The Girlfriends S4/E5: I Smell A Rat

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "The Girlfriends: Untouchable – S4/E5: I Smell A Rat"

Podcast: The Girlfriends: Untouchable
Episode: Season 4, Episode 5 – "I Smell A Rat"
Release Date: December 8, 2025
Host: Nikki Richardson
Producers: iHeartPodcasts and Novel

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Overview

This powerful episode centers on the devastating murder of Stacey Quinn, as seen through the eyes of her sister Nico Quinn, and the unrelenting pursuit of justice in the face of entrenched corruption and abuse of power within the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department. The story exposes the decades-long reign of terror perpetrated by Detective Roger Golubski, who exploited vulnerable Black women, and how community members—primarily women—banded together to reveal the shocking truth and demand accountability.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Devastating Impact on the Quinn Family (03:14–13:19)

• Nico Quinn recounts the trauma of seeing her sister Stacey kidnapped, her struggles with addiction, and their family's entanglement with Roger Golubski.
• After Stacey's arrest and puzzling early release from prison, Nico becomes suspicious about Golubski's continuing influence and possible exploitation of her sister even within the prison system.
  • Quote: “She said she was in Galupski’s office…you know, they walked in on us.” — Stacey Quinn (04:26)
• Stacey returns home acting erratic and fearful, hinting at being targeted by an officer (“that police officer that smoke a cigar…he gonna kill me” — 06:59).
• Emotional last interactions: Following a heated argument, Nico and Stacey reconcile days before Stacey is murdered, with Stacey asking Nico to look after her son (10:40).
  • Quote: “She told me if anything happened to her to make sure I take care of her son.” — Nico Quinn (10:50)
• The murder itself is narrated in heart-wrenching detail: Stacey is chased and shot 22 times as neighbors watch helplessly (12:33–13:07).

2. Distrust and Corruption in the Murder Investigation (15:43–21:44)

• The Quinn family is stunned when Detective Golubski is assigned as lead investigator on Stacey’s case.
  • Quote: “And my uncle said, I smell a rat.” — Nico Quinn (15:56)
• A local man, Marcus Washington, is arrested and convicted, but Nico is convinced his confession was coerced and that he was not the real killer.
  • Quote: “There’s no way he could have shot her like that.” — Nico Quinn (20:58)
• Nico’s skepticism is rooted in her knowledge of Golubski’s manipulative tactics and previous injustices involving coerced statements.

3. Golubski’s System of Exploitation (21:52–27:44)

• The episode dives into how Golubski blackmailed and groomed women to serve as confidential informants, using intimidation, threats, and sexual violence.
• Golubski leveraged Polaroid photos and the threat of labeling women as “snitches,” putting their lives at greater risk (23:48–24:11).
  • Quote: “[Golubski] would take that Polaroid...either you do what I want, or your picture goes out there as you being a snitch.” — Khadijah (24:00)
• Survivors recall being driven to cemeteries at gunpoint, assaulted, threatened, and told to dig their own graves if they did not cooperate (25:12–26:32).
  • Quote: “There was even one woman who recalled Golubski telling her to get out of the car and find a spot to dig the grave her body would end up being buried in if she refused him.” — Nikki Richardson (26:22)
• The trauma experienced by survivors and the emotional fallout for advocates like Khadijah touches listeners deeply (27:09–27:21).

4. The List: Pattern of Linked Murders (31:21–34:31)

• In 2016, attorneys working on Lamont McIntyre’s exoneration reveal a chilling spreadsheet to Khadijah: a list of 33 women, all of whom died violently and had been linked to Golubski in some form.
  • Quote: “There were 33 women on this list…33 murdered women who were said to have, at some point in their lives, been associated with Roger Golubski.” — Nikki Richardson (33:15)
• Many of these victims were labeled as drug users or sex workers—a stigma that, as the podcast stresses, should not absolve law enforcement from accountability or lessen the tragedy of their deaths.
• Stacey Quinn’s case is shown not to be an outlier, but part of a horrifying pattern.
  • Quote: “If you hear Stacy’s story, it sounds like it’s an anomaly…but there are so many stories like [hers].” — Khadijah (34:31)

5. Community Resistance and the Pursuit of Justice (35:47–41:20)

• Nikki and Khadijah describe efforts to document stories, support survivors, and change the narrative about the victims.
  • Interviews, podcasts, social campaigns focus on “saying their names” (37:35–37:44).
• The women candidly discuss the risks and active intimidation faced when seeking justice—police showing up at Nikki’s grandmother’s house, attempts to scare them into silence (35:47–36:42).
  • Quote: “Speaking out has consequences. The more we dug into Golubski, the more hostile KCK began to feel.” — Nikki Richardson (35:47)
• They invoke the importance of community care and challenge listeners to consider their own responses if faced with these tragedies.
  • Quote: “If it was your mom that got killed in the 80s and you did not grow up with no parents, what would you have done?” — Khadijah (41:41)
• The episode closes on the determination to see Golubski held accountable and ensure the women’s stories are told and remembered.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Nico Quinn recalling her sister’s last words:
  “She told me if anything happened to her to make sure I take care of her son.” (10:50)
• On the trauma of the murder:
  “My sister was shot 22 times. Every time she got shot, she got up and was begging and pleading for her life. They had no mercy on her.” — Nico Quinn (13:03)
• Khadijah on the list of victims:
  “Listen, baby, it was nerve wrecking, that...my mind was just, like, already blown. Like, there’s 33 women on this list.” (32:57)
• Khadijah on courage and fear:
  “Hearing those stories and understanding what the women went through was like, do you really want to do this? Do you really want to put yourself in this situation?” (36:42)
• Community determination:
  “My mindset was to see that man with handcuffs shackled. That was literally my end game.” — Khadijah (41:13)
• Final confrontation with Golubski preview:
  “I told Roger Galuski, you’re going to see my face to the day that you die.” — Khadijah (41:58)

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Key Timestamps

• Stacey’s arrest, prison experience, early release: 03:33–06:35
• Stacey’s fear and Golubski’s intimidation: 06:59–08:48
• Family’s last moments with Stacey: 09:02–10:50
• The night of Stacey’s murder, family grief: 11:03–13:19
• Golubski assigned to murder case: 15:43–15:56
• Investigation, conviction of Marcus Washington: 19:46–20:45
• Golubski’s system of informant coercion: 23:19–27:44
• The “list” of murdered women: 31:21–34:31
• Community organizing and resistance: 35:47–41:20
• Preview of confrontation and continued fight: 41:28–41:58

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Episode Tone and Language

The tone is raw, personal, and resolute. The voices—particularly those of Nico, Nikki, and Khadijah—are filled with pain, love, and determination. The language is direct and unflinching, reflecting both the horrors exposed and the fierce care and advocacy of those seeking justice.

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In Summary

This episode lays bare the painful aftermath of Stacey Quinn’s murder while revealing the systematic, predatory methods used by Detective Golubski to terrorize and exploit Black women in Kansas City, Kansas. Through deeply personal storytelling and community-driven investigation, the episode highlights the courage of women who risk retaliation to break a decades-long silence. "I Smell a Rat" is not only a call for justice for Stacey and the other women lost, but also a testament to the strength of sisterhood and community action in the face of systemic violence.

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Transcript

[Nikki Richardson]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Nikki Richardson]

Hey, it's Nikki. I just wanted to let you know that this is a Pretty tough episode. It's a story of love, resilience, and the lengths the women of Kansas City went to try and look out for each other. But in the process, we delve into stories about substance abuse, violence, murder, and sexual assault. If you or someone you love has been affected by any of the themes in the show, we've left some links in the description that offer resources and support. Take care of yourself.

After seeing her older sister Stacey get kidnapped and losing two friends to murder, Nico was at a loss. Stacy was working on the streets, addicted to drugs, and Roger Golubski, the police officer who lurked in the shadows of their lives, seemed unstoppable.

Then, in the fall of 1999, Niko got a call.

[Nico Quinn]

She had got caught in somebody's house, a drug house, and basically she took the rap for everything that they found.

[Nikki Richardson]

Stacey was arrested and charged.

[Nico Quinn]

I heard what the judge told her, that she was too pretty to be out here, and he wanted her to get her life together and get cleaned up. He was gonna give her 37 months in prison, and I was relieved.

[Nikki Richardson]

Niko reasoned that Stacy would be safer behind bars than surrounded by temptation in Quindero.

At some point, she went to visit her sister in prison.

[Nico Quinn]

It took them about 30, 45 minutes for them to let me go up to see her.

[Nikki Richardson]

When the sisters came face to face, it was in a cubicle that separated them with a pane of glass.

[Nico Quinn]

Stacy was late, and I'm like, where was you at? And she was sitting up on the little thing. And we on the phone, she laughed. She said, I was in Galuski's office. You know, they walked in on us.

[Nikki Richardson]

She didn't need to say what had happened for Nico to understand what the guards had seen. Stacy was supposed to be safe from Galupski behind bars, but it turns out he was using his authority to take her back and forth between his office and in her cell. As the weeks passed, Nico heard other things about Stacy's life behind bars. That she was getting better treatment than other prisoners and that she was trying to negotiate an early release. Nico suspected something was going on.

So one day, not long before Christmas, she decided to try and get to the bottom of it and rank her other sister, Liz.

[Nico Quinn]

So I called my sister, and she said, girl. Stacey snitching.

[Nikki Richardson]

Nikko knew that people could shorten their sentences by becoming confidential informants. They wondered whether Stacy might be trying to do the same thing.

[Nico Quinn]

As soon as I hung up the phone with my sister, Stacy came walking through the door.

[Nikki Richardson]

It was only around Four months into what Nico says was supposed to be a 37 month prison sentence, but there was Stacy walking back into their home as if it was just a regular Tuesday.

[Nico Quinn]

I started asking her, how did she get there? What is she doing there? She says they let her out on good behavior. I said, no, that ain't adding up because I know what the judge said. I asked her how she got there. She said she got a ride.

[Nikki Richardson]

Stacy then starts to walk around the house haphazardly picking up clothes and belongings.

[Nico Quinn]

I'm like, well, where are you going? She said, I'll be all right. She was talking fast. I just came to get some clothes and I'm leaving. So I'm like, how did you get out? I'm asking her this, you got some money for me? Is what she said. I said, no. When she walked out the door, I went to my back balcony to see, went down the driveway and she got in the car.

[Nikki Richardson]

One of Niko's friends comes in and tells her Golubski's the one driving the car.

[Nico Quinn]

She said she just ran out there, got in the car with him. I was like, what?

[Nikki Richardson]

She watches on as Galupski drives Stacy away.

[Nico Quinn]

Maybe a couple of days later, she had came to my house and she was in the corner. She was just shaking. And I'm going off on her, what is wrong with you? You having a withdrawal or whatever? And she was shaking. She said, this police officer that smoke a cigar told me that if he catch me out there again, he gonna kill me. And this, that and the other. I'm like, who is he? He be riding up and down the street all the time. I said, so why are you going out there? And that's when she looked at me. She said, you never smoked crack before, sis. You never got high before, so you wouldn't understand.

I said, I don't. But if somebody tell you they gonna hurt you or harm you and all the stuff you done been through, why would you go back out there?

[Nikki Richardson]

Nikko could do nothing but watch on as Stacey left the house again, walking straight out into danger.

[Nico Quinn]

I got you. I got you.

I got you.

[Nikki Richardson]

I'm Nikki Richardson and from the teams at Novel and I Heart podcast, this is the Girlfriends Untouchable.

[Nico Quinn]

I got you.

I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you.

I got you. I got you. I got you.

I got you. I got you. I got you.

[Nikki Richardson]

Episode 5 I smell a rat.

[Nico Quinn]

I got you. I got you. I got you.

[Nikki Richardson]

Nikko had led with love for years. She knew how much trauma her sister had experienced and understood how hard it was to break free from addiction.

But by the year 2000, she was exhausted by Stacy's self destructive lifestyle.

So they had the kind of intense, honest fight you can only have with someone you love.

[Nico Quinn]

She was arguing with me about this money that I had. So I told her, I'mma give you this money and forget you. You don't know me. You dead to me. You see me on the streets, don't even talk to me, I'mma keep going. And we both said that to each other.

[Nikki Richardson]

They fell out of contact for a while until January.

[Nico Quinn]

Friday night I had got off of work, I was coming down brown and she was standing on the corner of 29th. She kind of put her hand over and put it back down. So I heard a voice say, turn around. I went up there, turned around and came back. I said, what's up?

[Nikki Richardson]

It was Stacy, tired and strung out.

[Nico Quinn]

She was like, hey, sis, can I get a couple of dollars? I said, for what? She said, I want to get something to eat and I need some cigarettes. I said, I ain't buying no crack, I'm not buying no drugs. I said, if you want to eat, you can come back home and get something to eat. If you need to take a shower, whatever, you can come to the house. And she's like, can I just get some money for some cigarettes? I said, yeah, don't go buy no dope with this. And I gave her 10 or $20, something like that. And I said, it's food at the house. You can come back home. If you need to come home, you always welcome. You can come back home. I was angry. I apologize for the things I said.

She told me that she loved me, and I told her that I loved her too.

She told me she was gonna take the money, go buy her some cigarettes, she was gonna come to the house.

She came to the house that night. We talked, and she was just telling me how she loved me and told me if anything happened to her to make sure I take care of her son.

[Nikki Richardson]

It was getting difficult for Nico to relate to her sister. The drugs were making Stacy suspicious of everything. She would often tell their other sister Liz, that she was worried about mysterious people trying to hurt them.

[Nico Quinn]

Her words to my sister is, I'm trying to save y'. All. I'm trying to protect y'. All.

[Nikki Richardson]

They assumed it was paranoia, a side effect of the drug Stacy was taking. On Saturday night, Niko went to hang out at her then fiance Chris house.

[Nico Quinn]

We was gonna go to church, me and his mother. So we planned on going to church Sunday morning.

[Nikki Richardson]

But at around 3am the phone rang. It woke the whole house up.

[Nico Quinn]

His mama answered the phone.

[Nikki Richardson]

The house went quiet for a moment until she called out for her son.

[Nico Quinn]

His mother was screaming like, chris, somebody on the phone. Somebody on the phone. I don't know what's going on. So he got the phone.

[Nikki Richardson]

There was silence again, and he answered.

[Nico Quinn]

He said, bae, you better come and get this phone. I got the phone, and I just dropped.

[Nikki Richardson]

A lifetime flashed through her eyes. The girlhood days playing pretend. The teenage nights spent dancing to their favorite songs. The conversation they had less than two days ago that ended with I love you and a hug.

[Nico Quinn]

I don't care what she done. I don't care what she took. I always loved her. I always will love her.

[Nikki Richardson]

But Niko would never be able to hug her sister again.

Nico listened as the police told her that early on that morning, at around 1:30am neighbors had been woken up by the sounds of a woman being chased through the neighborhood by a man carrying a gun.

Nobody had intervened, but the people who'd witnessed the shooting recalled how hard Stacey had tried to save herself.

[Nico Quinn]

Every time she got shot, she got up and was begging and pleading for her life.

They had no mercy on her.

My sister was shot 22 times.

[Nikki Richardson]

People who live near the crime scene said Stacy had told the shooter that she wanted to go home, that she'd repeatedly shouted, please don't kill me, don't kill me. But the shooter had refused to back down. He'd chased her down the block, relentless in his pursuit.

Stacy's son Jonelle had seen his mother the day before. They had a quick conversation, and then he noticed she was shivering in the early January cold.

[Khadijah]

She asked for my coat, and I.

[Nikki Richardson]

Gave her my coat, a red chief's jacket. They'd exchanged I love yous, and then Jonell had headed out with his friends.

We had a little thing for, like, teenagers, you know, to keep us from being on blocks. So they had something for us, you.

[Khadijah]

Know, come there and play.

[Nikki Richardson]

Chill. It was like a little recreation center. Jonell had fun at the party, but as he left the building, he started to hear gunshots.

[Khadijah]

It was just pow and then pow.

[Nikki Richardson]

You know what I'm saying?

[Khadijah]

You could tell, like somebody was running.

[Nikki Richardson]

Or something while they was shooting.

[Nico Quinn]

It was crazy.

[Nikki Richardson]

Though it wasn't until his auntie broke the news that Journel made the connection between what he heard and what had just happened to his mother.

[Nico Quinn]

At this time, he's about 15, 16 years old and he gets in a car with us and he just kind of like rocking a little bit. And I'll never forget, Jonelle was in a car with me and he said, ain't he?

I knew that was my mama when I heard the gunshots. I heard my mama get killed. I heard it. And he was just.

Stone faced. Like, he didn't. I don't know if he was just trying to be strong for me, but I just broke down. I couldn't imagine being in his shoes. And my grandmother just was rocking and she said, I can't believe they did my baby like that. Why would anybody do my baby like that? That was her first granddaughter.

[Nikki Richardson]

At just 31 years old, Stacey Quinn was dead. The family was devastated.

Things only got worse when the police arrived at their front door because the lead investigator on her sister's murder case was Detective Roger Golubski.

[Nico Quinn]

And my uncle said, I smell a rat.

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[Nikki Richardson]

This. This is where mindset comes in.

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Someone will be eliminated.

[Nikki Richardson]

Pressure is coming down.

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Watch it on prime video starting January 8th.

[Nico Quinn]

Shh.

[Nikki Richardson]

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[Nico Quinn]

I got you, I got you, I got you.

[Nikki Richardson]

Roger Galupski had been tormenting Nico Quinn's sister Stacy since she was a 15 year old girl. The injustice of hearing Golubski proudly announce that he'd be leading the investigation into Stacy's murder was almost too much for Nico to bear. But her family sat and waited to hear what his investigation had.

Marcus Washington, a local man in his early 20s, had been arrested. He told the police that he'd been driving home late that night when Stacy had flagged him down to ask for drugs and a ride. She'd gotten in the car with him and everything had been fine until another car had crashed into them. The incident had supposedly triggered Marcus PTSD induced paranoia that someone wanted to kill him, so he and Stacy had started arguing.

At his trial, Marcus admitted to shooting Stacey. He said things had gotten heated to the point where they'd started fighting over the gun he kept in his car. Demarcus had chased her through the neighborhood with his gun until he killed her. He said it was self defense.

But in October 2000, he was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to 50 years in prison.

Nikko didn't trust Golubski's investigation or the outcome. Given her experience of being coerced into a false accusation, she finds it hard to believe Marcus is responsible for her sister's murder.

[Nico Quinn]

I know Marcus didn't do it. There's no way he could have shot her like that. He couldn't have. He couldn't. There's no way he could have shot her like that.

[Nikki Richardson]

Nico had seen the bullet wounds for herself when she identified Stacey's body. She said the way that the bullet holes hit her internal organs made her feel like it had been done by someone who really knew what they were doing. Not someone from the neighborhood with what she thought was a flimsy motive. But the case was over, and she knew she would never persuade the KCKPD to reopen the investigation. So she focused her energy on looking after her family, especially Stacy's only child, Dronell.

[Nico Quinn]

Because her last words to me was to take care of her son. And ever since she told me that, I've been trying to do that.

[Nikki Richardson]

Still, Nico couldn't help but wonder if there was another reason why her sister was murdered. She kept thinking back to the conversation Stacy had with her loved ones in the weeks before her death.

[Nico Quinn]

There's too many predators. There's too many devils out here. Snakes is what she would tell me. My sister said that they were gonna kill her. She told everybody. Cause she was supposed to come out here and do something they wanted her to do. But she couldn't do it.

[Nikki Richardson]

As Khadijah and I listened to Nikko telling us this part of the story, our minds wandered back to the phone call between Nikko and her sister Liz about the rumors that Stacy was snitching in prison. It reminded us of something Khadijah had uncovered in her conversations with women during and after Lamont McIntyre's exoneration. That Golubski had an unusual relationship with confidential informants.

There are a number of reasons why someone would agree to become a confidential informant and work with the police to secretly gather the kind of information needed to build and close a case.

Some are innocent bystanders who want a dangerous person in their neighborhood to face justice. Others might be people who've committed a crime, cutting a deal to reduce their jail term. Either way, there's a lot of stigma around working with the police.

[Khadijah]

Being a snitch in the black community means that you have no loyalty to the community.

[Nikki Richardson]

Rumors that you're helping the police are. Are the kind of whispers that could ruin your life.

As a cop. Golubski was no stranger to Confidential informants. But it was how he got them that intrigued us. We know he arrested women like Stacey who were caught soliciting on the northeast side of Kansas City, Kansas.

[Khadijah]

If you're brought into questioning, they took a Polaroid picture of you.

[Nikki Richardson]

The photos were kind of like mugshots. But Golubski wasn't just using the photos to record these women's arrests.

[Khadijah]

He would take that Polaroid and set it in front of them and tell them, either you do what I want you to do, or your picture goes out there as you being a snitch.

[Nikki Richardson]

If their photos were somehow leaked, the community would think they were confidential informants. So most of them agreed to whatever Galupski wanted them to do, including giving him sexual favors or information from the street. And the ones who pushed back. They found out just how far Golubski was prepared to go to get what he wanted.

[Khadijah]

The stories of the cemeteries. Oh, my God.

The cemetery stories were hard to hear. I couldn't imagine someone putting me in that much fear.

[Nikki Richardson]

Khadijah heard that if he arrested them and they refused to bend to his will, he would pick them up in the dead of night, take them out of the residential areas, and slowly drive them north of 18th street, past the railroad tracks, out of sight, and over to the cemetery.

[Khadijah]

The whole time he's driving them to the cemetery, he's holding a gun to their head.

[Nikki Richardson]

He drove them through the field of headstones. He showed them Polaroids of other women who hadn't complied, women who had mysteriously disappeared, and women who had been killed in violent and gruesome ways.

[Khadijah]

Most of the time, they're sitting on the floorboard of his truck where no one can see them with the gun just pointed down at them. Don't make a move. Don't move a muscle.

[Nikki Richardson]

Galupski's methods went beyond threats. He also used the car drives through the cemetery to abuse his terrified passengers.

[Khadijah]

Committing sexual acts on him as they go and doing exactly what he wants them to do and commanding them to do, even physically abusing them in those moments. And then when they got to the cemetery, the brutalization, the way he beat him, the way he would. Yeah, do. I mean.

It was just. It sounded awful.

[Nikki Richardson]

There was even one woman who recalled Glupski telling her to get out of the car and find a spot to dig the grave her body would end up being buried in if she refused him.

[Khadijah]

It was heart wrenching. It was heart wrenching. It was just.

Yeah, kind of hard to put into words because you can't imagine someone being treated that awful.

[Nikki Richardson]

It's not easy to hear about such brutal violence and intimidation, but it's important to understand what Golubski was really doing and getting away with to truly understand this story.

Khadijah had her own way of coping when she heard these accounts.

[Khadijah]

I have one way where I just get in the shower hot water, and I'm on my knees and I just scream and cry it out.

It was horrible.

I spent many days in the shower just crying because the stories were awful.

[Nikki Richardson]

As Khadijah spoke to more women in Quindero, the same story came up over and over again.

Once Galupski had successfully frightened victims into submission, he coerced them into becoming the informants he would use to help make arrest, solve investigations, and lock his chosen suspects away.

The ownership he had over these women became so well known in the KCKPD that some of his colleagues began to call them Galupski's girls.

If Stacy Quinn was one of Galupski's girls, is it possible that her role as an informant played a part in her brutal murder? We couldn't know for sure, and when we initially heard Stacy's story, we decided to accept the official outcome of her murder investigation, thinking she was an outlier. But then we heard about the list.

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[Nico Quinn]

I got you, I got you, I got you.

[Nikki Richardson]

In 2016, Khadijah was called in for a confidential meeting with Lamont McIntyre's lawyers. This was before Lamont was exonerated for the double homicide and freed from prison. They wanted to discuss the evidence they gathered about Roger Glubski and share some of the information they'd uncovered.

[Khadijah]

It was unnerving because she asked me several times during the course of our meeting not to record her. I mean, it was just like she was so edgy about it and shaky about it and I was just like, I'm not recording you and why would I record you?

[Nikki Richardson]

Khadijah gets the sense that the lawyer was on edge because she thought there was more to Galupski's actions than just coercion and abuse.

[Khadijah]

She pushed a list across the table and the list was, I guess an.

[Nikki Richardson]

Excel spreadsheet, a list of women's names.

[Khadijah]

Where it had the women and their date of birth, then it had their address and then it had what happened to them. It was so unnerving to me because the way the things are written up, like if they were hit with a blunt force object, it was the initials of blunt force object. Or if they were shot, it didn't necessarily say shot, it said caliber or something like that. Asphyxiation and suffocation. And I was just like, what?

[Nikki Richardson]

The brutality of those reports.

[Khadijah]

Listen, baby, it was nerve wracking, that. Oh, my God. You know, at that point, my mind was just, like, already blown. Like, there's 33 women on this list.

[Nikki Richardson]

33 murdered women who were said to have, at some point in their lives, been associated with Roger Golubski.

33 women with friends, family, loved ones and dreams who'd been tormented by him for months or sometimes even years before meeting violent, tragic deaths.

There were names you've heard already. Rhonda Tribute, Monique Allen, two of Nico's friends who were seen with Golubski just before they were murdered. And then, of course, her sister, Stacey Quinn. But we found so many other women who'd been linked to Golubski, either as informants, women he'd arrested, or women he allegedly had sexual relations with.

Like Rose Calvin, Diane Edwards, Liza Meeche, Vicki Holinshed. Due Aisha King, Stacey Wilson, Perlina Henderson.

The list goes on and on.

[Khadijah]

If you hear Stacy's story, it sounds like it's an anomaly or something like it. Just like she's just a freak tale, right? But there are so many stories like.

[Nikki Richardson]

Stacey's stories of women who are being pressured into doing something they didn't want to do, who were too scared to speak out. But we know that Stacy did try to share with her sisters what was going on in the final months of her life. She told them that a police officer was threatening her and warned them to stay at home at night because there were snakes and predators around.

If dangerous people were relying on her to stay silent, maybe speaking out was her final act of love.

[Khadijah]

I think Stacey was at the point where it didn't matter. You know what I mean? They either gonna kill me or not, and so I might as well go out trying to do the right thing. And I really feel like that's a horrible place to be in. Like, you know, your life is gonna come to an end. So at this point, it really don't matter. But how many people can I protect in this process so that nobody else is getting hurt but me? The ability to think about everybody and have such a big heart, that is the wildest thing to me.

[Nikki Richardson]

I don't think we fall too far from that, because it was the fact that I recognized that Stacey was willing to risk her own life for it that forced me, and I'm assuming you, too, to have to say, okay, is this worth risking my life for it? Because speaking out has consequences. The more we dug into galupski the more hostile KCK began to feel. We tried to reach out to the authorities, but the more questions we asked, the more. The more resistance we were met with. In fact, we started to feel like they were actively trying to intimidate us out of investigating. At one point, some police officers even showed up at my grandmother's door trying to question me for a speeding offense that I hadn't even been on the right side of the city to commit. So don't be mistaken, we started that journey scared as hell.

[Khadijah]

Hearing those stories and understanding what the women went through was like, do you really want to do this? Do you really want to put yourself in this situation?

[Nikki Richardson]

Fear wasn't going to protect our community. So Khadijah and I got to work.

At the time, we didn't have an office or any official place to operate, so we just met wherever we could. Coffee shops, libraries, and at local businesses.

[Khadijah]

When we did decide we would meet, it would be locally owned, black owned, and very community friendly.

[Nikki Richardson]

Khadijah had been getting calls and messages ever since Lamont's exoneration case. So we set up a Facebook page and email address for anyone else who wanted to get in contact with the.

[Khadijah]

US we made data for each one of the women putting their identity out there, who they were saying say their name.

[Nikki Richardson]

In 2021, we spent the first 32 days of the summer sharing stories of injustice in Kansas City involving Roger Galupski. Hello out there. My name is Nikki. And you are about to listen to the very first episode of my brand new podcast called called 7th Street. I started a podcast where I interviewed their loved ones and drew awareness to what had happened to them. We got messages from mothers, sisters, aunts and daughters, painting a picture of the women they'd lost and the lives they lived beyond the way the world saw them.

[Khadijah]

Most of them were labeled prostitutes or drug addicts. Most of these women didn't ask for what they got, didn't ask to be a prostitute, didn't ask to be a drug addict or an informant. They didn't ask for this.

[Nikki Richardson]

Some of them had been victims of childhood abuse. Others had grown up in the midst of the crack epidemic. And many of them were mothers who ended up having to leave their children behind. But none of that should have even mattered. You shouldn't have to have a perfect record of behavior for your death to be treated as a tragedy. And you don't have to be a mother, daughter or saint for the authorities to be serious when it comes to investigating your murder.

[Khadijah]

And then the way the world saw them was just as horrible as what they had experienced. I wanted to change that narrative. I wanted to put real understanding to these faces of these women.

[Nikki Richardson]

We spoke to survivors, helped them get the counseling they needed and put them in contact with lawyers who could give them legal support. But the more stories we heard, the more we came to understand how deeply Golubski had affected so many of the women in our community.

I grew up in Quindero, in the same area as a lot of the victims we've heard from. As a kid, I had no awareness of how dangerous the place I called home actually was, but my mother did. So I told Khadijah our story.

My mother knew Roger Golubski. He used to pull her over and hit on her. And she had her issues with him. And so what she did was she befriended him because she thought that would probably be a better thing to do and would have him patrol when she knew I was walking from high school to home, because that was in his beat to patrol to make sure that I got home safe, because she was worried about the sex offenders that lived across the street from me.

[Trainer Games Announcer]

That he.

[Nikki Richardson]

Was a sex offender in the midst of it all. And so, you know, not only did we look like it, but we could have easily been a target, right? Been a target. It is just simply because I was a good student that went to Sumner Academy. But if I didn't come from that kind of background, that kind of background, or that kind of easily, easily could have been preyed upon.

The victims were just a few degrees of separation from me. The fight was personal. So in spite of our fears, we set out to work towards three main goals. Try and figure out why so many of the women who'd crossed paths with Roger Golubski were really murdered, push for their cases to be reopened, and make sure Golubski was finally held accountable for the years of pain he'd inflicted.

[Khadijah]

My mindset was to see that man with handcuffs shackled. That was literally my end game.

[Nikki Richardson]

And we would do everything we could to try to make that vision a reality.

Coming up on the Girlfriend's Untouchable.

[Nico Quinn]

I think a lot of people knew what Golovsky was doing. There's a lot of crimes that he committed that we could have prevented by taking him out.

[Khadijah]

Listen, if it was your mom that got killed in the 80s and you did not grow up with no parents, what would you have done?

[Nikki Richardson]

They said we would have left it alone.

[Khadijah]

Well, I'm not, y'. All.

[Nikki Richardson]

Could you state your full name for the record, please, sir?

[Nico Quinn]

Roger Galupski.

[Khadijah]

I told Roger Galuski, you're going to.

[Nikki Richardson]

See my face to the day that you die.

The Girlfriend's Untouchable is produced by novel for iHeart podcast. For more from Novel, visit Novel Audio. The show is narrated by me, Nikki Richardson. It was written and produced by Rufaro Mazarua. The editor is Joe Wheeler. Our assistant producer is Mohammed Ahmed. The researcher is Zayana Youssef. Production management from Sheree Houston and Joe Savage. The fact checker is Findle Fulton. Sound design, mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander with additional engineering by Daniel Kimson. Music supervision by Rufaro Mazurua, Nicholas Alexander and Joe Wheeler. Original music by Amanda Jones. The Girlfriends theme was composed by Amanda Jones and Louisa Gerstein. The series artwork was designed by Christina Lemkul. Story development by Olivia Smart and Nell Gray Andrews. Novels director of development is Selena Mehta. Willard Foxton is Novel's creative director of development. Max o' Brien and Craig Strachan are executive producers for Novel. Katrina Norvell and Nikki Etor are the executive producers for iHeart podcast and the marketing lead is Allison Cantor. Special thanks to Will Pearson and a special thanks to Carly Frankel and the whole team. @.

[Trainer Games Announcer]

WME.

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You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract for.

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$250,000. This is where mindset comes, comes.

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8Th. Then the space hamster flew his hot air balloon all the way to.

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[Khadijah]

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