A Northern Territory policeman who killed an Indigenous teenager talked about killing before the incident, his former fiancee has told an inquest.
Claudia Campagnaro told police she wasn't surprised Constable Zachary Rolfe had shot dead Kumanjayi Walker during a bungled outback arrest.
The former police officer, now a nurse, also said Const Rolfe admitted using excessive force to arrest Indigenous offenders and senior officers covered up for him.
Mr Walker, 19, died on November 9, 2019 after Const Rolfe shot him three times in Yuendumu, northwest of Alice Springs.
An inquest into his death on Friday heard Const Rolfe swept Ms Campagnaro off her feet and the pair were engaged after about five weeks.
But the relationship lasted about a year and by the time they broke up she had a very poor opinion of her lover.
"When we first met I thought he was very charming ... So kind and generous and by the end of it he was just the total opposite of what I thought he was," she said.
"The charm had well and truly fallen."
Ms Campagnaro also told the coroner that during the time she was a police officer with Const Rolfe in Alice Springs, he regularly used racist terms, such as c**n and n***** to describe Aboriginal people .
"Zach didn't care about or like any of the Indigenous people there," she said.
He also confided his goal to join the Australian Defence Force's Special Air Service unit so he could "be paid to go out and shoot people".
"It wasn't until later on in the relationship that I started thinking those comments were vile," she said.
In an interview with detectives after Mr Walker was killed, Ms Campagnaro said Const Rolfe didn't like being in the NT police.
"He thought it was a joke, and yeah, he just wanted to get into the SAS, because basically, yeah, they go away for long periods of time, get paid a lot of money, and go out and kill people," she told the investigators.
The inquest heard Const Rolfe linked shooting a person on the job with going on a paid holiday during the investigation, allegedly saying on several occasions he would "like" to kill.
"This was toward the end of our relationship, because I actually remember saying to him: 'No that's the kind of holiday that I want to go on''," Ms Campagnaro said.
"I remember feeling, at that time, uncomfortable him saying that."
Const Rolfe also spoke about being investigated over the alleged excessive use of force against a handcuffed man.
Ms Campagnaro said he told her he had a female detective scratch his face so he could blame the offender and justify punching him in the head.
She also alleged senior police officers covered up other incident where Const Rolfe may have used unjustified force arresting an offender.
"He told me that Lee Bauwens and Alistair Gal, had on several occasions, dealt with his, you know, reports, and unjustified forces, for him," she said.
"At the time, I just thought they were helping him out."
The inquest also heard about Ms Campagnaro's reaction to hearing Const Rolfe was involved in Mr Walker's shooting death.
"I wasn't really surprised that it was him," she told detectives.
If it was going to be anyone that was involved in that kind of thing, it was going to be him ... Because of previous comments he'd made, you know, about the paid holiday, and just his attitude towards the job."
The inquest continues.
