Cooper is the assistant of Santa Barbara Mirror restaurant critic Vince Wagner. When Shawn and Gus visit the paper's offices to ask Cooper's boss Phil Pritikin for more information on Wagner's murder, Cooper is the one that gets to answer their questions. He explains to our duo that every chef whose food Wagner reviewed badly would send him an Angry Chef Letter in response, with some chefs only expressing mild dislike but others going so far as to wish Wagner dead. This is how Shawn and Gus know to interview chefs Roland, Perry, and Kat, although in the end none of them turns out to be the culprit.
When Pritikin has decided that the new restaurant critic will be Nick, Cooper is visibly disappointed and refuses to applaud this development. He clearly wanted the job and might even have expected getting it just based on the fact he had been Wagner's assistant. However, Nick is arrested for the murder on Wagner immediately after his job switch, so perhaps Cooper later got his desired promotion after all.