Nicole D’Vignon carefully brushes her hands against bright flowers of red and purple and gold in the garden she created where her son was shot dead in Chicago Heights.

The flowers are mostly artificial and are meant to “represent eternal paradise,” explains D’Vignon, 48. “The plants, like the spirit or soul, never die.”

D’Vignon laments that hardly anyone noticed when her 24-year-old son, Nicolaus Cooper, a father of three, was killed in March. Now she and her family hope that, in death, people will know him – and even help solve his murder.

“A lot of people are afraid to speak,” D’Vignon said. “We just want justice for him, and we just want his name to be remembered.”

Cooper was found fatally shot March 31 in the 1500 block of Edgewood Avenue, less than two miles from where he lived, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

A woman who lives nearby found Cooper in the alley by her garage as she was taking groceries out of her car.

“I leaned over and held his hand, looking for a pulse and he was still warm but there was no pulse,” said the woman, who didn’t want to be named. “And then I saw a bullet hole in the middle of his head right between his eyes, just above his eyebrows.”

She called 911.

Chicago Heights police would not comment on the case but D’Vignon said “detectives are showing that they are trying to solve the case.”

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

‘It’s hard not to love him’

D’Vignon said she last spoke to her son a few days before he was killed. Their final conversation was a phone call marked by apologies and an admission of love.

D’Vignon said she had been upset with her son because he “spoke to her with a disrespectful tone last time they talked and he needed to apologize.”

Cooper called his mother and said he was sorry and loved her. D’Vignon said she loved him too and sent him a large slice of pizza through Uber.

Days later, he was dead.

“My son that I gave birth to, why would somebody kill him and leave him in an alley like he was nothing, like he was just garbage?” D’Vignon said. “The vision of that is just horrible, no parent should have to go through that.”

D’Vignon said she knocked on the back door of the woman who found him and asked if she could put flowers where he was killed.

“She let me turn the murder scene into a sacred paradise,” D’Vignon said. “She didn’t have to hold his hand, she didn’t have to show him that type of love and care.”

D’Vignon said her son’s death has been “the most traumatic situation I’ve ever experienced in my life.”

“I don’t know who I am without him,” she said, breaking down into tears. “There are times where I don’t even want to live, but I have to move on.”

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

‘Inspiration to grow’

D’Vignon described her son as someone who was “very handsome and got attention from everybody.”

“[He had] brown curly hair, clear complexion, cool lips ... He has the most beautiful smile that I’ve ever seen,” she said.

Cooper was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and struggled in school. D’Vignon — who also struggled with learning disabilities — says she used her son as “inspiration to grow.”

She got an associate degree in liberal arts in 2003, a bachelor’s degree in communications a year later and master’s degrees in communications and special education teaching in 2005 and 2022.

“Because of my love for him every day, I worked hard, even though I had to work 10 times harder than everyone else,” D’Vignon said. “I wanted to provide him with a better quality of life. And I wanted to love him in a way that I have never been loved.”

Cooper’s father, Raymond Cooper, identified his son at the medical examiner’s office. He said the grieving process has been “very painful.”

He was my heart and his death hurt me tremendously,” Raymond Cooper said. “He was a free-spirited young man. He was just robbed of his life too soon. I just have to make sure I keep his name alive.”

His son had found strength in sports and rapping. “He could freestyle and just come up with bars out of the top of his head,” D’Vignon said.

Singer Warren Julian said he met Cooper when he showed interest in joining a singing group with Julian’s son and two other boys in 2009. The group, called Real Men Overcoming Negative Influences, met mostly on weekends and lasted until 2012.

Julian said Cooper showed an interest in rapping from an early age and he described him as “someone who had the look of an artist.”

“Nicolaus reminded me a lot of myself,” Julian said. “It’s almost like he was a nephew of mine, I embraced him right away.”

Julian sang at Cooper’s funeral service and described the experience as a “very emotional thing.”

“You feel like a piece of your heart has been pulled out,” Julian told the Sun-Times. “Nicolaus touched so many different people’s lives. He was just one of those kids [where] it’s hard not to love him.”

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times