Daniel O’Shea was murdered in ambush at South Yarra park
As one of the underworld’s best connected figures, Daniel O’Shea was smart enough to avoid lurid newspaper headlines. But the man known as “Shot Caller” made a fatal mistake when he trusted the wrong person at a rendezvous in a South Yarra park last year.
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Screaming headlines and photos in the paper don’t necessarily coincide with underworld influence.
Melbourne’s outlaw history is littered with household names like Carl Williams and Andrew Veniamin whose notoriety came with a high-public profile.
But the fact is that many of the more successful criminals are the ones who wouldn’t be recognised if they stood up in your soup.
They regard anonymity as an asset and headlines as inviting unwanted scrutiny.
Up until 12 months ago, when he was murdered in a gangland ambush, Daniel Wayne O’Shea was one of those.
The vast majority of people would not have known him from Adam but O’Shea was regarded as one of the underworld’s best connected figures.
A man is not given the nickname “Shot Caller” for no reason.
He had links to Australian crime’s most influential players and senior figures in the Comanchero outlaw motorcycle gang.
O’Shea was suspected of involvement in the upper echelons of drug trafficking.
“He’s got fingers in a lot of pies,” a source told the Herald Sun in the period after he was murdered.
But even the shrewdest operators make mistakes.
The nature of his business meant O’Shea liked to arrange meetings in parks but he made an error with the rendezvous at South Yarra on April 26 last year.
A man as streetwise as O’Shea would not have agreed to an after-dark meeting at the western end of Fawkner Park unless it was with someone he thought he could trust.
The identity of who he was meeting or thought he was meeting is likely the key to unlocking who was responsible.
In any case, the 41-year-old O’Shea had his guard down and was murdered in cold blood.
The suspected hit man then hid two guns in an adventure playground where they were discovered the next day by children.
Ballistics testing later found the weapons were linked to the O’Shea murder.
Police believe he then made an unorthodox getaway.
There were no screaming wheels at the scene or a high-powered vehicle being incinerated a few suburbs away in an attempt to destroy evidence.
Instead, he spent the next 20 minutes walking through South Yarra, carrying a red and white Coles shopping bag.
A green baseball cap partially obscured his face and he looked down to pay conspicuous attention to a mobile phone which may not have been switched on.
This was interpreted as a possible means to avoid his face being captured by the many CCTV cameras along his route out of the area.
Homicide squad investigators were able to track him via the cameras for 2.5km along Toorak Rd and Como Ave.
But he then entered Como Park and, from there, the trail of the man in black went cold.
It is possible he had left a vehicle there or had a driver waiting.
Although he was a virtual unknown in the broader community, O’Shea had done some prison time for high-level offending.
He was arrested by the special operations group in 2010 over the shooting of a man in Fairfield.
A Victoria Police spokeswoman said the investigation into the murder of O’Shea remained ongoing.
Anyone with information can call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or visit the website www.crimestoppersvic.com.au.
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