I resisted this detective’s sexual advances. Why I’ll never get to testify against him.

For more than two years, I was referred to as one of the “Other Victims” in court filings preceding a federal civil rights trial against former Kansas City, Kansas, police detective Roger Golubskiwhich was scheduled to start Dec. 2 in Topeka. Government attorneys were preparing to prove to a jury that Golubski, using his power as a cop, had sexually abused vulnerable Black women for decades. And I had planned to describe how Golubski pulled me over multiple times and said that if I didn’t comply with his sexual demands, he’d take away my children.

I had planned to describe how Golubski pulled me over multiple times and said that if I didn’t comply with his sexual demands, he’d take away my children.

I rejected his advances, and in 2008, in a case that Golubski helped oversee, one of my sons, Donnell, was arrested and later convicted of murder. Donnie, who’s 37 now, has spent more than 16 years in prison. He had many alibi witnesses on the day of the crime, but they were ignored by the police. When the police flooded my lawn and home to arrest my then-21-year-old son for a crime I, and reportedly a group of prosecutors who reviewed the case, believe he didn’t commit, I saw Golubski standing across the street, watching.

I didn’t get to testify against Golubski, and I won’t get to testify against him because he reportedly died by suicide the morning of Dec. 2 as the federal trial against him was about to start.

In September 2022, The Kansas City Star reported that a unit in the Wyandotte County District Attorney’s Office assembled to look for wrongful convictions believed my son was innocent and that Golubski had framed him. As the paper reported then:

I, Donnie’s mother, am the woman Golubski pursued for sex. It has been extremely difficult as a mother and as a human being to know that my son wakes up every day, an innocent man, behind bars at Lansing Correctional Facility. According to the Star, multiple sources said the conviction integrity unit reported its findings to the district attorney. But all the district attorney’s office has said is that it doesn’t discuss its integrity unit cases, telling the newspaper that “unless it is in court and on the record, no finding of innocence is made or has been made from this office.”

“So you don’t want to save your kids?” Golubski asked me once as he demanded sex. “It is your choice.”

Learning that Golubski was dead left me with mixed emotions. For years, I didn’t feel heard. Golubski’s repeated threats to my family left me in shock and with crippling fear for our safety.

Golubski’s many accusers were shamed, embarrassed and made to feel unworthy.

Golubski’s many accusers were shamed, embarrassed and made to feel unworthy. But his federal trial presented an opportunity for me and eight other women with stories of being victimized by Golubski to have a chance to testify. Finally, we’d be able to tell the public what we had endured. Finally, the people would get to listen to us, as the FBI and federal prosecutors listened to us before asking us to testify against Golubski. But we’ve once again been deprived of that opportunity because the person we wanted to confront in court appears to have killed himself.

My community had been accusing Golubski of terrorizing us for years. A September 2022 federal indictment charging Golubski with sexually assaulting two victims between 1998 and 2002 and a November 2022 federal indictment accusing him and three others of “conspiring, decades ago, to hold young women in a condition of involuntary sexual servitude” echoed our complaint: that a white detective — who was paid by our tax dollars to protect and serve us — was raping and assaulting vulnerable Black women.

But despite our years of accusations, nothing had been done to protect us. Golubski retired in 2010 after 35 years with the police force.

In 2017, Lamonte McIntyre was released from prison after serving 23 years for a double murder that he didn’t commit. He and his mother, Rose McIntyre, argued that he was framed because she, like I did, refused to have sex with Roger Golubski. In a deposition for McIntyre’s lawsuit, Golubski invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent 555 times. In June 2022, the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, agreed to settle with Lamonte McIntyre for $12.5 million after he filed a mistaken conviction lawsuit. The state of Kansas, which McIntyre also sued for mistaken conviction, paid him another $1.5. million.

So I’m not the only mother who has said that my child was framed by Golubski for not having sex with him. I don’t believe our stories are unique. There are most likely many others with similar experiences. The Kansas City Star report about the members of the conviction review unit who believed my Donnie is innocent ended with: “Dobbs remains imprisoned at the Lansing Correctional Facility, where at least three other men who claim they are innocent in cases touched by Golubski are incarcerated.”

Even though Golubski can no longer hurt us, the system that empowered him continues to do so. Golubski was scheduled to stand trial because, according to the federal indictments against him, he terrorized our community for decades. Yet there has been no transparent and systemic review of the damage caused by Golubski and the KCKPD. Not from the district attorney’s office and not from the U.S. Justice Department, despite years of calls for a pattern-and-practice investigation into the KCKPD.

Golubski may be dead, but the fight for justice isn’t over. I don’t want people to give up. I continue to ask for justice for all his victims and all of Wyandotte County.

And justice for my Donnie, who I was prepared to testify is in prison today because I told Golubski no.

Davilyn Dobbs

Davilyn Dobbs is the mother of Donnell Dobbs, who is serving a prison sentence for first-degree murder in Kansas.