Jeremy Cooper pleads guilty to fatally stabbing Wadeye man Mr Nilco outside Darwin Woolworths
A Territory mother and widow has confronted the ex-soldier who fatally stabbed her husband in a random attack outside a Darwin supermarket.
Police & Courts
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A Territory mother and widow has confronted the ex-soldier who fatally stabbed her husband before tricking an Uber worker into becoming his unwitting getaway driver.
Jeremy Cooper was initially charged with murder over the fatal stabbing September 16, 2023, but on Wednesday pleaded to the lesser charge of reckless conduct causing the death of a 36-year-old Wadeye man, known for cultural reasons as Mr Nilco.
The former soldier uttered a single word — “guilty” — before lapsing into silence as the horrific details of that night were read aloud.
Prosecutor Rebecca Everitt said Copper got into an argument with Mr Nilco’s brothers, Robert and Sylvester, while they were all on Cavenagh St just before midnight.
Cooper pulled out a knife before running away from the two men towards the Woolworths supermarket, where Mr Nilco and his wife Tasha Ningarmarra were standing.
CCTV footage showed the moment where Mr Nilco spotted the young stranger running towards him, outstretching his arms to block the armed man.
Ms Everitt said both Cooper and Mr Nilco ran together for a few paces, before slowing to a walk while facing each other.
CCTV showed Mr Nilco batting away Cooper’s hand as he tried to raise a knife, but the two men continued to walk side-by-side with Mr Nilco trying to talk to the younger man.
“Without warning the offender lunged forward,” Ms Everitt.
After landing the single stabbing blow to Mr Nilco’s abdomen, Cooper kept walking away — leaving the father-of -three still upright but now “swaying and stumbling”.
With his brothers and wife by his side, Mr Nilco sat on the ground as they and other bystanders desperately tried to stop the bleeding and called triple-0.
He passed away eight and a half hours later in Royal Darwin Hospital.
After cutting through the carpark, Cooper jumped into the back of an Uber telling the driver he was being “chased by” three men “who were trying to stab him”.
After being dropped off, the killer thanked his unwitting getaway driver for “likely saving his life”.
Cooper was arrested 60 hours after the fatal stabbing.
Mr Nilco’s partner Ms Ningarmarra told the court how she mourned, not just for herself, but for their three children who “will now go through life without their father”.
“For 15 years wherever he was, I was with him and so were our children,” she said in a victim impact statement.
“We grieved for a very long time. It was difficult to imagine life without him, even to this day.
“He is not around us and we still miss him everyday.”
Ms Ningarmarra said she wanted her husband’s killer to go to jail for life, saying: “He took someone special from us”.
This is not the first time Cooper has faced prison following a violent attack.
Court documents obtained by the NT News said in 2019 he was sentenced after violently robbing a couple of just $10 in cash and a violin by stabbing a man and kicking a woman to the face.
The sentencing Supreme Court Justice highlighting that at the time he was on a suspended sentence for choking a three-year-old girl, causing her to have a seizure.
Court documents said that Cooper spent a year in the defence force in 2015, and completed a development program, basic training and an infantry course before he was discharged due to stress.
A sentencing hearing for Cooper was adjourned to August 7, and he was remanded to custody.
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