03.120 young girls who were runaways, who were recently released from 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:07.880 Beloit Juvenile Correctional Facility, and or who came from broken 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.400 homes and moved these girls into Delevan to use them 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:17.280 in criminal activities, including sex trafficking. Unquote. The case alleges 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:20.080 that girls were being funneled straight from the juvenile detention 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:30.240 system or difficult family backgrounds into sex trafficking. Oh my god, 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:31.520 we need to process this. 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:35.240 Oh my god, it makes me so angry. 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:37.720 They didn't have to scour the street. 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:43.199 It seeks to the whole juvenile system and how they operate. 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:47.560 How do fuck They cover shit up. They cover up everything. 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:51.080 They won't tell you nothing when you have a loved one, 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:52.240 they won't help you. 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:58.400 As you can hear, processing those allegations was pretty overwhelming. 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:05.240 They discusflect, they cuts you out, They do everything they can, 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:09.560 and then they shift your kid own. I can't believe that. 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:14.440 That is wow. And it just speaks to how tough 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:17.560 this fight is all the time, all the time, because 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:21.640 the corruption is so deep, so entrenched, it's ridiculous. 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:25.800 The indictment paints a picture in which Gulupski was able 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:29.320 to use his police credentials to allegedly access and abuse 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:31.880 some of the most vulnerable children in Kansas City. 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:34.320 Oh my god, that hurts. 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.040 I don't know how to process that. We reached out 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:40.760 to Cecil Brooks, the other two defendants, and their lawyers 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:44.760 to ask about those allegations, but have not heard back 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:48.400 from them at the time of this recording. As we 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:52.120 tried to digest it all, we began to rifle through 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:56.959 our own memories. Kadezu recalled a conversation she had with 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:59.200 someone soon after Gallupski's death. 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.520 The person that called me said that she quit that 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:06.559 juvenile detention center because of what was going on behind 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.360 the scenes, and she tried to speak out about it. 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:14.200 There are a ton of people who allowed this to happen. 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:17.760 Anytime that you have crimes like this that go on 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:20.640 for years and decades, it is not done by just 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:24.040 one person, and so it was an organized effort and 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:27.559 they clearly had found a system that worked well for them. 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:31.880 Is crazy to me that you will have a number 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:36.160 of people that actually work in the juvenile detention center 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:39.280 and watch this thing happen and follow through with it. 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:45.240 We've heard so many stories of Roger Glupski targeting vulnerable 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:48.600 black women from poorer areas of our city, the kind 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:51.720 of women whose society is less likely to believe. But 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.920 the allegations in those documents suggest that both Galupski and 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:58.679 Cesel Brooks knew that young black girls were easier targets 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:01.839 and because of the way that society treats us like 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:08.400 adults when we're still children. It's called adultification bias, where 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:11.880 black and brown kids are treated like they're older, less vulnerable, 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:14.800 and more mature than they are. You see it all 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:17.880 the time. Sixteen year old Black boys hanging out on 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:22.320 the street like Lamt McIntyre are quick to being labeled 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:28.160 intimidating or thuggish. Fifteen year old Black girls walking home 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:31.800 from school like Stacy Quinn are quick to be labeled 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.320 fast and approached by older men because they're seen as 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:39.560 more mature. It's a cycle that leads them to be 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:43.800 perceived and punished like adults. We couldn't help, but wonder 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:46.520 if an organized operation like this would have been able 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:49.680 to take place in plain sight if it wasn't happening 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:54.160 to black girls. Kadijah and I didn't have perfect childhoods, 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:57.480 and even if we had, we're aware that so many 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:00.760 children are only ever just a few traumatic life events 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:03.840 away from being caught up in the criminal justice system 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:09.640 or having to flee a violent home. In short, those 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:13.000 girls could have been us. 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:20.520 When I was looking at the case, I felt naive. 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:25.640 It opened my eyes. I think that's what really pushed 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:28.520 me was the ideal that I was so close to 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:32.600 danger and God protected me through all of the ideal 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:34.840 of what danger really could have been like for me. 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:38.720 And so I was one grateful that I was protected, 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:42.120 but I was angry that so many people weren't, and 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:46.440 that as easily as I can see myself in danger, 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:49.920 that's how easy it was for them to allegedly do 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:51.680 what they did to so many women. 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:55.520 And it's just like I was just so close, you know, 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:58.400 and it's not just and that it was happening right 0:14:58.440 --> 0:14:58.920 around me. 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.560 Just wouldn't have never crossed my mind in that manner, 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:07.080 that magnitude, that much explosiveness. It angered me. Once I 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:13.040 realized that I could have been one of them, it just, yeah, 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:14.320 it blows my mind. 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:22.760 Leaving through the indictment made me feel sick. A part 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:24.880 of me just wanted to put the documents down and 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:29.760 walk away because the darkness was overwhelming. But Kadija and 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:33.720 I were already into deep and we were about to 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:56.960 put together the final pieces of the puzzle. We started 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:02.200 this series with the story of a shooting Niko Quinn's cousins, 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:05.320 how she was intimidated into bearing false witness, and how 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:08.000 LaMonte McIntyre was sent to prison for a shooting he 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:16.080 didn't do. We've learned a lot since then, but there's 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:21.800 something we've been wondering ever since. Why was Roger Glupski 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:25.640 so determined to frame an innocent boy for that particular murder. 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:30.440 Reading the indictment felt like coming close to an answer. 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:34.600 Since the beginning, Nico has been saying that she thinks 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:38.720 Cecil the Monster were involved in her cousin's shooting. The 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:41.760 men she alleges beat her cousins up and knocked her 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:44.760 on her door to frighten her the men. Gelupski told 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:49.080 her not to mention during her cousin's murder investigation. Neither 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:52.240 Cecil or Monster have ever been formally accused of the 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:55.840 shooting or charged with the crime. We reached out to 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:59.360 them and their lawyers to ask about those allegations, but 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:01.560 have not her back from them at the time of 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:05.119 this recording. But if the story laid out in the 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:09.240 indictment is true and Gallupski did work with Cecil Brooks 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:13.640 throughout the nineties, this story takes on a whole new light. 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:20.400 Why focus attention away from Cecil if not to avoid 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:25.600 exposing his connection to Gallupski to keep prying eyes away 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:28.920 from what was happening at the Delavan apartments. 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.760 It speaks to motive and it gives credibility to many 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:36.600 other stories. 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:40.879 He saw an opportunity to hit two birds with one stone. 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:44.760 He needs Cecil on the street so he can continue 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.320 to conduct business and have the protections that he needed, 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:51.040 and so it just makes sense for him to continually 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:56.320 wrongfully convict other people so he can continue that business relationship. 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:01.000 Gallupski is dead, But because there are several other defendants 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:04.840 in the sex trafficking case, they have all pled not guilty, 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:08.800 and the case is going to trial. In fact, by 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.800 the time you hear this, it might have already happened. 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.840 We reached out to the people involved, but neither the 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:19.040 lawyers or the people in the FBI who investigated it 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:22.600 are able to talk about an ongoing case, and to 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:26.160 our knowledge, all of the victims have made the decision 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:30.440 to remain anonymous. So the two of us talked about 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:32.640 what we hoped the trial might bring to light. 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:39.280 My hope is that the prosecution closely looks at testimony 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.639 and the implications of other officers, because we know that 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:46.840 Roger Lucy did not act along. I would like to 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:50.879 see karma hit each and every one of these individuals 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:54.600 that saw it, knew what was going on, and actively 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:59.200 participated in harming people in Wyandot County. 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:04.600 For information to just come out. I think now that 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:10.800 Glupski is no longer here, Cecil Brooks may be more 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:14.480 compelled to just lay it all out. I don't think 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:16.600 he has anything to lose at this point in his 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:20.120 life of just being honest and being truthful. So I'm 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:23.720 really hoping that that's what happens. You never want to 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.040 hear these stories, but you know that they have to 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:30.840 come to light. Our community deserves that light, it deserves 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:33.720 the truth. It's very easy for that to happen again 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:37.199 within Wandte County. The way our systems are set up 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.920 are still set up that way. Our housing authority has 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:44.440 a relationship with our police department, which has a relationship 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:49.000 with our juvenile correctional facility, And so if someone wanted 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:52.159 to get into the system and organize that same type 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:57.440 of sex trafficking pipeline, they very well could do that. 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:01.720 And so I really just want to to understand exactly 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:05.040 what happened so we can then start doing the work 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:09.000 to break that system down wherever it may still be standing. 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:11.760 We need the information so we can make sure that 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:18.360 it doesn't happen again. Glupski's victims and their families are 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:21.840 hoping the trial can bring about justice, give them some 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:25.120 sense of closure by proving he did what they say 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:28.679 he did. But we're all still reckoning with what comes 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:33.960 next now that Gallupski is dead. Lamont McIntyre got a settlement, 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:36.800 but he'll never get back the twenty three years of 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:39.639 his life that he lost in prison after he was 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:42.119 wrongfully convicted of murdering Niko's cousin. 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:47.040 I can't change what happened with Gallupski now, no matter 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:49.479 how much anger, how much energy I give to it. 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:51.960 That's a final that's happened, right, So now I gotta 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:55.159 move on Courtly, I can't dwell on it no more. 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:56.359 I gotta just keep moving. 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:02.880 We also asked Trina Cooper, who reinvestigated her mother's murder, 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:06.480 about how she was feeling in the wake of Gallupski's death. 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:10.280 Justice would have looked like Klupski going to jail for me. 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:13.439 That would have been the biggest justice ever for me. 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:18.000 But of course that didn't happen, So now I really 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:21.720 don't know what justice will look like for me going forward. 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:25.919 But she does want the community and authorities to focus 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:29.280 their attention back to the institution that allowed Gallupski to 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:32.080 operate the way he did. My hope is they shut 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:35.520 WANDOT down, shut the police department down. 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:41.119 If it don't shut down, they clean it up. Clean 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:44.680 up all the corruption that's happening right up under y'all 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:46.000 knows that y'all know about. 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:57.120 That's my biggest hope. In twenty twenty two, the current 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.680 Chief of Police, Carl Oakman, spoke out in a press conference. 0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:02.200 Here's what he said. 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:08.199 Roger Galuski has been charged with deplorable crimes. Although the 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:11.879 crimes date back twenty to twenty five years ago. He 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:15.600 did wear the uniform and calls pain to members of 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:21.320 this community and shame to the badge based on these charges, 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:27.679 Luski's tenure in law enforcement was a moral, ethical and 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:33.320 legal failure. Roger Glupski does not represent the culture, vision, 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:37.680 our mission of the current Kansas City, Kansas Police Department. 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:41.960 I would like to make it clear corruption in any 0:22:42.040 --> 0:22:45.800 farm will not be tolerated on kck PD. 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:51.280 It's good to hear that the KCKPD acknowledge the pain 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:55.400 Roger Gulupski caused and are taking the matter of corruption seriously. 0:22:56.280 --> 0:22:59.960 But it's clear the story is not over. Remember why 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:04.200 a tribute Nico Quinn's friend who was last seen getting 0:23:04.200 --> 0:23:08.760 into a car with Gazupski before being murdered. The investigation 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:12.640 into our murder has been reopened. The FBI are actively 0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:15.520 following new leads and seeking out information for her case. 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:19.080 But Ronda is just one of the many murdered women 0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:23.000 linked to Gulubski. There are so many other grieving family 0:23:23.040 --> 0:23:27.000 members unsure if they'll ever get answers or any form 0:23:27.359 --> 0:23:32.000 of justice. So how do you even end a story 0:23:32.160 --> 0:23:35.879 like this? Kadejia and I are still trying to figure 0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:39.600 that out. It's a conversation we had with our producer Rafio. 0:23:41.000 --> 0:23:45.200 We sometimes like to tell stories, podcasts, documentaries that end 0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:48.480 with a happy ending, like justice happens as a resolution, 0:23:48.760 --> 0:23:51.800 the bad guy gets caught. But this story doesn't tie 0:23:51.880 --> 0:23:55.000 together as neatly, and the outcome hasn't been as satisfying 0:23:55.040 --> 0:23:58.600 for you all, for the victims and survivors. So if 0:23:58.600 --> 0:24:01.000 you were telling the story, how would you end up. 0:24:03.720 --> 0:24:06.159 In a way that's happy, in any way, in a 0:24:06.200 --> 0:24:07.679 way that feels true. 0:24:07.960 --> 0:24:12.080 I often do fantasize a little bit, imagine what would 0:24:12.119 --> 0:24:17.080 happen when this podcast comes out. And so when I imagine, 0:24:17.359 --> 0:24:20.359 I imagine that we evoke something in the hearts of 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:23.280 people in Windotte County, and not just Windot County, but 0:24:23.320 --> 0:24:28.520 across the world that evokes that Windotte County deserves this 0:24:28.600 --> 0:24:31.919 type of change and it deserves the help of the 0:24:31.960 --> 0:24:34.679 people to do that. And so I would hope that 0:24:34.800 --> 0:24:39.120 this would be the next chapter in what we do 0:24:39.480 --> 0:24:45.000 to make a difference, and that we produce great things 0:24:45.040 --> 0:24:49.240 for the community that centers around healing, some form that 0:24:49.400 --> 0:24:54.159 is community wide would break out from telling this story. 0:24:54.720 --> 0:24:58.080 Even though we don't have the outcome we were looking for, 0:24:58.680 --> 0:25:00.800 I just don't have hope. 0:25:01.280 --> 0:25:04.199 But one thing we've learned through this process is that 0:25:04.280 --> 0:25:08.400 you don't always get justice through the legal system. Sometimes 0:25:08.440 --> 0:25:10.399 the most important thing that can come out of a 0:25:10.480 --> 0:25:16.160 story like this is culture change, a community coming together 0:25:16.359 --> 0:25:19.680 to demand that something like this can never happen again. 0:25:20.600 --> 0:25:24.640 Abuse thrives in silence, so we have to keep speaking out. 0:25:29.760 --> 0:25:33.399 I think it would be a lie to sit up 0:25:33.400 --> 0:25:35.280 there and say that this story is over it because 0:25:35.320 --> 0:25:41.080 it's it's not. I believe the chapter of Glupski maybe 0:25:41.160 --> 0:25:45.800 is over, but the story isn't. The work isn't. So 0:25:47.520 --> 0:25:49.919 for us here in Wandette County, I believe it's to 0:25:50.040 --> 0:25:50.680 be continued. 0:26:04.320 --> 0:26:06.280 I got you, I got you. 0:26:09.320 --> 0:26:13.480 It's been over forty years since Roger Glupski first assaulted 0:26:13.680 --> 0:26:18.960 Nico's older sister, Stacy. Nico knows Gallupski will never face trial, 0:26:19.840 --> 0:26:22.480 but she's determined to make sure that nobody forgets what 0:26:22.520 --> 0:26:26.240 he did. She refuses to let the memory of women 0:26:26.280 --> 0:26:28.960 who lost their lives fade away. 0:26:29.640 --> 0:26:33.120 I want these women to be remembered in a positive way, 0:26:33.840 --> 0:26:38.840 not of what they were prostitutes or crackheads. And they're 0:26:38.880 --> 0:26:44.400 not a homicide victim. These women had names. Let's say 0:26:44.400 --> 0:26:48.440 they name and continue to say it, because they had 0:26:48.440 --> 0:26:52.639 a hard life in life, Let's honor them in death. 0:26:54.080 --> 0:26:56.679 Nico's still trying to figure out what justice looks like 0:26:56.800 --> 0:26:57.160 for her. 0:26:57.880 --> 0:27:03.800 I'm praying that everybody that was murdered, they're homicide be solved, 0:27:03.880 --> 0:27:08.479 whether the person that did is deceased or whatever. And 0:27:08.520 --> 0:27:12.960 I'm wanting these families to get closure. That's all I'm 0:27:13.000 --> 0:27:15.399 asking for is closure, a sense of peace. 0:27:20.359 --> 0:27:22.800 She's been trying her best to live the kind of 0:27:22.840 --> 0:27:25.960 life her older sister would be proud of by looking 0:27:26.000 --> 0:27:31.480 out for her family, especially her nephew, Stacy's son Janelle. 0:27:32.040 --> 0:27:34.640 That is my baby. I love him to pieces. He'd 0:27:34.640 --> 0:27:38.600