Todd O'Connor, who fathered four children and twice faced court on drug charges but was never jailed, that up to $700,000 in cash was hidden in his city apartment.
Police, who uncovered the cash, believe O'Connor's apartment was ransacked shortly after his death.Yesterday, friends insisted it had only been visited by family collecting personal belongings.They had been unaware how much money O'Connor, estranged from his wife in recent years, had stashed.Detectives are investigating his business dealings in a bid to identify his killer and head off what they fear could become a round of reprisal attacks.Yet some who were close to O'Connor dismiss this talk."The police seem to be attempting to find a feud that doesn't exist and isn't going to happen," one of O'Connor's friends said. "He was the most harmless guy in the world. You'd have to be an idiot to think he'd start a war."
Among the mourners was prominent Kings Cross promoter John Ibrahim, whose brother, Sam, a former head of the Nomads' Parramatta chapter, gave the 17-year-old O'Connor his first job as a spruiker at the Cross."Todd was a great friend of the Ibrahim family and he will be sorely missed by them," said O'Connor's lawyer, Stephen Alexander, after the funeral had ended.A couple of police photographers snapped the crowd as they spilled out of the cathedral. But they fared better than a group of newspaper photographers. One was punched in the spine before the service began and then, when it was over, three large men approached another group of photographers standing across the road."Take one more photo and I'll smash your camera," a photographer was told.Then came an invitation, repeated several times. "Come for a walk with us." It was an offer the photographer had to refuse.