24-02-2025
Autopsy: KCK detective had ‘history of suicidal ideation' yet was left on house arrest
The autopsy performed on Roger Golubski, who spent his 35 years on the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department exploiting people he was supposed to be protecting, shows nothing very remarkable, with one big exception: 'The deceased has reported history of suicidal ideation.'
That's what the autopsy says in the summary on its final page, right before going on to say that he was found in his Edwardsville home with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. This was on Dec. 2, the morning he was finally going on trial.
Should someone with a history of suicidal ideation have been allowed to stay on home detention for more than two years after being charged with crimes that included sex trafficking, rape and kidnapping?
Should someone with a history of suicidal ideation maybe have been monitored a little more closely, for one thing to make sure he didn't have a stolen gun like the Smith and Wesson M&P Shield handgun he turned against himself to avoid going to court?
Should someone with a history of suicidal ideation really have been expected to get himself to Topeka on what was supposed to have been the first day of his first federal trial?
I have reported on his history of suicidal thoughts before, in a column about him paying Natasha Hodge just to sit with him at Christmas in 2004 or 2005. Mostly, she said, they just stared at his nicely decorated tree in silence, but he did want to talk about one thing, which was 'how the suicide rate skyrockets this time of year. He was considering it way back then. He was an extraordinarily troubled person, and wasn't even exempt from himself.'
But that his autopsy mentions that history, too, means it was also well known to others — maybe to his next of kin, who is his son Matthew Golubski, or to the companion who lived with him, or even to former police colleagues. Whoever knew about this history, authorities should have known about it, too, because he so obviously needed to be in protective custody.
Here's something far more stunning, though, than anything I found in the report itself. I read what it said to Ophelia Williams, who if Golubski had not died was going to testify that he'd started raping her right after arresting her 14-year-old twins for murder. And her reaction? 'Oh my God, dude was messed up and they just let him do whatever and swept it under the rug. I am a human being and God's child and it saddens me how this man – this detective that raped me and put my sons in prison — was asking for help and didn't get it. Wyandotte County killed him.'
That's 100% Ophelia Williams, a person capable of empathy even for the man who tortured her. Who caused her pain that continues to this day. Whose defense, had he been brave enough to face her and 8 other accusers, was going to be that they made every word of it up.
Michelle Houcks, who was also going to testify that he raped her, and threatened to kill her brother if she told anyone, said something very similar in a separate interview: 'That means they knew. He told somebody or that wouldn't be on there. If they knew he was suicidal, they failed us and they failed him.'
In a world of people screaming and spewing at others they don't even know, based on assumptions that aren't even right, their ability to see that this man who did them so much harm was failed, too, by those who were complicit or even just looked the other way, says everything about who these women are and are not.
Oh, and the rest of the autopsy report? According to Frontier Forensics pathologist Maneesha Pandey, it was a gunshot to the right temple, with no exit wound, that killed this 5-foot-5.58-inch tall, 230-pound man, who had an enlarged heart and a scar on his chest from bypass surgery.
The time of his injury, it says, was 9:05 a.m., five minutes after jury selection was supposed to begin. He was pronounced dead at 9:16 a.m.
Fragments of the bullet were recovered 'along the gunshot wound path from the brain.' His last meal apparently included vegetables and corn. The toxicology report, done separately by NMS Labs in Horsham, Pennsylvania, said there were no drugs or alcohol in his system.
He seems to have been dressed for court, in a blue jacket, blue shirt and black pants. So this outcome was not inevitable, even on the morning of Dec. 2. But even a little oversight was more than he got.
'The manner of death was suicide,' the report says in conclusion.
But in a very real sense, Ophelia is right that Wyandotte killed him, along with everyone who left Roger alone with his suicidal thoughts. And that includes, of course, Magistrate Judge Rachel Schwartz, who never could see that while 71 and on dialysis, this man was still a danger to his victims, and very much at risk of the ultimate flight.
