Daniel John McNulty was a father, a friend, an addict and a part-time drug dealer.
But despite his many faults, the 48-year-old did not deserve to become a footnote in a celebrity story, one of his former friends said following his death in a public housing block in Redfern at the weekend.
"Daniel was a street kid who never had any tools to live life," the friend, who asked not to be identified, told Fairfax Media.