Soldier’s widow asks coroner to reopen coronial inquest amid bombshell claims

The widow of an Australian soldier has asked the coroner to reopen her husband’s coronial inquest after another serviceman allegedly confessed to killing him.

The widow of an Australian soldier has asked the coroner to reopen her husband’s coronial inquest after the revelation that another serviceman allegedly confessed to killing him.

News.com.au is reinvestigating the high-profile death of Australia’s first casualty in Iraq nearly 20 years ago after new and disturbing claims have come to light.

Private Jacob “Jake” Kovco, 25, died from a gunshot wound in 2006, shot in the head by his own pistol at his Baghdad barracks in the Australian embassy.

A military board of inquiry and subsequent inquest questioned whether someone else could have pulled the trigger. Both ultimately concluded the dad-of-two died from “skylarking” with his gun and accidentally shot himself.

News.com.au reported earlier this week that a soldier who served in Iraq has since allegedly made “confessions” to three separate people claiming he killed Kovco.

One individual made a statement to the military police in 2022 about the soldier’s alleged confession. It has also been claimed that a second individual may have also provided a statement to the military police on the same topic. However, in 2023, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, the current Defence Minister, told Kovco’s family that authorities would not be reinvestigating as “no new information” had been provided.

Now Jake Kovco’s widow, Shelley Kelsey, 49, has asked the NSW coroner to reopen the investigation as she believes the new claims could “change the outcome of the coronial inquest”.

“I believe the inquiry needs to be reopened and explored further as this information was not presented at (the) time,” she wrote in her request to the coroner, shared with news.com.au.

Jake Kovco here with his wife Shelley before he left for Iraq.

Shelley has written to the coroner to reopen her husband’s coronial inquest.

As Kovco’s “senior next of kin”, Shelley is in a unique position to request the coroner reconsider her late husband’s cause of death.

She asked the coroner to reopen Jake Kovco’s case in June 2023, when she first learnt of the bombshell allegations.

She said the new claims “100 per cent need to be investigated” and that she had “done everything I can” to try to get answers and kickstart some action.

“Now it’s up to someone to look into it further, investigate it properly, to get the answers we need for us,” she said.

The coroner can take more than a year to even look at a request before they begin considering whether to follow the applicant’s wishes and reopen an inquest.

Shelley rang up the coroner’s office to chase up her query six weeks after sending it through. She was told her request would be fast-tracked if the NSW Police Homicide squad also made a request to the coroner.

But the police wouldn’t put her in touch with the homicide squad and instead she had to make a general Crimestoppers report. She has never heard back from them since.

News.com.au contacted NSW Police. They did not provide a comment about the recent allegations, only referencing the 2006 board of inquiry.

News.com.au has also contacted the NSW State Coroner for comment.

No finding of suicide was ever made against Kovco — instead it was ruled he died of an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound. But Shelley said the stigma and judgments persist, especially in the small town she lives in.

“I get so many people saying to me that Jake suicided,” Shelley said. “I always knew in my heart he didn’t.”

“And of course if it (the new claim) is true, someone has to be charged for it and be held accountable. Jake is not coming home no matter what we do. However, we can change things for Jake. We can get his reputation repaired.”

Kovco left behind his wife Shelley and their children Tyrie and Alana.

The new claims about Kovco’s death comes from Tim Weir, a decorated ex-lance corporal, who says another soldier told him some years ago that he had killed Kovco.

Weir, who would later be awarded a soldier’s medallion for his service in Afghanistan, made a statement to the Joint Military Police in 2022 about the alleged “odd” conversation.

“Oh, I killed Kovco,” the soldier allegedly told him out of the blue.

The alleged “confessor” said he shot Kovco then jumped out of a window, according to Weir.

The accused soldier allegedly made two separate “confessions” to two other soldiers, Weir said in his statement. One man gave a statement to police but news.com.au has not obtained it and so can’t corroborate those claims.

Both men did not want to comment when news.com.au contacted them and did not confirm or deny that such a conversation occurred.

Weir left the army in 2017 and spent years trying to get military and civilian authorities to investigate before deciding to go public with the bombshell allegations.

He told news.com.au there’s a lot of “talking sh*t” in the military but “we never joke about killing Australian soldiers or killing our own. Because that, to us, is the worst situation,” he explained.

“The worst outcome of our job is we lose a mate and that’s embedded into us as the worst-case scenario.

“Well, which I thought at that time, but now the worst-case scenario is killing one of our own.”

Tim Weir (pictured in foreground) is coming forward with these claims after attempting to have this investigated by the military police, government and civilian police. (The other man in this picture is in no way related to any part of this story)

Tim Weir, a decorated soldier, claims another soldier allegedly confessed to him to killing Kovco some years ago.

Shelley is calling for Weir’s claims to be investigated and said it’s not a case of her being “the grieving widow that’s never accepted the answer”.

Both she and her children want these new claims properly investigated – which they don’t believe has happened yet.

She contacted her local member, Darren Chester, who passed on a disappointing response from the Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Richard Marles.

“The Special Investigations team within the AFP assessed the letter and decided that no further action was to be taken based on information provided and previous investigations,” Mr Marles wrote in the letter shared with Shelley.

“As Mr Weir has provided no new information, this correspondence does not warrant the Joint Military Police Unit and the AFP reinvestigating the matter.

“I also directed Defence to provide me with background on Private Kovco’s death. I have since learnt that this was subject to an Australian Defence Board of Inquiry (2006) and a NSW Coronial Inquest (2008). Both found Private Kovco died as the result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

“I trust this information is sufficient to assure that steps have been taken to address the claims made by Mr Weir.”

But it’s not sufficient in Shelley’s eyes.

“I don’t think anything is being taken seriously,” she said.

“I haven’t received any proof that anything has been investigated. I don’t know what they’ve done. What have they actually done?”

Two men were in the room at the time Jake Kovco pulled the trigger and she said she doesn’t believe either of them has been asked about the new claims.

“To me that would be the first thing you do,” she said.

Kovco’s kids, now grown up, are calling for their dad’s death to be reinvestigated.

The two other men who shared a room with the dead soldier, Rob Shore and Ray Johnson, claimed in the board of inquiry and coronial inquest they were both looking away at the moment Kovco pulled the trigger.

News.com.au has contacted both for comment. Neither is the man who allegedly made the confessions to killing Kovco and neither are accused of any wrongdoing.

The angle of the gun also raised questions at the time Kovco’s death was first investigated.

Frank Holles, the lawyer who represented Kovco’s mother in the board of inquiry, said the angle of the bullet didn’t make sense.

“Every other single suicide I’ve seen in my career – and I’ve done hundreds of them – has been either a pistol round into the side of the head, the temple, or up through the mouth into the brain that way,” Mr Holles said, recalling the case to news.com.au years later.

But he said in this case, the entry wound was near Kovco’s ear but the bullet exited from the top of his head. 

Evidence tendered to the board of inquiry at the time suggested that Kovco’s pistol was hanging from his bedpost.

Mr Holles suggested this meant it could have been possible for someone to storm into the room, grab it and shoot it.

“He (the alleged confessor) picked up the pistol expecting it to be unloaded, stuck it in Jake’s head and pulled the trigger not expecting it to go bang.”

Pte Johnson, one of the two roommates, also later testified that loose gunplay was common among the soldiers serving at the Australian embassy in Iraq.

“I’ve seen people pointing their pistols at others and pulling the trigger. I’ve always seen this as inappropriate and told people not to do it,” he told the inquiry.

Shelley Kovco is demanding answers.

Shelley was a new mum-of-two when her husband died during his deployment to Iraq and the fresh claims have dredged up that trauma for her.

“Life was finally in a good place, everyone’s happy, the kids were happy and then all of a sudden it’s just here we go again,” she said.

But Tim Weir, determined to share what he knew, ended up telling Kovco’s family about what he claimed to have heard, after not receiving any word from authorities.

“I’ve had 18 months to deal with the initial shock of it all,” Shelley said.

“When I say the shock, the bombshell, like I was sitting here seeing a client doing nails and I had the phone call.”

Shelley and Jake’s two kids, now young adults, Tyrie and Alana Kovco, also want the claims investigated to bring closure.

“I’ve always grown up missing that important person, the father that was meant to see me grow, graduate, to get married and then eventually start my own family,” they said in a joint statement shared with news.com.au.

“I never got that chance with him, and with this new information it’s made me feel all those emotions again, now mixed with anger and confusion. I hope that eventually things are cleared up and we can move on and have a peace of mind on what’s happened.”

They have accused the Australian Defence Force of having no interest in investigating the allegations.

“I’m so thankful for the life Jake and I had together. We got married quickly, we had kids quickly, I’m so glad we did it,” Shelley said.

A spokesperson for Deputy Prime Minister, Richard Marles, reiterated this statement and referred news.com.au to the AFP.

“In 2023, the Deputy Prime Minister, in his capacity as Minister for Defence received correspondence on behalf of the family of Jake Kovco from the local member,” they said.

“The correspondence drew the historical matter to the Minister’s attention. The Minister subsequently requested the Department of Defence to provide advice. The Minister also sought additional information in relation to the investigation and requested the letter be forwarded to the Australian Federal Police.

“The Minister was subsequently advised that the referral to the AFP did not provide any further avenues that could be pursued and the investigation had been closed.

“At the conclusion of this process, the Minister wrote to local member, outlining the steps he had taken and the advice he had been provided.”

The AFP declined to comment, while NSW Police only made references to the 2006 board of inquiry.

A spokesperson for the Department of Defence said they had already conducted an in depth inquiry into Jacob Kovco’s death through the military board of inquiry.

– With Peter Devlin and Emma Kirk

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Originally published as Soldier’s widow asks coroner to reopen coronial inquest amid bombshell claims