Barry Ray McCann

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The crim who got his epitaph in advance:

When the police studied a series of Sydney underworld killings the name McCann kept recurring. As Andrew Keenan reports, McCann himself is now dead.

"Anyway, what's another dead crim?"
That was the blunt epitaph-in-advance for Barry Raymond McCann back in April 1985 during the height of the Sydney gang wars, when then-Detective Sergeant Bill Duff figured the drug-running gambler wasn't long for this world.
As it turned out, Duff was sacked from the police force for misconduct long before the epitaph and a hail of bullets finally caught up with McCann.
Police appeared puzzled last night about the discovery of McCann's bloody body in a Marrickville park yesterday morning.
It is early days but it seems likely at this stage that McCann will join the slowly growing ranks of departed Sydney underworld figures whose violent deaths remain unsolved and the motives for them uncertain: Les Cole, Danny Chubb, Mick Sayers, Chris Flannery, Tony Eustace, Ray McClune.
One of the problems the police will now face will be checking on the numerous people who had a motice for seeing McCann off. He wasn't the most hated man in Sydney by any means but, particularly as a result of the gang wars, he had accumulated his fair share of enemies.
It is understood also that he'll leave a tidily large estate.
McCann was born on July 28, 1943. He was an inner-city lad and at one stage was a member of a local Labor Party branch.
He first attracted a glimmer of publicity whe he cropped up on the fringes of the 1974 Moffitt Royal Commission into Licensed Clubs, which had been probing the activities of the former NSW policeman Murray Riley, among others, and their skimming of money from registered clubs.
Back in 1969, McCann and a good mate, Danny Dunn, had worked at the Associated Mariners' Club, which was one of Riley's targets. By that time, McCann had notched up a few minor gambling convictions.
In the mid-1970s, about the time the Moffitt Commission finished its report, McCann and Dunn opened a casino in Kembla Street, Wollongong, which operated until about 1978.
Dunn subsequently moved up to Sydney and dabbled in gambling clubs and SP bookmaking before heading for the Philippines. McCann began working at his father's hotel, the Lansdowne, in inner-city Chippendale.
The Lansdowne, described by one witness to the Stewart Royal Commission in the the Mr. Asia syndicate as "a rather sleazy pub", became the locale for some of the more significant events and associations in McCann's life.
For instance, it was at the Lansdowne about 1980, according to McCann, that he first met Tom Domican. The two become good friends. As well, McCann employed another friend of Domincan, Victor Camilleri, at one of his casinos in Bayswater Road, Kings Cross.
Bob Trimbole's son, Craig, installed some amusement machines in the Landsdowne and Aussie Bob himself occasionally dropped in for a beer and a chat with Barry.
[A some-time resident of the Lansdowne, Anthony Humphries, told the Stewart Royal Commission that he had got $5,000 cash, which he used to bail out a Mr. Asia syndicate drugs courier, Allison Dine, from Barry McCann. However, McCann denied this.]
Come 1983, the Sydney underworld was just starting to heat up and McCann had a run-in with reputed Melbourne hitman Chris Flannery. The exact cause of the problem is unclear but, according to a NSW police report, it related to an "altercation" in the Lansdowne.
Flannery and his wife Kath were enjoying a drink when Flannery became involved in a fight. According to the report, "Mrs. McCann went to intervene" and Flannery punched her in the face.
A hotel guest allegedly pulled out a shotgun and Flannery and his wife left. McCann told police that the matter was eventually ironed out at a meeting he had with Flannery.
However, Flannery was banned from the pub and relations between the two were never quite the same again.
The Lansdowne cropped up yet again in the wash-up of the gang wars when a former boxer, Terry Ball, was charged and acquitted of the attempted murder of Ned Smith.
During earlier hearings, police alleged that Ball had confessed to having tried to run down Smith. He allegedly told them that he had had a feud with Smith since about 1984, when he had been working for McCann at the Lansdowne and had been shot after an argument between Smith and McCann.
Meanwhile, McCann was allegedly involved in heroin and cocaine dealing and importation. According to the same police report, "material found on several couriers had provided a link with McCann" and he was referred to the Joint Federal-NSW police drugs task force as a possible target.
McCann, however, put his wealth down to gambling. He had interests in a couple of clubs and also travelled extensively to the Philippines, visiting his old mate, Danny Dunn, and another, Robert Patience.
Wherever McCann was getting his money, his assets were looking swell by the mid-1980s. As well as the near-mandatory handful of racehorses, McCann paid about $450,000 cash for a pleasant rural property at Denman in the Hunter Valley.
But the mid-1980s saw the underworld explode and McCann was in the thick of it. Les Cole's shooting had started the ball rolling. Then in November 1984 came the death of the drug importer Danny Chubb down at The Rocks.
Next off the rank was an attempt on the life of Chris Flannery, the the gunning-down of Chubb's mate, Mick Sayers. Various other shootings, inclucing an attempt on Camilleri (possibly a case of mistaken identity) in April 1985, followed.
Flannery's mate, Tony Eustace, was left for dead beside his gold-coloured Mercedes near Macot and died soon after in hospital. Then Chris Flannery disappeared, presumed dead.
Throughout it all, McCann's name recurred time and again and, according to one detective investigating the series of murders, it appeared that at least ome of the action was revolving around him.
According to a taped phone conversation in April 1985 between the detective and Bill Duff, who was under investigation by the Federal police at that time, the detective figured that "what it appears to be is... McCann is the centre pin of all this. And he's got....he's apparently got a connection whereby [he is] bringing the bloody smack [heroin] in".
Then, of course, there was Bill Duff's epitaph, delivered during a conversation with another detective early in April 1985. The full text was: "Wait until [a certain criminal] gets hold of that Barry McCann. He's going to kill him and steal his gear [heroin]. He has got a huge amount at the moment. Anyway, what is another dead crim?"

- The Sydney Morning Herald, Tuesday, December 29, 1987